Purpose
The main goal of the paper is to carry out the first implementation of sustainability assessment of the assembly step of photovoltaic (PV) modules production by Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) and the development of the Life Cycle Sustainability Dashboard (LCSD), in order to compare LCSA results of different PV modules. The applicability and practicability of the LCSD is reported thanks to a case study. The results show that LCSA can be considered a valuable tool to support decision-making processes that involve different stakeholders with different knowledge and background.Method
The sustainability performance of the production step of Italian and German polycrystalline silicon modules is assessed using the LCSD. The LCSD is an application oriented to the presentation of an LCSA study. LCSA comprises life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle costing and social LCA (S-LCA). The primary data collected for the German module are related to two different years, and this led to the evaluation of three different scenarios: a German 2008 module, a German 2009 module, and an Italian 2008 module.Results and discussion
According to the LCA results based on Ecoindicator 99, the German module for example has lower values of land use [1.77 potential disappeared fractions (PDF) m2/year] and acidification (3.61 PDF m2/year) than the Italian one (land use 1.99 PDF m2/year, acidification 3.83 PDF m2/year). However, the German module has higher global warming potential [4.5E?C05 disability-adjusted life years (DALY)] than the Italian one [3.00E?05 DALY]. The economic costs of the German module are lower than the Italian one, e.g. the cost of electricity per FU for the German module is 0.12??/m2 compared to the Italian 0.85??/m2. The S-LCA results show significant differences between German module 2008 and 2009 that represent respectively the best and the worst overall social performances of the three considered scenarios compared by LCSD. The aggregate LCSD results show that the German module 2008 has the best overall sustainability performance and a score of 665 points out of 1,000 (and a colour scale of light green). The Italian module 2008 has the worst overall sustainability performance with a score of 404 points, while the German module 2009 is in the middle with 524 points.Conclusions
The LCSA and LCSD methodologies represent an applicable framework as a tool for supporting decision-making processes which consider sustainable production and consumption. However, there are still challenges for a meaningful application, particularly the questions of the selection of social LCA indicators and how to weigh sets for the LCSD. 相似文献Purpose
From a management perspective, there are two main issues in the life cycle sustainability assessment framework which require further work: (1) the approaches to quicken the resource-consuming inventory and assessment process and (2) the easy-to-understand communication of the results. This study aims at contributing to these needs for quicker and cost-efficient ways to draft strategies that include the life cycle perspective and encompasses all three dimensions of sustainability in an easily communicable way. The focus of the study is on a streamlined, rapid assessment the tool proposed by Pesonen (2007) called the Sustainability SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) and on the empirical testing of whether or not it is understood in the corporate world and if it leads to concrete changes in either strategic- or operative-level activities.Methods
The data for the research were empirically collected from a survey targeted to representatives of organizations having used the Sustainability SWOT within the last 5 years. The primary findings, i.e., the generated changes or improvements, were reflected in the various levels of cooperation in a network (along the value chain, in end users, in the institutional framework).Results and discussion
The results of the analyses of both the usability of the Sustainability SWOT in business as well as the suggested assessment framework leading to any actual changes were promising. It is encouraging that the streamlined approach tailored according to the logic of business decision-makers (i.e., inclusion of the SWOT) is able to find the acceptance and understanding of that vital group. Remarkably, many changes were initiated—not only at an operative level but also at a strategic level and in the entire value chain—by carrying out an exercise such as the Sustainability SWOT.Conclusions
The Sustainability SWOT has proven to be usable and able to generate changes and improvements along the value chain and, in some cases, in the institutional context as well. 相似文献Purpose
Waste management for end-of-life (EoL) smartphones is a growing problem due to their high turnover rate and concentration of toxic chemicals. The versatility of modern smartphones presents an interesting alternative waste management strategy: repurposing. This paper investigates the environmental impact of smartphone repurposing as compared to traditional refurbishing using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).Methods
A case study of repurposing was conducted by creating a smartphone “app” that replicates the functionality of an in-car parking meter. The environmental impacts of this prototype were quantified using waste management LCA methodology. Studied systems included three waste management options: traditional refurbishment, repurposing using battery power, and repurposing using a portable solar charger. The functional unit was defined as the EoL management of a used smartphone. Consequential system expansion was employed to account for secondary functions provided; avoided impacts from displaced primary products were included. Impacts were calculated in five impact categories. Break-even displacement rates were calculated and sensitivity to standby power consumption were assessed.Results and discussion
