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Design for Environment (DfE) and Design for Disassembly (DfD) have been recognized as an effective sustainable manufacturing approach to reduce environmental impact during product's life cycle. Although Malaysian manufacturers have long demonstrated a strong global market presence, the implementation of DfE and DfD among manufacturers are found lacking. This paper attempts to investigate the current state DfE and DfD implementation and the local driving force in the local Malaysian industry by addressing four research questions (RQ): RQ1 – How do Malaysian designers value the importance of DfE? RQ2 – What are the current approaches used by designers to incorporate environmental issues during product development stage? RQ3 – What difficulties are experienced in the implementation of DfE and DfD in the product development stage? RQ4 – What are the approaches needed to enhance the engagement of DfE and DfD into product design practices? Targeting product designers in Malaysia, a multiple approach using survey and interview is conducted shown that the current state of implementation and awareness within the local industry is fairly low. The soft approach of the local legislation does not contribute much towards seeing a major change in attitude as will be discussed further in the paper. The above two concerns are major challenges that require immediate attention. However, there seems to be growing concern from the industry and the government that pushes the need for options that could leapfrog the current situation. This presents an opportunity for the local research community to come up with various strategies that will be discussed. Finally, the paper proposes a more comprehensive strategy that is tailored to the local business environment in order for the local industry to be capable of maintaining its market presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper describes the trend of utilizing oil palm residue, i.e. the empty fruit bunches (EFB) left after extraction of the palm oil, using a case study of Malaysia, which is one of the world''s major palm oil producers, and discusses the environmental performance of recycling technologies being developed in Malaysia for fuel, fiber, and fertilizer. Seven technologies are analyzed: ethanol production, methane recovery, briquette production, biofuel for combined heat and power (CHP) plants, composting, medium density fiberboard (MDF) production, and pulp and paper production. The life cycle assessment (LCA) method is used to discuss the environmental impacts of these technologies for adding value to this biomass. Sensitivity analyses are conducted to determine the land use effects for the various technologies utilizing EFB and to estimate the energy generation potential of raw EFB in CHP plants and methane production. Among the technologies for energy production, CHP plants have the best performance if the electricity generated is connected to the national grid, with superior benefits in the majority of impact categories compared to briquette, methane, and ethanol production. Overall, we find that methane recovery and composting are more environmentally friendly than other technologies, as measured by reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Pulp and paper, and MDF production are favorable technologies for land use impacts; however, they have intense primary energy requirements, chemical use in the processes, and emissions from their waste treatment systems. Our results provide information for decision makers when planning for sustainable use of oil palm biomass. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The increase in global warming, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions has gained attention in various regions. In Malaysia, the government announced a voluntary commitment to reduce 40% of CO 2 emissions by 2020 and to refurbish 100 government buildings. Existing buildings make a large contribution to energy consumption and CO 2 emissions, therefore refurbishing existing buildings is an essential strategy to achieve the commitment. There is no single assessment scheme for building refurbishment in Malaysia and hence, this study aims to develop a comprehensive list of assessment themes and sub-themes for building refurbishment purposes. It examines and compares 10 assessment schemes from various countries: BREEAM, LEED, CASBEE, BEAM Plus, GBLS, Green Star, HQE, Green Mark, GBI and MyCrest. The findings revealed fourteen themes that were considered for assessment: management , sustainable site , transport , indoor environmental quality ( IEQ ), water , waste , material , energy , pollution , innovation , economic , social , culture and quality of services . Energy and IEQ are dominant themes in all assessment schemes. Most of the schemes are considered relatively weak in evaluating economic and social aspects, in comparison to environmental aspects. The assessment of quality of services is overlooked in most of the schemes, including GBI and MyCrest in Malaysia. Outcomes from this paper will form the baseline for a new environmental assessment scheme that aimed at non-domestic building refurbishments in Malaysia. A new model is proposed for the development of an environmental assessment scheme in the further stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the Malaysian chemicals industry has been progressively growing over the past few decades, the industry associations had not been actively engaged with one another. The Chemical Industries Council of Malaysia was established to form a stronger and more cohesive representation from other sub-sectors of the industry such as oleochemicals, industrial gases, petrochemicals, paints, coating resins, fertilizers, biodiesel and pesticides, as well as their respective chemical traders, distributors and other service providers. Among its initiatives is the Responsible Care programme which has proven to be a very useful tool in promoting responsible practices among signatory companies that protect the environment, human health and safety. While the chemicals industry and related industries have adopted most of the responsible best practices to reduce their environmental impact, participation from small and