A life cycle method for assessment of a colliery’s eco-indicator

Global Scope and Background  The study was aimed at presenting the methodology of the process eco-indicator, in relation to hard coal mines, and thereby making evaluation of the impact of the mine’s coal extraction process on the environment. The life cycle of a mine is made up of three phases: opening and developing the mine’s deposit, extraction of the mine’s deposit, closing the mine. Methods  The assessment of environmental influence of mining operation of a colliery was executed on a basis of the life cycle analysis, in accordance with the standard series PN-EN 14040. The environmental loads caused by individual unit processes were calculated by means of the aforementioned methodology with division into the basic influence categories: human health, ecosystem quality and natural resources. The obtained values of eco-indicators for the individual unit processes made it possible to compare the unit-process-caused environmental loads. Mean values of the eco-indicators of the individual unit processes were calculated by means of the inventory analysis covering 38 collieries. Next, these indicators were used to compare environmental load values by each similar process in a colliery. A total eco-indicator was calculated for colliery by summing up the eco-indicators of the individual unit processes. The eco-indicators, structured as above, were calculated for the phase of opening out a deposit and for the phase of extraction. Results and Discussion  The model mine in the phase of extraction of a deposit causes a total environmental load which expressed in points of the eco-indicator 99 amounts to 23.9 [MEw]. In the ‘human health’ category losses amount to 8.4 per cent, in the ‘quality of ecosystem’ 0.6 per cent and in the ‘resourses’ category 91 per cent. The greatest losses in all categories are caused by the process of getting body of coal and the next greatest ones are:

USEtox—the UNEP-SETAC toxicity model: recommended characterisation factors for human toxicity and freshwater ecotoxicity in life cycle impact assessment

Background, aim and scope  In 2005, a comprehensive comparison of life cycle impact assessment toxicity characterisation models was initiated by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)–Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) Life Cycle Initiative, directly involving the model developers of CalTOX, IMPACT 2002, USES-LCA, BETR, EDIP, WATSON and EcoSense. In this paper, we describe this model comparison process and its results—in particular the scientific consensus model developed by the model developers. The main objectives of this effort were (1) to identify specific sources of differences between the models’ results and structure, (2) to detect the indispensable model components and (3) to build a scientific consensus model from them, representing recommended practice. Materials and methods  A chemical test set of 45 organics covering a wide range of property combinations was selected for this purpose. All models used this set. In three workshops, the model comparison participants identified key fate, exposure and effect issues via comparison of the final characterisation factors and selected intermediate outputs for fate, human exposure and toxic effects for the test set applied to all models. Results  Through this process, we were able to reduce inter-model variation from an initial range of up to 13 orders of magnitude down to no more than two orders of magnitude for any substance. This led to the development of USEtox, a scientific consensus model that contains only the most influential model elements. These were, for example, process formulations accounting for intermittent rain, defining a closed or open system environment or nesting an urban box in a continental box. Discussion  The precision of the new characterisation factors (CFs) is within a factor of 100–1,000 for human health and 10–100 for freshwater ecotoxicity of all other models compared to 12 orders of magnitude variation between the CFs of each model, respectively. The achieved reduction of inter-model variability by up to 11 orders of magnitude is a significant improvement. Conclusions  USEtox provides a parsimonious and transparent tool for human health and ecosystem CF estimates. Based on a referenced database, it has now been used to calculate CFs for several thousand substances and forms the basis of the recommendations from UNEP-SETAC’s Life Cycle Initiative regarding characterisation of toxic impacts in life cycle assessment. Recommendations and perspectives  We provide both recommended and interim (not recommended and to be used with caution) characterisation factors for human health and freshwater ecotoxicity impacts. After a process of consensus building among stakeholders on a broad scale as well as several improvements regarding a wider and easier applicability of the model, USEtox will become available to practitioners for the calculation of further CFs. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Psychosocial risk factors’ impact pathway for social life cycle assessment: an application to citrus life cycles in South Italy

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Social life cycle assessment (SLCA) was the last tool to be developed within the framework of life cycle thinking, and since the beginning,...     

