Life Cycle Assessment Research Papers (original) (raw)

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- Environmental Engineering, Methodology, Modeling, Systems Analysis

With increased awareness of the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and the significant contribution from the cement industry, research efforts are being advanced to reduce the impacts associated with concrete production and consumption. A variety of methods have been proposed, one of the most common being the replacement of cement as a binder in concrete with supplementary cementitious materials, such as fly ash (FA), which can have lower environmental effects. The use of FA can change the kinetics of the hydration reactions and, consequently, modify the evolution of the concrete strength over time. Yet the influence of designing structural elements to obtain the required strength at later ages has not been examined in terms of their influence on global warming potential (GWP) of concrete. This research investigates the influence of design age, in addition to mix proportions and geometric aspects, on the GWP associated with making beams, columns, and a concrete building frame. Findings suggest that while the GWP for beams is not highly dependent on concrete mixture strength, the GWP for columns is dependent on strength, thus the influence of required strength at later ages influences GWP of making columns more so than beams. For the concrete frame analyzed, a potential 45% reduction in GWP, depending on mix proportions and design age, was found. Using the findings from this research, the GWP associated with production of concrete in California could be reduced by approximately 1.8 million metric tons of CO2-eq emissions, equivalent to approximately 2% of all industrial GHG emissions in California.

- by Sabbie Miller and +1
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- Industrial Ecology, Concrete, Life Cycle Assessment, Cement and Concrete Materials

It is well-known that the existing building stock is responsible for non-renewable resource depletion, energy and material consumption, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Life cycle analysis (LCA) procedures have thus been developed, in recent years, to assess the environmental impact of construction and operational phases through the entire building life cycle. Furthermore, the economic, environmental, and social consequences of recent natural disasters have encouraged the additional integration of hazard-induced impacts into common LCA procedures for buildings. Buildings are however expected to provide the population with safe living and working conditions, even when hit by different types of hazards during their service life, such as earthquakes. Hence, next-generation LCA procedures should include not only hazard-induced impacts, but also the contribution of potential retrofitting strategies that may alter the structural and energy performances of buildings throughout their rem...

- by Rui Pinho
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- Business, Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental Impact Assessment, Life Cycle Costing

A creative approach to sustainability can be applied upon an organization's business model. We begin our research with the assumption that business model innovation that takes into account a triple bottom line approach will be more sustainable over time. We focus our research on the conceptual stage when business model ideas are generated, and more precisely its creative tools. Our goal is to support, with a structured canvas, organizations whom wish to innovate upon their current business model and create concepts of more sustainable business models. In this paper, we present and discuss the tool we have named the "Triple layered business model canvas". We endeavoured to ensure that business models create, deliver and capture multiple forms of value by adding a second layer with nine environmental elements that follow a lifecycle approach, and by adding a third layer with nine social elements that follow a stakeholder approach. We share this new triple layered business model canvas and exemplify its use with a Nespresso case. In the end, we find new dynamics for analysis and new relationships for innovation. We conclude with limits and future research for more sustainable business model patterns.

The aim of this study is to use recycled plastic to manufacture automotive components in order to reduce environmental footprint of vehicles by avoiding CO2 emissions from mining, manufacturing and transportation operations. In the first step of this study, the weight distribution of the material compositions in different segment vehicles were examined and widely used polymer compound percentages were determined. In order to achieve Ford Motor Company’s target 20% sustainable plastic usage in 2025, the minimum required recycled material was calculated.[1] In light of the extensively used polymers such as Polypropylene, Nylon 6 and Nylon 66, material content was investigated for recycled plastic implementation areas.
In the second part of the study, recycled plastic which consisted of polymer compound studies were applied on different automotive compounds as sustainability projects and in other respects ReCube(Recycle, Reuse, Reduce) project was triggered thanks to this application. ReCube project aims to reduce the carbon footprint and environmental impact of the products using Life Cycle Analysis which were framed with ISO 14040 principles and as well as to design products with lower environmental impact. Thanks to ReCube, one plastic automotive component was studied through a whole vehicle life cycle assessment method to determine the effect of recycled plastic usage on vehicle carbon footprint. Recycled and virgin polymer compound carbon footprint results were compared regarding cradle to gate methodology and vehicle life cycle assessment analyzed to assess material footprint for product all life cycle.