medium enterprises has been low. This paper aims to provide an overview of the initiatives of the Chemical Industries Council of Malaysia, and assess its current position with regard to providing environmental, health and safety services to its members in view of the expanding global chemicals sector and the challenges it poses. It will also identify the main challenges faced by the chemicals industry, and propose measures to overcome them for the future competitiveness and sustainability of the chemicals industry at both regional and international levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Data collection for landslide susceptibility modeling is often an inhibitive activity. This is one reason why for quite some time landslides have been described and modelled on the basis of spatially distributed values of landslide-related attributes. This paper presents landslide susceptibility analysis in the Klang Valley area, Malaysia, using back-propagation artificial neural network model. A landslide inventory map with a total of 398 landslide locations was constructed using the data from various sources. Out of 398 landslide locations, 318 (80%) of the data taken before the year 2004 was used for training the neural network model and the remaining 80 (20%) locations (post-2004 events) were used for the accuracy assessment purpose. Topographical, geological data and satellite images were collected, processed, and constructed into a spatial database using GIS and image processing. Eleven landslide occurrence related factors were selected as: slope angle, slope aspect, curvature, altitude, distance to roads, distance to rivers, lithology, distance to faults, soil type, landcover and the normalized difference vegetation index value. For calculating the weight of the relative importance of each factor to the landslide occurrence, an artificial neural network method was developed. Each thematic layer''s weight was determined by the back-propagation training method and landslide susceptibility indices (LSI) were calculated using the trained back-propagation weights. To assess the factor effects, the weights were calculated three times, using all 11 factors in the first case, then recalculating after removal of those 4 factors that had the smallest weights, and thirdly after removal of the remaining 3 least influential factors. The effect of weights in landslide susceptibility was verified using the landslide location data. It is revealed that all factors have relatively positive effects on the landslide susceptibility maps in the study. The validation results showed sufficient agreement between the computed susceptibility maps and the existing data on landslide areas. The distribution of landslide susceptibility zones derived from ANN shows similar trends as those obtained by applying in GIS-based susceptibility procedures by the same authors (using the frequency ratio and logistic regression method) and indicates that ANN results are better than the earlier method. Among the three cases, the best accuracy (94%) was obtained in the case of the 7 factors weight, whereas 11 factors based weight showed the worst accuracy (91%). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The industrial sector is the biggest electricity consumer in Malaysia. Electric motors account for more than 45% of the electricity consumption in the industrial sector in the country. Therefore, it is very important to implement energy efficiency standards for electric motors to reduce energy consumption growth in this sector. This paper attempts to calculate the cost efficiency analysis and emission reduction by implementing energy efficiency standards for electric motor in Malaysia. The energy efficiency standards are proposed based on the efficiency of electric motors from survey data. The study examines the potential energy, economical and environmental impacts of the implementation of energy efficiency standards for electric motors in three scenarios i.e. 0.5%, 1.0% and 1.5% of standards efficiency improvement. Standards also enable consumers to reduce their electricity bill and contribute to a positive environmental impact. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: During the last century, a great deal of research and development as well as applications has been devoted to waste. These include waste minimization and treatment, the environmental assessment of waste, minimization of environmental impact, life cycle assessment and others. The major reason for such huge efforts is that waste generation constitutes one of the major environmental problems where production industries are concerned. Until now, an increasing pressure has been put on finding methods of reusing waste, for instance through cleaner production, thus mirroring rapid changes in environmental policies. The palm oil industry is one of the leading industries in Malaysia with a yearly production of more than 13 million tons of crude palm oil and plantations covering 11% of the Malaysian land area. However, the production of such amounts of crude palm oil result in even larger amounts of palm oil mill effluent (POME), estimated at nearly three times the quantity of crude palm oil. Normally, POME is treated using end-of-pipe processes, but it is worth considering the potential value of POME prior to its treatment through introduction of a cleaner production. It is envisaged that POME can be sustainably reused as a fermentation substrate in the production of various metabolites, fertilizers and animal feeds through biotechnological advances. The present paper thus discusses various technically feasible and economically beneficial means of transforming the POME into low or preferably high value added products. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Asia’s largest biofuels producers are currently Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, China and India. This paper first examines the current status of biofuels in these countries, including the national development targets, strategies, incentives and policies. It then identifies the fundamental driving forces behind the development and promotion of these industries and considers their economic, social and environmental impacts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]