Abstract
Starting from the seminal definition of sustainable development (SD) proposed in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), this paper discusses how both environmental and social pillars of sustainability can be traced back to the economic one, which is the most important and consolidated amongst the three. The economic assessment of chemical plants goes through conventional methods of conceptual design. Manca (2013a) reported how raw materials, (by)products, and utilities, which as a whole contribute significantly to operative expenses (OPEX), are characterized by highly variable prices that call for a dynamic assessment of market quotations over a suitable time horizon. This manuscript shows how economic features such as market uncertainty, and price/cost volatility cannot be neglected whenever the economic sustainability of chemical plants is concerned. These issues are reconciled by an extended approach to conceptual design that takes into account the dynamic attribute, and allows identifying a set of possible economic scenarios based on forecasting the OPEX terms by means of suitable econometric or economic models.
