Guidelines on Technology Selection and Transfer

Table of Content

1. Introduction...........................................................................................3

2. The Background ............................................................................................4

3. Technology Assessment.......................................................................6

3.1 How to do Technology Assessment...........................................7

3.2 Total Cost assessment (TCA)....................................................8

4. Tools for Technology Selection and Transfer.......................................8

4.1 The Product Attribute Checklist..................................................9

4.2 The Environmental Attribute Matrix .........................................12

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1. Introduction

Every technology imported or developed locally has to be environmentally

sensitive. There is also need for alternative technologies to ensure that industrial
development is environment friendly. Central to this is encouragement of low or
non-waste technologies. The challenge is to find technology transfer
mechanisms as innovative as the technologies themselves. The use of
environmentally benign technologies is intrinsically linked to the question of
technology transfer and acquisition.

The Federal EPA prepares the present guideline on technology selection and
transfer for use by all parties involved in technology development and import, and
mainly the industry sector. Apart from this, the technology assessment tool is
believed to support decision making by competent environment authorities,
Federal or Regional, in issues related to technology transfer.

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 2. The Background

Few factors are more important than technology to the well being of people and
nations. Yet technology has consistently carried with it the risk and all too often
the delivery of unnecessary, adverse effects on the environment and on people’s
health and safety. The best time to deal with potentially adverse effects of
technology is before the physical system comes into being, that is, at the earliest
stage of the technological cycle, when the basic need or opportunity is being
identified, when alternative solutions are being explored and when choices are
being made.

Environmental assessment of technologies is increasingly important in all parts of

the world, particularly in the developing countries, because of the following
interacting and converging trends. The basic assumptions behind the
assessment process are the following.

 All economies are globalizing- increasingly becoming economically

interdependent on more and more other countries. Multinational
companies are evolving around the world, bringing new technologies,
new levels of performance, and new scales of enterprise to many
developing countries.

 New technological knowledge creates new ignorance, that is, new

questions about operations, limitation, safety, risks, etc.

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 Unfamiliarity with a technology often leads to over-dependence on
suppliers and a failure to anticipate side effects and adverse
consequences.

 More information and analysis promotes better long-term investment

decisions and more efficient technology management.

 Technology assessment is a decision-making tool useful in business as

well as government.

 Organization of certainty and uncertainty in order to define strategies

and tactics for managing any particular technology is recurrent
operational need.

 In the long range, indirect and unanticipated effects of a technology are

often more significant than the immediate or planned consequences.

 Technology assessment is likely to be iterative and part of an

interlocking set of studies.

 Industrial development involves technology-related decisions at various

levels. Therefore, any improvement in the decision-making process will
be beneficial.

 Society is learning more and more about the interaction of technology

with the environment and realizing that there are often simple, low-cost
alternatives to save the environment.

 We have endless examples of technological mishaps most of which

could have been avoided.

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 3. Technology Assessment

Technology assessment as a concept had its origins in the late 1960s, when it
became clear that new technologies were having many unanticipated side
effects, including grossly unacceptable environmental, social, economic,
institutional and health effects. The mechanism for anticipating those usually
unanticipated effects came to be known as technology assessment. Central to
the technology assessment strategy is the intent to not limit the examination of
effects to the technologies that are initially proposed or under consideration. In a
nutshell, Technology Assessment (TA) is a class of studies that systematically
examines the effects on society that may occur when a technology is introduced,
extended, or modified. It emphasizes those consequences that are usually
unintended, indirect, or delayed. The basis for the Technology assessment is the
technology cycle.
All technology related decisions, whether they are infrastructural or the
development of a new industrial product goes through the same generic cycle
called the ‘Technology Cycle’. The principal components of the Technology cycle
are:
 Initiation,
 Implementation,
 Operations,
 Regulation,
 Utilization and Ultimate disposal. I

Identifying the needs, problems and opportunities is the most important stage in
the technology cycle. Often a need is characterized in a way that simultaneously
drives toward one kind of solution and drives away thinking on alternative

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solutions. For example, if the problem is to improve farm productivity in a
relatively dry area, that immediately carries you to increasing water supply via
construction of dams. The best solution might lie less in that direction and more
at ways of conserving water already available, by going to alternate crops or by
looking for new varieties of crops. The key question at this stage is do the
planners and/or decision-makers clearly understand the problem or purpose to
which the technology appears to be the solution.

In most cases, the tendency is to have early and strong preconceptions as to

how to meet the need or cope with the problem or fulfill the opportunity. One
must therefore deliberately stand back and say, “Is this the only and/or best
way?” In many cases the solution that is sought in physical technological terms
might be met in alternative ways that have no connection with physical
technology, such as organizational and operational changes.