Is there a place for culture in life cycle sustainability assessment?

Purpose

Cultures are increasingly recognised for their inherent value, yet, despite political and societal concern, culture is widely unrecognised in assessment techniques. Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA), a technique encompassing environmental, social and economic aspects, is growing in popularity. However, cultural values are rarely considered in LCSA. This paper reviews the meaning of culture; current efforts to include culture in environmental life cycle assessment (LCA), social LCA (S-LCA) and LCSA; and aspects to address when investigating integration of culture in LCA, S-LCA and LCSA.

Methods

A literature review was undertaken on definitions of culture, recognition of culture in policy and decision making, and how culture is incorporated into assessment techniques. The potential for integrating culture in LCSA was evaluated in terms of the potential benefits and challenges.

Results

Culture is often intangible and inaccessible, which may then lead to a lack of recognition in decision-making processes, or if it is recognised, then it is relegated as an afterthought. Explicitly including consideration of culture within LCSA will allow its representation alongside other sustainability aspects. The challenges of representing culture within LCSA include recognising when ‘culture’ should be distinguished from ‘social’; culture’s dynamic nature; the data collection process; and the diversity of cultures between stakeholders and at different scales from community through to nation. The potential benefits of representing culture within LCSA include greater resonance of LCSA results with stakeholders; a more comprehensive decision support tool which appropriately accounts for values; and an assessment technique which may help protect communities and their diversity of cultures.

Conclusions

Representing culture in LCSA is not straightforward and, to some extent, may be addressed through social indicators. However, developing LCSA to explicitly address cultural values has potential benefits. Future research should focus on opportunities for the development of (a) a culturally inclusive LCSA process and (b) additional cultural indicators and/or dimensions of existing LCSA indicators that represent cultural values.     

A novel social life cycle assessment method for determining workers’ human development: a case study of the sugarcane biorefineries in Brazil

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - The social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) methodology needs to advance in its methodological development, mainly regarding the impact assessment...     

Uncertainty in life cycle impact assessment of toxic releases practical experiences - arguments for a reductionalistic approach?

This paper describes the experience with impact assessment of toxic releases in a Substance Flow Analysis (SFA) for PVC in Sweden. For this system, all emissions related to the PVC-chain were inventoried. They have been evaluated making use of the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) step from the CMI.-guide, including the new toxicity equivalency factors calculated with the Uniform System for Evaluation of Substances (USES). The application of this method led to the conclusion that I.CA Impact Assessment of toxic releases is still a major bottleneck: the USES-equivalency factors are not to he trusted due to outdated data, inappropriate defaults, etc. in the USES’ substance properties database. Therefore, a second USES-ser of factors was calculated that differed up to factors of 1,000 or more from the old ones. Even these factors probably suffer from unacceptable high structural, in practice not reducible uncertainties. In conclusion, we warn the LCA community not to overestimate the possibility of LCA Impact Assessment to obtain a meaningfull priority setting with regard to toxicity problems. Instead, we propose developing indicator systems for LCIA of toxic releases that genuinely deal with all relevant types of uncertainty: data uncertainty, modelling uncertainty and particularly paradigmatic uncertainty.     

An analytical framework for social life cycle impact assessment—part 2: case study of labor impacts in an IC packaging company

Purpose

The pressure on brand firms in the electronics industry to improve the labor conditions of their workers in their global production networks is increasing. Given the significance of mitigating the impacts of production on labor, this study used the new development method of social life cycle impact assessment (SLCIA) for conducting labor impact assessment. An illustrative example in an integrated circuit (IC) packaging company is presented to demonstrate the assessment of the impacts and the identification of the potential for improvement of labor practices among three factories.

