A Novel Approach to Evaluating Sustainability of Products and Associated Manufacturing Processes Parakram PYAKUREL a, 1 , Fayyaz REHMAN a and Robert BENHAM a a Solent University, E Park Terrace, Southampton SO14 0YN, UK. Abstract. Digital twinning offers a prospect of accessing enormous information about products and associated manufacturing processes by applying internet of things, artificial intelligence, and digital databases, specifically in the context of Industry 4.0. The gathered information can enable the evaluation of the degree of sustainability of any product and the associated manufacturing processes. This paper proposes such evaluation by utilizing a novel metric termed as Product Sustainability Index (PSI). Advances in smart manufacturing and digital twinning could enable collection of data needed to estimate PSI which considers environmental and societal dimensions of sustainability associated with the production processes of any product. The PSI has a potential to inform customers about the environmental impacts of the products they consume and may also be used as an evaluation and a policy tool by manufacturers and governments. Keywords. Sustainable manufacturing, Product Sustainability Index, digital twinning. 1. Introduction A digital twin is a virtual model or a digital counterpart of a physical system that facilitates real time monitoring and simulation [1]. Although a universally accepted framework to characterise digital twin does not exist, it is a dynamic replica of a product or a physical system that allows bi-directional flow of information between the physical system and the virtual simulated system [2]. In the context of manufacturing, potential applications of digital twin are to predict operational failures, process optimisation, map activities across supply chain and asset management [1, 2]. Digital twinning could also enhance sustainable manufacturing by improving process efficiencies, improving smart resources planning [1], increasing manufacturing flexibility and facilitating low carbon design [3]. Another potential application of digital twinning in sustainable manufacturing is the evaluation of the degree of sustainability of products and associated manufacturing processes. There are several sustainability assessments approaches for manufacturing processes based on tools such as multicriteria decision making [4], fuzzy analytic hierarchic process [5], correlation matrix between triple bottom line dimensions and balanced scorecard perspectives [6], evolutionary computing and neural network algorithms [7]. These approaches typically do not use real time data obtained solely for 1 Corresponding Author. parakram.pyakurel@solent.ac.uk Advances in Manufacturing Technology XXXV M. Shafik and K. Case (Eds.) © 2022 The authors and IOS Press. This article is published online with Open Access by IOS Press and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0). doi:10.3233/ATDE220597 239