Environmental Regulations in Shipping: Interactions and Side Effects

Author(s):  
Sepideh Jafarzadeh ◽  
Harald Ellingsen

The shipping sector progressively faces stricter environmental regulations. Several technical and operational measures are available to ship owners and operators in order to comply with these regulations. While some measures are successful in reducing emissions of a pollutant, they may increase emissions of other pollutants. In addition, there may be interactions between regulations on environmental impacts on sea and air. In some other cases, despite the success of these measures in reducing environmental footprints of ships, the environmental problem may shift elsewhere in the life cycle. Therefore, there may be a trade-off between different environmental controls and, in a broader context, a trade-off between environmental impacts at a life stage and overall environmental goals. Although several studies focus on addressing individual regulations, few acknowledge such interactions. This study aims at highlighting the side effects of different measures to address environmental regulations.

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (12) ◽  
pp. 1320-1326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md Rakibul Alam ◽  
Kamal Hossain ◽  
Ali Azhar Butt ◽  
Tim Caudle ◽  
Carlos Bazan

Although pavement maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) techniques are usually examined in economic terms, there is a growing need to address their environmental footprints. The objective of this study is to assess the environmental impacts of M&R techniques. Life cycle assessment (LCA) can help in the decision-making process of selecting suitable maintenance techniques based on their environmental impacts. This study investigates: patching, rout & sealing, hot in-place recycling, and cold in-place recycling. Global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential, human health particulate, eutrophication potential, ozone depletion potential, and smog potential are estimated as environmental impacts for each maintenance activity. Materials, equipment use (for construction and M&R), and transportation were the main elements considered. A sensitivity test is performed to identify the significant factors for the LCA. The study concluded that GWP was the most important impact category. Rout & sealing and cold in-place recycling produced the lowest GWP emissions. Notably, pavement patching and hot in-place recycling showed significant detrimental environmental impacts.


2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Muga ◽  
Amlan Mukherjee ◽  
James Mihelcic

There is growing demand to develop methods that integrate environmental and economic assessment of more sustainable technologies incorporated into commercial and residential buildings. In this paper, we incorporate economic and energy use data obtained for a green roof operating in the Midwest U.S. at latitude 42.94N into an integrated approach to estimate and compare the economic and environmental impacts of an intensive (or extensive) green roof with a built-up roof. The life cycle stages included in the analysis were material acquisition life stage which including the transportation effects from material extraction through manufacturing to the finished products, and the use and maintenance life stage of the building. Environmental impact analysis indicates that green roof emits three times more environmental pollutants than built-up roofs in the material acquisition life stage. However, in the use and maintenance life stage, built-up roof emits three times more pollutants than a green roof. Overall, when emissions from both material acquisition life stage and use and maintenance life stage are combined, the built-up roof contributes almost 3 times more (or 46% more) environmental emissions than green roof over a 45-year building life span. Furthermore the overall energy use, specifically energy involved in the transportation from material extraction through to the finished product indicate that green roof uses 2.5 times less energy than a built-up roof. An Economic Input and Output life cycle assessment (EIO-LCA) was used to estimate the environmental impacts. The economic impact over an assumed 45-year building life was determined using life cycle costing, taking into account Net Present Value (NPV) calculations. Life cycle costing results indicate that green roof costs approximately 50% less to maintain over a 45 year-building life than a built-up roof. A Monte Carlo simulation is also performed to account for any variability in cost data. In addition, the paper presents a method to quantify the value incentive that a decision-maker has in adopting green technology. Results from the study indicate that when a green roof is compared to the Midwest regional NPV of a built-up roof, we find that the cost to maintain it ($35 per square foot) lies well below the average regional NPV of $59 per square foot of a built-up roof.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (19) ◽  
pp. 5324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Maga ◽  
Markus Hiebel ◽  
Venkat Aryan