LCA results showed that refurbishing creates the highest environmental impacts of the three reuse routes in every impact category except ODP. High break-even displacement rates suggest that this finding is robust within a reasonable range of primary cell phone displacement. The repurposed smartphone in-car parking meter had lower impacts than the primary production parking meter. Impacts for battery-powered devices were dominated by use-phase charging electricity, whereas solar-power impacts were concentrated in manufacturing. Repurposed phones using battery power had lower impacts than those using solar power, however, standby power sensitivity analysis revealed that solar power is preferred if the battery charger is left plugged-in more than 20 % of the use period.Conclusions
Our analysis concludes that repurposing represents an environmentally preferable EoL option to refurbishing for used smartphones. The results suggest two generalizable findings. First, primary product displacement is a major factor affecting whether any EoL strategy is environmentally beneficial. The benefit depends not only on what is displaced, but also on how much displacement occurs; in general, repurposing allows freedom to target reuse opportunities with high “displacement potential.” Second, the notion that solar power is preferable to batteries is not always correct; here, the rank-order is sensitive to assumptions about user behavior. 相似文献Purpose
This study seeks to provide a framework for integrating animal welfare as a fourth pillar into a life cycle sustainability assessment and presents three alternative animal welfare indicators.Methods
Animal welfare is assessed during farm life and during slaughter. The indicators differ in how they value premature death. All three consider (1) the life quality of an animal such as space allowance, (2) the slaughter age either as life duration or life fraction, and (3) the number of animals affected for providing a product unit, e.g. 1 Mcal. One of the indicators additionally takes into account a moral value denoting their intelligence and self-awareness. The framework allows for comparisons across studies and products and for applications at large spatial scales. To illustrate the framework, eight products were analysed and compared: beef, pork, poultry, milk, eggs, salmon, shrimps, and, as a novel protein source, insects.Results and discussion
Insects are granted to live longer fractions of their normal life spans, and their life quality is less compromised due to a lower assumed sentience. Still, they perform worst according to all three indicators, as their small body sizes only yield low product quantities. Therefore, we discourage from eating insects. In contrast, milk is the product that reduces animal welfare the least according to two of the three indicators and it performs relatively better than other animal products in most categories. The difference in animal welfare is mostly larger for different animal products than for different production systems of the same product. This implies that, besides less consumption of animal-based products, a shift to other animal products can significantly improve animal welfare.Conclusions
While the animal welfare assessment is simplified, it allows for a direct integration into life cycle sustainability assessment. There is a trade-off between applicability and indicator complexity, but even a simple estimate of animal welfare is much better than ignoring the issue, as is the common practice in life cycle sustainability assessments. Future research should be directed towards elaborating the life quality criterion and extending the product coverage.Purpose
Sustainability assessment in life cycle assessment (LCA) addresses societal aspects of technologies or products to evaluate whether a technology/product helps to address important challenges faced by society or whether it causes problems to society or at least selected social groups. In this paper, we analyse how this has been, and can be addressed in the context of economic assessments. We discuss the need for systemic measures applicable in the macro-economic setting.Methods
The modelling framework of life cycle costing (LCC) is analysed as a key component of the life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) framework. Supply chain analysis is applied to LCC in order to understand the relationships between societal concerns of value adding and the basic cost associated with a functional unit. Methods to link LCC as a foreground economic inventory to a background economy wide inventory such as an input–output table are shown. Other modelling frameworks designed to capture consequential effects in LCSA are discussed.Results
LCC is a useful indicator in economic assessments, but it fails to capture the full dimension of economic sustainability. It has potential contradictions in system boundary to an environmental LCA, and includes normative judgements at the equivalent of the inventory level. Further, it has an inherent contradiction between user goals (minimisation of cost) and social goals (maximisation of value adding), and has no clear application in a consequential setting. LCC is focussed on the indicator of life cycle cost, to the exclusion of many relevant indicators that can be utilised in LCSA. As such, we propose the coverage of indicators in economic assessment to include the value adding to the economy by type of input, import dependency, indicators associated with the role of capital and labour, the innovation potential, linkages and the structural impact on economic sectors.Conclusions
If the economic dimension of LCSA is to be equivalently addressed as the other pillars, formalisation of equivalent frameworks must be undertaken. Much can be advanced from other fields that could see LCSA to take a more central role in policy formation. 相似文献The building sector is one of the most relevant sectors in terms of environmental impact. Different functional units (FUs) can be used in life cycle assessment (LCA) studies for a variety of purposes. This paper aimed to present different FUs used in the LCA of buildings and evaluate the influence of FU choice and setting in comparative studies.
