Sustainability assessment and analysis of Malaysian food manufacturing sector—a move towards sustainable development

Abstract

Granting to the latest comments from the United Nations, sustainable growth is now a matter of life and destruction. The consciousness about sustainability among customers, domestic and international statutory bodies and business competitors, is spreading at a quick rate. In order to set and pursue sustainability-oriented goals in manufacturing sector, an assessment method is required and in this paper, many such approaches were reviewed along with some practical case studies from the developed countries. The majority of these studies focused on the manufacturing processes and systems of metallic components. Recently, in Malaysia, similar efforts have been carried out in the automotive and related industries. The food manufacturing sector has significant impacts on sustainable development from the viewpoints of resource consumption, environmental degradation and especially food security. However, this sector has not yet received adequate attention around the world and particularly in Malaysia. With significant share in the national gross domestic product and sustainability problems, the food manufacturing sector of Malaysia is the critical industrial area and an assessment of food manufacturing activities is necessary to meet the future challenges of food security, water usage and energy consumption. For continuous sustainability performance assessment and analysis, an efficient and effective sustainability assessment framework is need of the hour to assist the food manufacturing industries. This article presents a practical sustainability assessment framework specifically for the Malaysian food manufacturing sector in order to deal with the various sustainability related issues along with suitable performance metrics. The proposed framework will guide internal decision makers, researchers and practitioners improve the sustainability performance of food manufacturing companies in Malaysia.