Improving the quality, reliability, durability and environmental safety of production is important strategic goal for any producer and contributes greatly into the image of trade mark and competitive strength of product.
Since the end of the 20th century it has apparently been shown that global expansion and human activity has threatened the ecological safety margin of our planet. The aftermath of ecological disasters incurred by human beings and their products could be irreversible. It became clear that the internal-combustion engine and automotive manufacture as a whole influenced not only local environments, but also created global effects with significant consequences.
Nature calls for a competent and careful attitude. It is substantial that mankind rethink how important are the tasks of the environmental protection, preservation of natural resources and maintaining stable environment.
This study analyzes AVTOVAZ influence on the environment. AVTOVAZ is the leading Russian car automaker (trade mark: LADA). It accounts for about 75% of total car production volume in Russia.
The enterprise was considered as a system with intrinsic interrelated processes, inputs and outputs. The information on all input data, as well as output factors was collected and analyzed (inventory analysis).
The data collected at AVTOVAZ presented huge quantity of parameters of different kinds and categories. To receive complex ecological indicators of the plant and its impact on the environment, suitable for analysis we had to:
make some assumptions to simplify the system,
divide inputs and outputs into those, that concern specific LADA cars, and those, that concern the entire company,
analyze the tools used in the world (methodologies and software) for these purposes.
From our point of view the Eco-indicator'99 methodology is the most suitable for it while SimaPro LCA software is very suitable and effective for laborious calculations, and ranging and systematizing ecological indicators.
The Eco-indicator'99 (a Damage Oriented Method for Life Cycle Impact Assessment) was used to calculate the factors of environmental impact and their magnitude [1]. SimaPro 5 software was used for some of the calculations. According to the developers LCA SimaPro 5 is the world's most widely used software [2].
The results of the calculations allowed to draw a conclusion on the main efforts directed towards improving the environmental protection during car production at AVTOVAZ. The improving environmental performance of LADA models during Total Life Cycle was based on the results of this analysis.
The work was carried out in Research Center, AVTOVAZ.