Methods

SLCIA method was proposed based on the UNEP/SETAC Guidelines that were reviewed in our previous work, Part 1 (in a previous article): Methodology. The proposed method was used to assess the impacts of operations on labor in the three factories of an IC packaging company. Nineteen indicators of labor–stakeholders were used to collect data from factories and organizations in 2012. The obtained values from these three factories were translated into social impact scores that ranged from 1 to 5. The score of each indicator was multiplied by the weights of each indicator, and a final score of labor situations was generated to identify the hotspots of labor impacts and to identify the factory with better labor performance.

Results and discussion

The main goal of this study is to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed SLCIA method in assessing the labor impacts in the electronics industry. Among three factories of IC packaging, factory C was ranked as having the lowest social impact on labor with a higher performance, followed by factories B and A. In addition, the results show that four indicators, “lacking labor union,” “did not hire a sufficient number of disabled employees,” “overtime work that exceeded the legal limit,” and “excessive number of dispatched workers,” were recognized as the main social impacts on labor in IC packaging production.

Conclusions

The SLCA technique was used to assess the impacts of the production processes of three IC packaging factories on the labor conditions of their factory workers. The proposed method shed light on the significant impacts of such processes. The proposed model demonstrated its potential advantage by systematically and effectively identifying the labor impact hotspots, which could assist managers in devising strategies that could improve the labor situations within their organizations.

     

Hotspot identification in the clothing industry using social life cycle assessment—opportunities and challenges of input-output modelling

Purpose

A cradle-to-gate, input/output-based social life cycle assessment (SLCA) was conducted using the Swedish clothing consumption as a case study. The aim was to investigate the influence of the cut-off rule and the definition of “hotspots” in social hotspot assessment. A second aim was to identify social hotspots of Swedish clothing on a national level.

Methods

The case study was based on the SLCA methodology provided in the Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products (Benoît and Mazijn 2009). An input/output model was used to define the product system from cradle to gate. The negative social hotspots were evaluated for a set of social indicators that were selected by consumers. The impact assessment was conducted on a sector and country level by using the Social Hotspots Database. The identified sectors of the economy with high and very high levels of risk were listed for each social indicator.

Results and discussion

The results pinpointed some hotspots throughout the supply chain for Swedish clothing consumption. Some unexpected sectors such as commerce and business services in Bangladesh were identified as important hotspots as well as main sectors in the production phase such as plant fibres, textiles and garments that would be expected also on the bases of a traditional process analysis. A sensitivity analysis on different cut-off values showed the extent to which the choice of cut-off rule can directly affect the results via influence over the number of country-specific sectors (CSSs) in the product system. The influence of the hotspot definition was investigated by evaluating the working hour intensity for low- and medium-risk levels for three different indicators. The results show that for child labour, 92 % of the share of working hours was associated with low- and medium-risk levels. Therefore, the evaluation of risk levels other than high and very high can provide a more complete picture of the hotspots.

Conclusions

The application of input/output-based SLCA on the clothing production supply chain provided a more complete picture of the social hotspots than with traditional process-based SLCA. Some unexpected sectors related to commerce and business appeared as social hotspots in the clothing industry. The study explored some important parameters in applying an input/output-based SLCA. The results show that the cut-off values and definition of hotspots in relation to risk levels can directly influence the results.

     

An Italian tomato “Cuore di Bue” case study: challenges and benefits using subcategory assessment method for social life cycle assessment

Purpose

The main purpose of this study is to present an implementation of the subcategory assessment method (SAM) to the life cycle of an Italian variety of tomato called “Cuore di Bue” produced by an Italian cooperative. The case study was used to use the methodology proposed in compliance with the guidelines of social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) in order to highlight issues for the improvement of SAM. A summary of strengths and weaknesses of the methodology as well as the social performance of the considered Italian tomato is an important result of this case study.

Methods

The methodology used is based on SAM. The UNEP/SETAC guidelines of S-LCA and the complementary methodological sheets were used as main references to carry out SAM, and it was used to assess the social performances of Cuore di Bue. The focus was on the assessment of the following three out of five stakeholder groups presented in the guidelines: workers, local community and consumers. Specific questionnaires have been developed to collect the inventory data related to each stakeholder group and along the product life cycle.