- by Lars Lundquist
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- Engineering, Life Cycle Assessment, Energy Consumption, Environmental Sciences
- by Tim Grant
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- Environmental Engineering, Climate Change, Bioenergy, Life Cycle Assessment

District heating networks are commonly addressed in the literature as one of the most effective solutions for decreasing the greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector. These systems require high investments which are returned through the heat sales. Due to the changed climate conditions and building renovation policies, heat demand in the future could decrease, prolonging the investment return period. The main scope of this paper is to assess the feasibility of using the heat demand – outdoor temperature function for heat demand forecast. The district of Alvalade, located in Lisbon (Portugal), was used as a case study. The district is consisted of 665 buildings that vary in both construction period and typology. Three weather scenarios (low, medium, high) and three district renovation scenarios were developed (shallow, intermediate, deep). To estimate the error, obtained heat demand values were compared with results from a dynamic heat demand model, previously developed and validated by the authors. The results showed that when only weather change is considered, the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications (the error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation scenarios, the error value increased up to 59.5% (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered). The value of slope coefficient increased on average within the range of 3.8% up to 8% per decade, that corresponds to the decrease in the number of heating hours of 22-139h during the heating season (depending on the combination of weather and renovation scenarios considered). On the other hand, function intercept increased for 7.8-12.7% per decade (depending on the coupled scenarios). The values suggested could be used to modify the function parameters for the scenarios considered, and improve the accuracy of heat demand estimations. Abstract This paper firstly reviews the current state of knowledge on sustainable cookery and the environmental impacts of the food consumption phase. It then uses the example of a dish of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding to explore energy use in food production and consumption. Part 1 of this paper conducts a meta-analysis of 33 roast beef and Yorkshire pudding recipes in order to create a representative recipe for analysis. Part 2 of this paper then uses life cycle assessment and energy use data is coupled with the representative recipe of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, to calculate the embodied energy of the meal. Seven interventions are modelled to illustrate how sustainable cookery can play a role as part of a sustainable food system. Interventions show that sustainable cookery has the potential to reduce cookery related energy use by 18%, and integrating sustainable cookery within a sustainable food system has the potential to reduce the total energy use by 55%. Finally, the paper discusses the issue of how the adoption of the sustainable cookery agenda may help or hinder attempts to shift consumers towards sustainable diets.

- by Michael Hauschild
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- Environmental Engineering, Life Cycle Assessment, Building
- by Ulrich Leopold
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- Geography, Computer Science, Life Cycle Assessment, Retrofitting
- by Peter McVetty
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- Agroforestry, Fertility, Ecology, Life Cycle Assessment

The global food system is causing unsustainable
pressures on the environment, leading to widespread
land use change, increased greenhouse gas emissions,
disruption of the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles,
biodiversity loss, and freshwater depletion and
pollution.Environmental pressures are mounting
as populations grow and diets change, escalating the
need to make food production and consumption more
sustainable. Yet, there are limitations in the current
analysis of global food system sustainability. We believe
there are four main areas that could be improved
to make such analysis more comprehensive and
insightful. These improvements could have important
repercussions on the development of effective evidence-based
policy that ultimately promotes production
efficiencies and sustainable diets.

- by Michalis Hadjikakou and +2
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- Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental Sustainability, Sustainability Assessment, Sustainable Food Systems

ABSTRACT Filler material choice for repair welding of stop valve spindle of thermal power plant by-pass pipeline was presented in this paper. Repair welding of the stop valve spindle was necessary because of plant operating problems due to very frequent localized damage appearance in the form of erosive wear on it. For this purpose it was necessary to choice appropriate filler material with high wear resistance characteristic. Experimental investigation and testing (hardness measurement, chemical composition analysis and microstructural investigation) of prepared specimens after welding simulation with different kind of filler material was performed. On the basis of obtained results it was recommended procedure for application of the filler material with generally preferable characteristic.

- by Gordana Bakic
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- Lean Manufacturing, Life Cycle Assessment, Materials, Material Engineering
- by Morgan Froling
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- Engineering, Energy Conservation, Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental Sciences

Several studies in swine feed composition have demonstrated that protein levels may be modified without significant changes in meat quality in terms of carcass, lean and back fat yield. However, this variation may change certain technical indicators, such as daily weight gain. The aim of this study was to calculate the carbon footprint of the finishing stage in swine production considering four scenarios of feed composition (P18, P16, P15 and P13). The life cycle assessment methodology was applied with a life cycle inventory based on reports in the literature. The feed composition used in P18 (no soybean hulls or maize starch) had the best environmental performance for global warming per kilogram of feed. However, when evaluating the life cycle of finishing swine, P16 (containing soybean hulls, maize starch and synthetic amino acids) exhibited better environmental results; the feed used in this scenario had better technical indicators (in terms of daily weight gain), thereby reducing the feed amount for finishing swine. Using the feed composition for swine P16, the impact may be reduced by an average of 12% compared to P13 (a high level of soybean hulls, maize starch and synthetic amino acids).