3.1 How to do Technology Assessment

a. Description of the Technology

New or re-established technologies and alternative configurations may have to

be described and compared. Attention will be directed toward material and
energy inputs, capital and labor inputs, industrial and engineering processes and
operations, products, by-products, services, scale of operation, land use,
distribution of output, and associated transportation requirements at all phases.

b. Technology forecasting

Forecasts must be made of the timing of development, deployment, and

commercialization or use the technology, the likelihood and timing of significant
modifications and improvement, to the extent these can be foreseen, the rate at
which its substitutes for older technologies or otherwise reaches widespread use.

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These considerations all affect the rate at which environmental and other impacts
will be manifested.

c. Necessary supporting technologies

Every technology is imbedded in a system of supporting technologies. They must

also be described since they are inseparable from the subject technology. Where
the supporting technology is already in place to service other needs, only
changes in it related to the needs of the new technology must be considered.

d. Systems alternatives

There are generally two levels of consideration in looking at systems alternatives.

At the micro level, the details of the proposed strategy raise the question of what
kinds of changes can be made in particular components of that system to make it
more resource efficient and environmentally benign. The second set of
alternatives is the macro alternatives that are related to national science and
technology capacity and macro policy directions. These include the general state
of the economy, levels of education, urbanization and metropolinization.

3.2 Total cost assessment (TCA)

A Time-phased Approach to Technology Assessment: This is a tool, which brings

together the components of the technology cycle and the primary area of
environmental and other consequences. Significant environmental impacts are
likely to occur on any technology cycle, namely: labor, land, energy, materials
and environment.

4. Tools for Technology Selection and Transfer

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Practicing Environmental Procurement requires using tools that are responsive to
the procurement needs of a particular enterprise. It is unrealistic to think that a
generic toolbox can be developed that will be equally applicable to all
procurement practices. Two of the major tools that can be utilized in procurement
of technological items are the ‘Product Attribute Checklist’ and the
‘Environmental Attribute matrix’.

4.1 The Product Attribute Checklist

The Product Attribute Checklist is an integrated tool, which focuses on the

common technical features of a product that affect both its economic and
environmental performance. The development of this tool involves the following
steps:
Step one:
Identify the essential attributes that influence the economic and
environmental performance of the specific product or product
category.
Step two:
Identify the regulatory requirements and/or users’ preferences for
each of these attributes.
Step three:
Determine the relevant minimum/maximum parameters for each of
the identified attributes, as applicable (e.g., minimum durability,
maximum energy consumption rate, maximum time required to carry
out a particular operation, etc). Use these parameters as a basis for
your specifications, to communicate your requirements to suppliers.
Step four:
Once you have received bids from suppliers, develop a checklist
classifying each offer as low, medium or high in terms of how well it
meets these parameters.
Step five:

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 Evaluate the qualitative result of this appraisal checklist and prepare
a list of preferred (or not acceptable) product offers.

Example:
Checklist of essential attributes for technological items (equipment and
machinery)

 Fitness: suitability to the verified need, without features or components

that are not required (i.e., redundant to the operating environment).

 Simplicity of operation and maintenance: clarity and

comprehensiveness of operating and maintenance instructions, along with
ease of operation and maintenance in line with the know-how and skills of
operators, maintenance staff and end-users.

 Durability: extent of service life under conditions of reasonable

maintenance cost and adequate supply of spare-parts for normal
operation.

 Material conversion rate: rate of conversion of raw materials/components

to useful output, and rate of waste generation per unit of output.

 Resource consumption rate: rate of resource consumption (e.g., energy,

water) per unit of output of the equipment.

 Upgradability: cost and flexibility of upgrading for capacity expansion and

efficiency improvement.

 End-of-life use: possibility of reusing and/or recycling the equipment or its

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 components.
 Disposal: volume of hazardous ingredients that would require special
treatment and disposal.

Example:
Product Attribute Checklist for Suppliers of Equipment “X”

Offer Offer Offer

Attributes Parameters Supplier A Supplier Supplier
B C

H M L H M L H M L

Fitness  Fully meets operating requirements   

 No unnecessary features

Operational  Operating and maintenance   

simplicity instructions easily understandable by
our staff

 Can be operated and maintained by

only one worker with standard tools

Durability  At least 5 years’ service life   

Conversion rate  At least 97% material conversion rate   

Consumption  Energy consumption of no more than   

rate 500W per unit of production output

Upgradability  Upgradability of components A and B   

to allow future increase of output per
hour of at least 25%

End-of-life use  Possibility to dismount components X   

and Y for reuse as spare parts after
decommissioning of equipment

Disposal  No use of toxic materials requiring   

special treatment, as defined in our
national legislation

H = High - M = Medium - L = Low

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 4.3 The Environnemental Attribute Matrix

The Environmental Attribute Matrix is a tool, which enables you to undertake an

environmental evaluation for a specific product. It builds upon the Product
Attribute Checklist that we have just seen. The development of the
Environmental Attribute Matrix for a particular product involves the steps shown
below. The product given to illustrate these steps is vehicle.

Step one:
As in the case of the Product Attribute Checklist, identify the major environmental
attributes of the product.