MethodsAs an example, we compared the “cradle to grave” environmental performance of four typical Brazilian residential buildings with different construction typologies, i.e., multi-dwelling and single dwelling, each with high and basic standards. We chose three types of FU for comparison: a dwelling with defined lifetime and occupancy parameters, an area of 1 m2 of dwelling over a year period, and the accommodation of an occupant person of the dwelling over a day.
Results and discussionThe FU choice was found to bias the results considerably. As expected, the largest global warming indicator (GWi) values per dwelling unit and occupant were identified for the high standard dwellings. However, when measured per square meter, lower standard dwellings presented the largest GWi values. This was caused by the greater concentration of people per square meter in smaller area dwellings, resulting in larger water and energy consumption per square meter. The sensitivity analysis of FU variables such as lifetime and occupancy showed the GWi contribution of the infrastructure more relevant compared with the operation in high and basic standard dwellings. The definition of lifetime and occupancy parameters is key to avoid bias and to reduce uncertainty of the results when performing a comparison of dwelling environmental performances.
ConclusionsThis paper highlights the need for adequate choice and setting of FU to support intended decision-making in LCA studies of the building sector. The use of at least two FUs presented a broader picture of building performance, helping to guide effective environmental optimization efforts from different approaches and levels of analysis. Information regarding space, time, and service dimensions should be either included in the FU setting or provided in the building LCA study to allow adjustment of the results for subsequent comparison.
相似文献Purpose
This paper uses a dynamic life cycle assessment (DLCA) approach and illustrates the potential importance of the method using a simplified case study of an institutional building. Previous life cycle assessment (LCA) studies have consistently found that energy consumption in the use phase of a building is dominant in most environmental impact categories. Due to the long life span of buildings and potential for changes in usage patterns over time, a shift toward DLCA has been suggested.Methods
We define DLCA as an approach to LCA which explicitly incorporates dynamic process modeling in the context of temporal and spatial variations in the surrounding industrial and environmental systems. A simplified mathematical model is used to incorporate dynamic information from the case study building, temporally explicit sources of life cycle inventory data and temporally explicit life cycle impact assessment characterization factors, where available. The DLCA model was evaluated for the historical and projected future environmental impacts of an existing institutional building, with additional scenario development for sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of future impacts.Results and discussion
Results showed that overall life cycle impacts varied greatly in some categories when compared to static LCA results, generated from the temporal perspective of either the building's initial construction or its recent renovation. From the initial construction perspective, impacts in categories related to criteria air pollutants were reduced by more than 50 % when compared to a static LCA, even though nonrenewable energy use increased by 15 %. Pollution controls were a major reason for these reductions. In the future scenario analysis, the baseline DLCA scenario showed a decrease in all impact categories compared with the static LCA. The outer bounds of the sensitivity analysis varied from slightly higher to strongly lower than the static results, indicating the general robustness of the decline across the scenarios.Conclusions
These findings support the use of dynamic modeling in life cycle assessment to increase the relevance of results. In some cases, decision making related to building design and operations may be affected by considering the interaction of temporally explicit information in multiple steps of the LCA. The DLCA results suggest that in some cases, changes during a building's lifetime can influence the LCA results to a greater degree than the material and construction phases. Adapting LCA to a more dynamic approach may increase the usefulness of the method in assessing the performance of buildings and other complex systems in the built environment. 相似文献Purpose