- by Edivan Cherubini
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- Life Cycle Assessment, Carbon Footprint, LCA

Nowadays, decision-makers, including product designers, manufacturers and consumers, are interested in knowing the environmental impacts of their products, processes and services. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool that assesses the environmental impacts of a product system over its life cycle. An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is one of the most common ways of communicating the results of an LCA. Conducting an LCA requires meticulous data sourcing and collection and is often time-consuming for both practitioner and verifier.
This work proposes a new method of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to predict the environmental performance of a product to assist LCA practitioners and verifiers. This approach uses data from EPDs of construction products to train the machine-learning algorithm called Random Forest that constructs a multitude of decision trees randomly for the prediction. We trained the model with information on the product system and their environmental impacts using seven impact categories' values. We verified the results using a testing dataset (20% of the data from EPD).
Our results demonstrate that the model was able to predict the values of global warming potential, abiotic depletion potential for fossil and non-fossil resources, acidification potential and photochemical ozone creation potential with an accuracy (measured using R2 metrics, a measure to score the correlation of predicted values to real value) of 80%, 62%, 77%, 68% and 70%, respectively. Tuning the model's hyperparameters using grid search and k-fold cross-validation method and transforming the values resulted in improved performance of the above indicators. However, ozone depletion potential (ODP) and eutrophication potential are exceptions with low accuracy, as the values are in the order of -10 to -16 that can be improved with a larger dataset.
Overall, our method demonstrates the capability to predict environmental performance with a defined variability by learning from the previous LCA studies' results. The performance of the model also depends on the amount of data available for training. However, this approach is not replacing a detailed LCA, but rather a quick prediction and assistance to LCA practitioners and verifiers in realizing an LCA.

- by Emilio Jimenez
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- Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Cleaner Production, Life Cycle Assessment
- by Manuele Margni
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- Ecotoxicology, Life Cycle Assessment, Pesticide Residues, Environmental Sciences
- by Douglas Tiffany
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- Engineering, Technology, Life Cycle Assessment, Land Use Change
- by Chris Csíkszentmihályi
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- Business, Marketing, Computer Science, Social Networks
- by Jannick Schmidt
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- Environmental Engineering, Agriculture, Life Cycle Assessment, Global Warming
- by Ernst Worrell
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- Supply Chain Management, Climate Change, Life Cycle Assessment, Supply Chain
- by Michael Hauschild
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- Mechanical Engineering, Energy, Life Cycle Assessment, Waste Management
- by Jashank Joshi
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- Environmental Engineering, Life Cycle Assessment, GHG Emissions, Natural Gas
- by Llorenç Canals
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- Environmental Engineering, Life Cycle Assessment, Building
- by Carlo Strazza
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- Environmental Engineering, Cleaner Production, Life Cycle Assessment, Raw materials

