Life Cycle CO₂ Emission for Water Economizing Equipment in Catering Industry

Abstract

Objective. “Green Servicizing” is a business practice that does not sell goods as a product but sells only a function of goods while it could effectively reduce environmental burdens in taking the recycle process of goods into account. Incidentally, there are two types of water consumption in Catering Industry; water for drink or ingredient and water used for washing dishes or thawing frozen foods. For water consumed as the latter case, a service to economize water can be evaluated as an environment-friendly business practice. In other words, as long as the washing and thawing function is adequately served, the volume of water usage can be reduced and it lowers environmental damage through diminished water and sewage relating production. Pico-Ada Co. has introduced a water controller for commercial kitchens which effectively controls unnecessary flows of water. The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate life cycle CO₂ emissions of Catering Industry with and without the water economizing equipment.
Results and Discussion. Restaurants which actually install the water controller have reduced 22.6 percent of water usage in average. Because 63.2 percent of the saved water is supposed to be supplied as hot water, the water economizing equipment collaterally reduces 8 to 11 percent of water heating energy (city gas, LPG, fuel oil, etc.) usage. Considering the decrement in inputs for Catering Industry, the changes in input-output structural coefficients are transmitted across the economy and the changes in economic (production) activities affect the environment. WIO model can evaluate how much CO₂ emissions the water economizing service could reduce. When every restaurant of the Catering Industry in Japan installs the water controller, 1.1 million tons of CO₂ emission can be reduced annually with the consideration of increments of electric power to utilize water controllers. CO₂ emissions of producing the controllers are 0.58 million tons, and those of handling the waste disposal (landfilling of water controllers) are 400 tons. For 10 years durable period, the water controllers in Catering Industry can reduce CO₂ emissions by 10.0 million tons.
Conclusions. The water economizing equipment which is introduced to Catering Industry has effective impacts on environment. For the first year of the water controllers installed, Catering Industry can reduce CO₂ emissions in the amount greater than those caused by producing and disposing the water controllers.