Land use is a major threat to terrestrial biodiversity. Life cycle assessment is a tool that can assess such threats and thereby support environmental decision-making. Within the Global Guidance... Show moreLand use is a major threat to terrestrial biodiversity. Life cycle assessment is a tool that can assess such threats and thereby support environmental decision-making. Within the Global Guidance for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (GLAM) project, the Life Cycle Initiative hosted by UN Environment aims to create a life cycle impact assessment method across multiple impact categories, including land use impacts on ecosystem quality represented by regional and global species richness. A working group of the GLAM project focused on such land use impacts and developed new characterization factors to combine the strengths of two separate recent advancements in the field: the consideration of land use intensities and land fragmentation. The data sets to parametrize the underlying model are also updated from previous models. The new characterization factors cover five species groups (plants, amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles) and five broad land use types (cropland, pasture, plantations, managed forests, and urban land) at three intensity levels (minimal, light, and intense). They are available at the level of terrestrial ecoregions and countries. This paper documents the development of the characterization factors, provides practical guidance for their use, and critically assesses the strengths and remaining shortcomings. Show less
Ding, S.T.; Ward, H.; Cucurachi, S.; Tukker, A. 2023
The Internet of Things (IoT) brings new opportunities for creating intelligent and streamlined supply chains that have better environmental and cost performance as compared to conventional ones. In... Show moreThe Internet of Things (IoT) brings new opportunities for creating intelligent and streamlined supply chains that have better environmental and cost performance as compared to conventional ones. In this paper, we quantify such improvements for a specific logistics chain case. To support the inventory of cost and emission data, we utilize system dynamics (SD) and agent-based modeling (AB) to define the structure of the two logistical systems, simulating and estimating differences in e.g., required storage levels, efficiency of transport, etc. In particular, we assess the difference in carbon emissions, cost, and market performance of a battery delivery chain in the delivery process between a two-tier IoT-supported supply chain (users are served by an IoT retailer directly connected to the producer) and a conventional three-tier supply chain (include an additional wholesaler to connect retailer and producer). The results demonstrate that IoT supply chains have significant advantages in minimizing average product storage and shipment fluctuations. IoT suppliers can estimate market demand to adjust production and transportation strategies for new orders. Consequently, the overall profitability of the IoT supply chain increases by more than 30%. Heating and lighting emissions in the storage process and direct emissions in transportation per functional unit (one unit of a Li-ion cell module) are reduced by 60%–70% under middle- and low-demand scenarios, and by at least 50% under high-demand scenario. However, the increasing use and higher loading rates of heavy trucks will weaken the advantages of IoT. Moreover, IoT products occupies a 10% lower market share compared to conventional ones under the same pricing strategy but achieves similar market share under the same value-added strategy. Show less
Zhang, C.; Hu, M.; Meide, M. van der; Di Maio, F.; Yang, X.; Gao, X.; ... ; Li, C. 2023
The rare earth magnet market experiences serious turmoil: prices fluctuate heavily while the demand is growing exponentially driven by wind turbines and electric vehicles. Recycling helps to reduce... Show moreThe rare earth magnet market experiences serious turmoil: prices fluctuate heavily while the demand is growing exponentially driven by wind turbines and electric vehicles. Recycling helps to reduce the pressure on rare earth mining, while presenting a solution for growing waste flows. While the development of recycling technologies is ongoing, we investigate the further development of short-loop recycling from small scale to industrial scale. This ex-ante LCA study combines input from expert technology forecasts, thermodynamic modelling, manufacturer data for equipment, and energy scenarios. Our approach systematically considers all mechanisms for performance changes when upscaling, from size scaling to decarbonizing electricity. The results show the effect of process design choices and the effect of end-of-life product inputs. Moreover, the assessment of multiple process improvements leads to an outlook of potential development pathways towards low-emission magnet recycling. Our systematic approach, which involves the active participation of technology developers, can be extended to support the upscaling of other emergent technologies. Show less
Alejandre, E.M.; Potts, S.G.; Guinée, J.B.; Bodegom, P. M. van 2022