A fenntarthatóság gyakorlatilag egy olyan állapot, melyet a három pillér tart fenn és amennyiben változás következik be az egyik tényeznél, az hatással van a másik kettőre is. A jelenleg működő gazdasági struktúrák a lineáris gazdasági szemléletet követik, mely szemlélet a " kitermel-gyárt-eldob " elven alapul, mely nem támogatja a természeti erőforrások fenntarthatóságának szempontrendszerét, az anyagkörforgás működtetését. Jelen kutatásban egy holland példa alapján elősorban azt vizsgáljuk, hogy a fenntarthatóság érdekében, miként lehet elmozdulni a lineáris gazdasági rendszerektől a cirkuláris vagy körkörös rendszerek felé. A holland rendszerek elemzése alapján kialakítottunk egy olyan vizsgálati módszert, amely révén a hazai vállalkozások számára is kijelölhetők azok a stratégiák, melyek a lineáris termelési gyakorlatból a körkörös gazdaságba vezethetik át a hazai tejszektor szereplőit. Bevezetés Napjainkban a környezetvédelem, a környezettudatos termelés egyre inkább központi szerepet játszik a mindennapi életünkben. Felértékelődik azon módszerek iránti igény, melyek segítik az elállított és elfogyasztott termékekkel összefüggésben megjelenő lehetséges környezeti, társadalmi és gazdasági hatások hiteles és pontos megismerését, illetve ezen rendszerek negatív hatásainak megelőzésére törekednek. Az életciklus elemzés és a körkörös gazdasági modell együttes alkalmazása által nyújtotta lehetőségekkel, a hosszú távú fenntarthatóság kritériumai egyértelműen vizsgálhatók jelenkorunk gazdaságának több szintjén is. Életciklus elemzés (Life Cycle Assessment) során az egyes környezeti tényezők és a potenciális környezeti hatások feltárása történik, melyet az egyes termékekre/ szolgáltatásokra nézve egészen " a bölcsőtől a sírig " vizsgálunk. Az életciklus elemzés a termék vagy szolgáltatás egész életútjának feltárását teszi lehetővé. A vizsgált területek közé tartozik az erőforrások felhasználása, emberi egészséget, ökológiai egyensúlyt veszélyeztet hatások feltárása is.

- by Karthikeyan Govindarajan G
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- Production, Energy Conservation, Life Cycle Assessment, Power Plant

The contribution of the European food sector to the total amount of greenhouse gases emissions is equal to one fifth. Footprint indicators together with Life Cycle Assessment have emerged to be useful tools to analyze and report environmental performance. In this paper the environmental impact of aged vinegar produced from Grechetto and Sagrantino grapes varieties is analyzed. Life Cycle Assessment of wine is performed to calibrate the model. Impact assessment is studied evaluating: carbon footprint, ecological footprint, water footprint, acidification, eutrophication, ozone layer depletion, photochemical oxidation. The new approach proposed in this paper leads to the obtainment of a complete analysis of the impact of aged vinegar, which can help a small farm choose more sustainable production methods, also optimizing logistics. This is the scientific added value of the work. The results show that aged vinegar has a carbon footprint comprised between 1.94 and 2.54 kgCO 2 /l. The Ecological footprint of aged vinegar varies between 9.83 and 13.23 gm 2 /kg. The Water Footprint of aged vinegar varies between 1,332 and 1,892 l/l. The water scarcity weighted water footprint methods available in the software SimaPro 8 give different results depending on their assumptions. These can be useful for comparative studies between different products.

- by Pietro Bartocci
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- Life Cycle Assessment, Carbon Footprint, Water Footprint, Ecological Footprint

In order to reduce environmental damage on the activity of transporting goods, this article carried out the environmental analysis of reverse logistics for an air compressor. We compared three scenarios: a Hypothetical Scenario (HS), a Possible Scenario (PS) and a scenario suggested in the literature called Reference Scenario (RS), using the methodology of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), standardized by the ISO 14040/14044 (2006). The results showed that the possible scenario of reverse logistics which uses almost exclusively railroad has approximately 20% less environmental impacts than the reference scenario.

- by Edivan Cherubini
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- Reverse Logistics, Life Cycle Assessment, Waste Management

An extensive body of literature demonstrates how higher density leads to more efficient energy use and lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transport and housing. However, our current understanding seems to be limited on the relationships between the urban form and the GHG emissions, namely how the urban form affects the lifestyles and thus the GHGs on a much wider scale than traditionally assumed. The urban form affects housing types, commuting distances, availability of different goods and services, social contacts and emulation, and the alternatives for pastimes, meaning that lifestyles are actually situated instead of personal projects. As almost all consumption, be it services or products, involves GHG emissions, looking at the emissions from transport and housing may not be sufficient to define whether one form would be more desirable than another. In the paper we analyze the urban form–lifestyle relationships in Finland together with the resulting GHG implications, employing both monetary expenditure and time use data to portray lifestyles in different basic urban forms: metropolitan, urban, semi-urban and rural. The GHG implications are assessed with a life cycle assessment (LCA) method that takes into account the GHG emissions embedded in different goods and services. The paper depicts that, while the direct emissions from transportation and housing energy slightly decrease with higher density, the reductions can be easily overridden by sources of indirect emissions. We also highlight that the indirect emissions actually seem to have strong structural determinants, often undermined in studies concerning sustainable urban forms. Further, we introduce a concept of 'parallel consumption' to explain how the lifestyles especially in more urbanized areas lead to multiplication of consumption outside of the limits of time budget and the living environment. This is also part I of a two-stage study. In part II we will depict how various other contextual and socioeconomic variables are actually also very important to take into account, and how diverse GHG mitigation strategies would be needed for different types of area in different locations towards a low-carbon future.

