Workshop: Environmental Implications of Additive Manufacturing; Arlington, Virginia; October 14-15, 2014

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This grant provides funding to support a workshop on the environmental implications of additive manufacturing. Additive manufacturing, also known as three-dimensional printing, is a suite of computer-automated technologies to fabricate three-dimensional structural and functional parts from metallic, plastic, ceramic, biological, and composite materials. The workshop will help identify the environmental implications and research needs related to additive manufacturing and further inform a research agenda. It will build productive, on-going collaborations among users of additive manufacturing and a wide range of researchers involved in the impact assessment of emerging technologies. The ideas coming from the workshop attendees will be helpful to policymakers setting environmental priorities as well as organizations developing research strategies and educational activities. The objective of this workshop is to provide a forum for disseminating information and sharing ideas about the emerging technology of additive manufacturing and its impact on the environment and occupational health. The workshop will review the existing research on environmental impacts of additive manufacturing; identify knowledge gaps and uncertainties that could help inform an agenda for future research into environmental impacts of additive manufacturing; and expand the research community focused on these environmental and energy-use issues by including researchers with backgrounds in industrial ecology, energy and materials mass balance assessments, lifecycle analysis, and environmental risk assessment. The major intellectual outcomes of this workshop include a research agenda for environmental and occupational health issues that proactively addresses future uses of additive manufacturing and a research consensus between the additive manufacturing community and the environment and lifecycle assessment community. This workshop is distinct from previous additive manufacturing-related workshops in its focus on environmental implications.