While interest in supply chain sustainability has risen over the past few years in academic and business worlds, very little research has been conducted on sustainability in humanitarian supply chains, specifically. This study aims to contribute to the development of the field by conducting a life cycle sustainability analysis (LCSA) of sourcing scenarios for a core relief item in a humanitarian supply chain.Methods
This paper is structured according to the LCSA framework developed by Guinée et al. (Environ Sci Technol 45(1):90–96, 2011). The relief item analyzed is a kitchen set supplied by a UN agency. Environmental, social, and economic impacts of two sourcing scenarios for a kitchen set are mapped: one international and one local. Sources of data include interviews, company records, and online databases. Results are analyzed using the ReCiPe method to assess environmental impact and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP)/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) guidelines to assess social impact.Results and discussion
We show how LCSA can be used to map the sustainability of two sourcing scenarios for kitchen sets in a humanitarian supply chain along triple bottom line dimensions. We report findings on sourcing scenarios for distribution to two refugee camps in Kenya: one from a supplier in India and one from a supplier in Kenya. We use an environmental life cycle analysis (LCA), a social LCA, and a life cycle costing (LCC) to analyze differences and similarities. We find that local sourcing is preferred over international sourcing on two out of the three sustainability dimensions—environmental and social impacts. Humanitarian organizations may further use this paper as a guideline to develop their own sustainability assessments of supply chain scenarios.Conclusions
The results of our study provide a fresh, sustainability-focused perspective on the debate over international vs. local procurement. This paper is the first to apply LCSA to a humanitarian context. It also addresses a void in the sourcing literature by determining the sustainability impacts of different sourcing strategies. The study evaluates only two sourcing options and also uses a limited number of data sources.Currently, social, environmental, and economic risks and chances of bioeconomy are becoming increasingly a subject of applied sustainability assessments. Based on life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology, life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) aims to combine or integrate social, environmental, and economic assessments. In order to contribute to the current early stage of LCSA development, this study seeks to identify a practical framework for integrated LCSA implementation.
MethodsWe select possible indicators from existing suitable LCA and LCSA approaches as well as from the literature, and allocate them to a sustainability concept for holistic and integrated LCSA (HILCSA), based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In order to conduct a practical implementation of HILCSA, we choose openLCA, because it offers the best current state and most future potential for application of LCSA. Therefore, not only the capabilities of the software and databases, but also the supported methods of life cycle impact assessments (LCIA) are evaluated regarding the requirements of the indicator set and goal and scope of future case studies.
Results and discussionThis study presents an overview of available indicators and LCIAs for bioeconomy sustainability assessments as well as their link to the SDGs. We provide a practical framework for HILCSA of regional bioeconomy, which includes an indicator set for regional (product and territorial) bioeconomy assessment, applicable with current software and databases, LCIA methods and methods of normalization, weighting, and aggregation. The implementation of HILCSA in openLCA allows an integrative LCSA by conducting all steps in a single framework with harmonized, aggregated, and coherent results. HILCSA is capable of a sustainability assessment in terms of planetary boundaries, provisioning system and societal needs, as well as communication of results to different stakeholders.
ConclusionsOur framework is capable of compensating some deficits of S-LCA, E-LCA, and economic assessments by integration, and shows main advantages compared to additive LCSA. HILCSA is capable of addressing 15 out of 17 SDGs. It addresses open questions and significant problems of LCSAs in terms of goal and scope, LCI, LCIA, and interpretation. Furthermore, HILCSA is the first of its kind actually applicable in an existing software environment. Regional bioeconomy sustainability assessment is bridging scales of global and regional effects and can inform stakeholders comprehensively on various impacts, hotspots, trade-offs, and synergies of regional bioeconomy. However, significant research needs in LCIAs, software, and indicator development remain.
相似文献