This study presents the first approach to characterise relative land use impacts on pollinator abundance for life cycle assessment (LCA). Pollinators make an essential contribution to global crop... Show moreThis study presents the first approach to characterise relative land use impacts on pollinator abundance for life cycle assessment (LCA). Pollinators make an essential contribution to global crop production and in recent years evidence of declines has raised concerns on how land use, among other factors, affects pollinators. Our novel method assesses land use impacts on pollinator abundance and proposes a new impact category that is compatible with the current framework of life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). While a systematic literature research showed the existence of multiple models that could assess pollinator abundance impacts, their parameterization is too complicated for applications in LCA. Therefore, a simplified method based on expert knowledge is presented. The practical application of the method is illustrated through the connection to, and characterisation of, relevant land use types derived from the widely used LCA database, ecoinvent. The illustrative characterisation factors demonstrate that key differences among land use types can be reflected through the proposed approach. Further development of robust characterisation factors through a larger sample of pollinator abundance estimates, and improvements to the model, such as considerations of spatial differentiation, will contribute to the identification of impacts of agricultural practices in LCA studies, helping prevent further pollinator abundance decline. Show less
Zhang, C.; Hu, M.; Laclau, B.; Garnesson, T.; Yang, X.; Tukker, A. 2021
Buildings have become a major concern because of their high energy use and carbon emissions. Thus, a material-efficient prefabricated concrete element (PCE) system was developed to incorporate... Show moreBuildings have become a major concern because of their high energy use and carbon emissions. Thus, a material-efficient prefabricated concrete element (PCE) system was developed to incorporate construction and demolition waste as feedstock for residential building energy renovation by over-cladding the walls of old buildings. By conducting life cycle assessment and life cycle costing using the payback approach, this study aims to explore the life cycle performance of energy conservation, carbon mitigation, and cost reduction of the PCE system in three European member states: Spain, the Netherlands, and Sweden. The results show that the energy payback periods for Spain, the Netherlands, and Sweden were 20.45 years, 17.60 years, 19.95 years, respectively, and the carbon payback periods were 23.33 years, 16.78 years, and 8.58 years, respectively. However, the financial payback periods were less likely to be achieved within the building lifetime, revealing that only the Swedish case achieved a payback period within 100 years (83.59 years). Thus, circularity solutions were considered to shorten the PCE payback periods. Using secondary materials in PCE fabrication only slightly reduced the payback period. However, reusing the PCE considerably reduced the energy and carbon payback periods to less than 6 years and 11 years, respectively in all three cases. Regarding cost, reusing the PCE shortened the Swedish payback period to 29.30 years, while the Dutch and Spanish cases achieved investment payback at 42.97 years and 85.68 years, respectively. The results can be extrapolated to support the design of sustainable building elements for energy renovation in Europe. Show less
LCA is a well-known assessment tool that identifies and provides insights on the environmental impacts of products and services over their lifecycle. The guidance provided by the existing manuals... Show moreLCA is a well-known assessment tool that identifies and provides insights on the environmental impacts of products and services over their lifecycle. The guidance provided by the existing manuals typically applies to modelling and assessing environmental impacts ex-post, meaning that information is available from empirical experience after products have been commercially in use for extended periods of time. This information is not available if LCA is applied in an ex-ante manner before a technology is commercially deployed at scale. We identify the major challenges of applying LCA in an ex-ante manner and propose a route forward in dealing with these challenges that combines intuitions from other disciplinary fields. The first challenge is how to model consistent future foreground systems for the incumbent and new technology systems. Learning curves and scenario approaches are the way forward. The second challenge is how to model future background systems. Here a solution is to transform existing LCI databases towards future contexts, informed by the Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) that provide scenarios in line with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). Finally, uncertainty in exante LCA is of a different nature as in ex-post LCAs. The main difference with conventional LCA studies is the highly uncertain information for the future. To acknowledge this. considerate attention should be attributed to the discussion on these uncertainties, both in the design of the assessment and the data used. Responsive evaluation can play a supportive role here. This will increase the transparency and efficacy of the results because the relevant stakeholders and experts are involved. In this way technology designers and other stakeholders derive insights on the influence of design choices or contextual factors (that are important, but hard to influence) on the potential environmental impacts of their foreseen technology. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Show less
Othoniel, B.; Rugani, B.; Heijungs, R.; Beyer, M.; Machwitz, M.; Post, P. 2019