- by Jouni K Juntunen and +2
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- Life Cycle Assessment, Energy Consumption, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Domestic Consumption
- by Cees Bil
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- Life Cycle Assessment, Fuel Cell, Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, Design Tool
- by CRISTIAN jimenez
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- Civil Engineering, Carbon Dioxide, Life Cycle Assessment, Building
- by G. Verbeeck
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- Engineering, Architecture, Indoor Air Quality, Life Cycle Assessment
- by Hayo van der Werf
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- Zoology, Climate Change, Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental Impact Assessment
- by Miquel Rigola
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- Engineering, Biomass, Bioenergy, Life Cycle Assessment

This experimental field study interrupted the protection current offered by Impressed Current Cathodic Protection (ICCP) to ten in-service reinforced concrete structures. The study aimed to identify the long-term effects of ICCP after it was recognised that some of the systems are now reaching the end of their design life and require a significant level of maintenance. It was found that after five or more years of ICCP, the steel remained passive for at least 24 months after interrupting the protection current despite chloride contamination that would represent a corrosion risk.

- by Gareth Glass
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- Materials Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Concrete

The popular Samoan adage 'o le ala i le pule o le tautua' (the pathway to leadership is through service) is commonly understood by Samoans around the world as an important life value. Writings about tautua (service) have chronicled traditional understandings of the term (Tavale 2009, Tavale 2013) and more recently with personal experiences of tautua in Samoa (Filisi, 2018) and transnational matai in their communities (Falaniko 2020, Fetui 2020). Being able to trace the links between these understandings of tautua leads to considering ways in which tautua is enacted and enabled in Samoa and transnational societies. Tavale's four stages of tautua (Tavale, 2013) and his collection of proverbial expressions that focus on tautua (Tavale, 2009) form a natural foundation for its application in Samoa and internationally. Through the eyes of matai with Samoan language fluency, we use our multiple service roles with the intent of privileging interdisciplinary Pasifika research. We introduce the three intergenerational spheres of service-tautua ia tautua (serve to serve), tautua ia pule (serve to lead) and pule ia tautua (lead to serve)-that show what tautua looks like in a lifecycle. Samoan indigenous knowledge pertaining to service foregrounds the shared experiences of tautua by the authors. The oscillation of the spheres speaks directly to service, positioning our own individual experiences as matai, as Pasifika tertiary students (Pilisi, 2020) and how we negotiate our journey of tautua within our collective contexts through the conceptualisation of the "tautua lifecycle" model-to explore the pathway to leadership through service.

- by Aleksandra Mitovski
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- Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental protection
- by Pascal Lesage and +1
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- Corporate Social Responsibility, Industrial Ecology, United Nations, Life Cycle Assessment

Abrasive wear is an important component in failure analyses in mining equipment. This work relates to a wear test for mill components after the occurrence of a failure in an iron ore pelletizing plant at Vale’s Tubarao Complex, Vitoria, Brazil. The equipment involved is a ball mill, which is used to grind the pellet feed into extremely fine powder for use in pelletizing process. Metallurgical components of this mill, such as screws, shell and mill head, are analyzed in a milling system simulation using iron ore slurry in order to correlate the components loss weight with running time. The analysis results and the tribology involved in this iron ore grinding process are presented in this paper. Finally, the value of the inspection process is evidenced as a key factor at the prevention of failures, at the prediction of the life cycle of the mill's components and at the reliability of the production assets.
Keywords: :Abrasive Wear; Iron Ore; Pelletizing; Grinding.

- by André Grilo
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- Life Cycle Assessment, Failure Analysis, Optical microscopy, Grinding

RFID technology is one of the forerunners of pervasive computing, and as such is expected to play an important role in many applications of daily life in the near future, especially in the form of Smart Labels. Based on market investigations and a material analysis of a Smart Label we showed that the use of Smart Labels does not considerably affect the recycling or disposal of packaging materials, if precautionary measures are taken, such as eco-design and, where necessary, process modifications.

- by Lorenz Hilty
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- RFID, Ubiquitous Computing, Access Control, Pervasive Computing
- by Llorenç Canals
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- Environmental Engineering, Life Cycle Assessment, Supply Chain, Building