Results and discussion

SAM of Cuore di Bue showed a range of values, between 2 and 3 (C-B) for consumer stakeholder group and mainly 3 (B) for the local community and worker stakeholders. Because the best performance (A) is related to a numerical value of 4, better performances were not identified, owing to no propagation of actions in the value chain. The collective bargaining, transparency, feedback mechanism and privacy are the subcategories with the worst performance, but at the same time with more potential for improvements.

Conclusions

The implementation of SAM on Cuore di Bue allowed us to demonstrate how SAM transforms qualitative data into semi-quantitative information through a score scale that can help a decision maker achieve a product overview. SAM has been implemented on Cuore di Bue; the product assessment, the strengths and weaknesses of the methodology are identified and discussed as well. It has been possible to present the best and worst performances in product life cycle, by identifying the phase or the subcategories with good or bad performance. However, in this case study, as the same company owns most of the product life cycle taken into account, the majority of social performances are identical, and this may represent a limit of the methodology or that more organisations along the life cycle must be taken into account (for example, energy, distribution).

     

Travel medicine and general practice: a suitable case for audit?

Travel medicine becomes more important with the continual expansion of international travel and the increased popularity of exotic holiday destinations. In the United Kingdom general practitioners provide the bulk of travel health advice and immunisation and there is growing interest in providing these services. While their armamentarium has been expanded with attractive but expensive new vaccines, the need for health service advice has never been more vital, with the risks of HIV infection and drug resistant malaria. Advantages of a general practice based travel medicine service include maintaining continuity of care for the patient, but a disadvantage might be that the general practitioner sees too few patients to acquire enough skill in the subject. Furthermore, there may be a conflict of interest between time devoted to the "vaccination ritual" and giving health advice. Overall there seems to be a case for both audit and support by the health authorities.     

Environmental life cycle assessment of yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor) production for human consumption in Austria – a comparison of mealworm and broiler as protein source

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Global food production needs to increase to provide enough food for over 9 billion people living by 2050. Traditional animal production is among...     

Towards life cycle sustainability assessment: drawing on the NEEDS project’s total cost and multi-criteria decision analysis ranking methods

Purpose

In the European Union project New Energy Externalities Development for Sustainability (NEEDS), power generation technologies were ranked by means of two sustainability assessment approaches. The total costs approach, adding private and external costs, and a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) were used, integrating social, economic and environmental criteria. Both approaches relied on environmental indicators based on life cycle assessment. This study aims to analyse the extent to which the development of life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) can draw on these ranking methods.

Methods

The approaches to rank technologies in the NEEDS project are reviewed in terms of similarities and differences in concept, quantification and scope. Identified issues are discussed and set into perspective for the development of a potential future LCSA framework.

Results and discussion

The NEEDS MCDA and total costs considerably overlap regarding issues covered, except for several social aspects. Beyond total costs being limited to private and external costs, most notable conceptual differences concern the coverage of pecuniary (i.e. price change-induced) external effects, and potential double-counting for instance of resource depletion or specific cost components. External costs take account of the specific utility changes of those affected, requiring a rather high level of spatial and temporal detail. This allows addressing intra- and inter-generational aspects. Differences between both ranking methods and current LCSA methods concern the way weighting is performed, the social aspects covered and the classification of indicators according to the three sustainability dimensions. The methods differ in the way waste, accidents or intended impacts are taken into account. An issue regarding the definition of truly comparable products has also been identified (e.g. power plants).

Conclusions

For the development of LCSA, the study suggests that taking a consequential approach allows assessing pecuniary effects and repercussions of adaptation measures, relevant for a sustainability context, and that developing a life cycle impact assessment for life cycle costing would provide valuable information. The study concludes with raising a few questions and providing some suggestions regarding the development of a consistent framework for LCSA: whether the analyses in LCSA shall be distinguished into the three dimensions of sustainable development at the inventory or the impact level also with the aim to avoid double-counting, whether or not LCSA will address exceptional events, whether or not benefits shall be accounted for and how to deal with methodological and value choices (e.g. through sensitivity analyses).     