In light of the debate on the circular economy, the EU strategy for plastics, and several national regulations, such as the German Packaging Act, polymeric foam materials as well as hybrid packaging (multilayered plastic) are now in focus. To understand the environmental impacts of various tray solutions for meat packaging, a comparative environmental assessment was conducted. As an environmental assessment method, a life cycle assessment (LCA) was applied following the ISO standards 14040/44. The nine packaging solutions investigated were: PS-based trays (extruded polystyrene and extruded polystyrene with five-layered structure containing ethylene vinyl alcohol), PET-based trays (recycled polyethylene terephthalate, with and without polyethylene layer, and amorphous polyethylene terephthalate), polypropylene (PP) and polylactic acid (PLA). The scope of the LCA study included the production of the tray and the end-of-life stage. The production of meat, the filling of the tray with meat and the tray sealing were not taken into account. The results show that the PS-based trays, especially the mono material solutions made of extruded polystyrene (XPS), show the lowest environmental impact across all 12 impact categories except for resource depletion. Multilayer products exhibit higher environmental impacts. The LCA also shows that the end-of-life stage has an important influence on the environmental performance of trays. However, the production of the trays dominates the overall results. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis illustrates that, even if higher recycling rates were realised in the future, XPS based solutions would still outperform the rest from an environmental perspective.


2021 ◽  
Vol 899 (1) ◽  
pp. 012040
Author(s):  
C J Grigoropoulos ◽  
L T Doulos ◽  
S C Zerefos ◽  
A Tsangrassoulis

Abstract Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) of lighting products is a methodology that analyses and evaluates environmental impacts throughout their total life cycle, from the extraction and processing of raw materials, design, construction, transportation, distribution, use, recycling and re-use of materials, and last their final disposal. According to the results of a large number of LCIAs, lighting products have a substantial environmental impact in multiple areas, as for example in primary energy, toxicological effects, the effect on global warming, the level of environmental acidification, etc. All of those impacts could result in more efficient products by enhancing the product design process (using Ecodesign). At the initial design stage of lighting products, the manufacturer should also take into consideration circular economy aspects at the End of Life stage (EoL) such as repair, reuse, remanufacturing, retrofitting, recycling, and upcycling and not only the energy savings from the use stage or the selection of raw materials. The scope of this paper is to collect and present an overview of all environmental impacts of LCIA analyses focusing at EoL stage of lighting products. Those impacts could be used as data input into a future model that determines which lighting products are more environmentally friendly.


Author(s):  
Martina Caruso ◽  
Rui Pinho ◽  
Federica Bianchi ◽  
Francesco Cavalieri ◽  
Maria Teresa Lemmo

AbstractA life cycle framework for a new integrated classification system for buildings and the identification of renovation strategies that lead to an optimal balance between reduction of seismic vulnerability and increase of energy efficiency, considering both economic losses and environmental impacts, is discussed through a parametric application to an exemplificative case-study building. Such framework accounts for the economic and environmental contributions of initial construction, operational energy consumption, earthquake-induced damage repair activities, retrofitting interventions, and demolition. One-off and annual monetary expenses and environmental impacts through the building life cycle are suggested as meaningful performance metrics to develop an integrated classification system for buildings and to identify the optimal renovation strategy leading to a combined reduction of economic and environmental impacts, depending on the climatic conditions and the seismic hazard at the site of interest. The illustrative application of the framework to an existing school building is then carried out, investigating alternative retrofitting solutions, including either sole structural retrofitting options or sole energy refurbishments, as well as integrated strategies that target both objectives, with a view to demonstrate its practicality and to explore its ensuing results. The influence of seismic hazard and climatic conditions is quantitatively investigated, by assuming the building to be located into different geographic locations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1333-1342
Author(s):  
Núria Boix Rodríguez ◽  
Marco Marconi ◽  
Claudio Favi ◽  
Giovanni Formentini

AbstractFace masks are currently considered essential devices that people must wear today and in the near future, until the COVID-19 pandemic will be completely defeated through specific medicines and vaccines. Such devices are generally made of thermoplastic polymers, as polypropylene and polyethylene and are single use products. Even if in this period the sanitary emergency must have the maximum priority, the world society should not completely forget the environmental problem that are causing more and more obvious climate changes with correlated damages to ecosystems and human health. Despite the well-known correlation among anti-COVID protective equipment (or more generally medical devices) and environmental issues, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and eco-design-based studies in this field is very scarce. The present study aims to derive the most important environmental criticalities of such products, by using LCA and product circularity indicators of five different common masks. The final aim is to provide eco-design guidelines, useful to design new face masks by preventing negative impact on the environment.


Author(s):  
Yuma Sasaki ◽  
Takahiro Orikasa ◽  
Nobutaka Nakamura ◽  
Kiyotada Hayashi ◽  
Yoshihito Yasaka ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document