Example:
Environmental attributes for vehicles

Engine and suspension fitness: the fitness of the engine to the purpose and
the fitness of the suspension system to the road conditions are the key factors
affecting overall performance. Low gear, efficient vehicles are preferable to
high gear, efficient vehicles, and uplifted suspensions are preferable to lowered
suspensions.

Proper accessories: proper accessories, such as catalytic converters,

improve the environmental performance of the vehicle, while redundant
accessories, such as having a heater in a tropical climate, may lead to misuse
and unnecessary cost.

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Operational simplicity and safety: the vehicles must be simple to operate
and fulfill the necessary safety requirements for reducing adverse health
effects and the impact of accidents on the user.

Energy-base and respective emission: the emission impact varies as a

function of the energy base. It increases in the following order of currently
utilized energy sources for vehicles: solar energy, electrical energy, natural
gas, petroleum, and diesel fuel.

Fuel consumption: the fuel consumption per unit service (per unit ton-
kilometer or per unit passenger-kilometer) is one aspect of measuring
environmental performance. Generally, the lower the fuel consumption, the
lower the environmental impact.

Utility consumption: the effective operation of vehicles requires inputs such

as lubricants, tires, and other utilities besides fuel. The utility consumption
influences the environmental performance of a vehicle.

Maintenance requirement: all vehicles have a scheduled engine overhaul

service after running a given thousand kilometers. Engine overhauling involves
operations such as the draining of lubricants and the flushing of engines.
These operations lead to considerable waste.

Extended service life-efficiency: vehicles exhibit different drops in the level

of efficiency as their service life is extended. This is a function of both the
vehicle design and the practiced operational maintenance.

Recycling of vehicle: a vehicle consists of parts that can be re-used or

recycled. A design facilitating a greater possibility of recycling and reuse is
preferable.

End-of-life hazardous impact: a vehicle should have a reduced or

manageable end-of-life hazardous impact that may occur during the scrapping

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 or disposal of any part of the vehicle.

Step two:
Define the preferred environmental quality for each attribute. When doing this,
focus on the main issues that we have reviewed earlier, i.e.: resource
consumption, pollution generation and hazard impact.

Communicate these preferred environmental qualities to suppliers when asking

for offers, and ensure that they provide you with the necessary environmental
information on their products to allow you to later carry out the appraisal
correctly.

Step three:
Decide on the comparative weight for each environmental attribute, by giving maximum
points to each. These points must add up to one hundred. Give higher weights to those
attributes, which are significantly affecting the environmental performance of the product.
Consider the particular local and regional environmental impacts when you decide on
the weights.
Example:
Weighted Environmental Attribute Rating Table for Vehicles
Attributes Preferred Environmental Quality Maximum
points

Engine and Fitness to the purpose and road condition 10

suspension

Accessories proper accessories with little redundancy 5

Operation and safety simple operation with maximum safety 10

Energy base low-emission energy base 15

Fuel consumption higher mileage per liter 15

Utilities consumption lower utility consumption/service 15

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Maintenance lower requirement and easy to maintain 10

Service life lower efficiency drop over an extended life 10

Recycling high percentage of recyclability 5

End-of-life lower hazardous impact 5

For most technological items (e.g., machinery and equipment, lighting systems,
etc.), environmental preferability is highly influenced by performance during the
use stage. This is because of their high resource input requirements and the
emissions and waste discharged during use. Note that the comparative weights
given to the attributes will often vary on account of local environmental issues
and priorities. In the above example, the highest points have been given to those
attributes that apply to the use stage (i.e., illumination effect and energy
consumption).

Step four:
Once you have received the offers from suppliers, prepare the Environmental
Attribute Matrix as shown below. This will enable you to compare each offer
against each of the attributes that you consider important.

Step five:
Allocate points to each supplier’s offer, reflecting the extent to which they comply
or not with the preferred environmental qualities. The higher the environmental
preferability of the product offered, the higher will be the number of points you will
give to it, up to the maximum allocated to the corresponding attribute.

Use the product with the best performance as a reference (or benchmark) for
each attribute. Count the total points given to each, and prepare a ranking of the
offers. This will constitute your environmental evaluation of these offers.

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Example:
Environmental Attribute Matrix for Vehicles
Points allocated to offers

Attributes Preferred Environmental Maxi- Offer Offer Offer

Quality mum Supplier Supplier Supplier
points A B C

Engine and Fitness to the purpose and road 10

suspension condition

Accessories Proper accessories with little 5

redundancy

Operation and Simple operation with maximum 10

safety safety

Energy-base Low-emission energy-base 15

Fuel consumption Higher mileage per liter 15

Utilities Lower utility 15

consumption consumption/service

Maintenance Lower requirement and easy to 10

maintain

Service life Lower efficiency drop over an 10

extended life

Recycling High percentage of recyclability 5

End-of-life Lower hazardous impact 5

Total Points: 100

Ranking of Suppliers’ Offers:

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