Utilization of recovered wood in cascades versus utilization of primary wood—a comparison with life cycle assessment using system expansion

Purpose

A cascading utilization of resources is encouraged especially by legislative bodies. However, only few consecutive assessments of the environmental impacts of cascading are available. This study provides answers to the following questions for using recovered wood as a secondary resource: (1) Does cascading decrease impacts on the environment compared to the use of primary wood resources? (2) What aspects of the cascading system are decisive for the life cycle assessment (LCA) results?

Methods

We conducted full LCAs for cascading utilization options of waste wood and compared the results to functionally equivalent products from primary wood, thereby focusing on the direct effects cascading has on the environmental impacts of the systems. In order to compare waste wood cascading to the use of primary wood with LCA, a functional equivalence of the systems has to be achieved. We applied a system expansion approach, considering different options for providing the additionally needed energy for the cascading system.

Results and discussion

We found that the cascading systems create fewer environmental impacts than the primary wood systems, if system expansion is based on wood energy. The most noticeable advantages were detected for the impact categories of land transformation and occupation and the demand of primary energy from renewable sources. The results of the sensitivity analyses indicate that the advantage of the cascading system is robust against the majority of considered factors. Efficiency and the method of incineration at the end of life do influence the results.

Conclusions

To maximize the benefits and minimize the associated environmental impacts, cascading proves to be a preferable option of utilizing untreated waste wood.     

An environmental assessment of small hydropower in India: the real costs of dams’ construction under a life cycle perspective

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - In the last years, India has taken a number of initiatives to boost small hydropower development based on the assumption of being a green energy...     

Mineral resources in life cycle impact assessment: part II – recommendations on application-dependent use of existing methods and on future method development needs

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Assessing impacts of abiotic resource use has been a topic of persistent debate among life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) method developers and...     

Preface—a new paradigm for life cycle thinking: exploring sustainability in urban development scenarios

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - The main goal of this special issue is to further the understanding of how to integrate life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) methods and...     

“Less is better” and “only above threshold”: Two incompatible paradigms for human toxicity in life cycle assessment?

The absence of spatial and temporal information in the data from a typical Life Cycle Inventory puts constraints on the possibilities of subsequent Life Cycle Impact Assessment to predict actual impact. Usual methods for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (often referred to as “less is better” methods) make only limited use of spatial and temporal information, because they predict concentration increases rather than full concentrations. As a consequence it does not seem possible to evaluate whether a threshold value is surpassed. The resulting poor accordance between the predicted impact and the expected occurrence of actual impact is a major problem. This problem is particularly relevant for human toxicity assessment, since the probability of surpassing thresholds here traditionally is the main point of attention. A considerable group of practitioners suggests to follow an “only above threshold” principle by introduction of assessment tools from risk assessment and environmental impact assessment in LCA. Intensive debate is going on about possibilities and limitations of “less is better” and “only above threshold”. The debate is obscured by two underlying discussions (about no-effect-levels and about data-availability) that are partly, but not fully intertwined. Both principles tend to be given fixed positions in these discussions, and are therefore often put forward as fundamentally different and incompatible with each other. This article entwines the discussions, shows parallels between both principles, and uses these parallels to present a new method for Life Cycle Impact Assessment of human toxicity from air emissions that — with limited data requirement from Life Cycle Inventory — can take as well threshold evaluation and spatial source-differentiation into account.     

Ex ante life cycle assessment of GaAs/Si nanowire–based tandem solar cells: a benchmark for industrialization

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - The goal of this study is to perform an ex-ante life cycle assessment (LCA) of the emerging gallium-arsenide nanowire tandem solar cells on...