scholarly journals LCA as a tool for environmental management: a life cycle inventory case study from the Greek market

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-106

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a technique for holistic environmental assessments of products and processes. The unique feature of this methodology is its focus on the entire life cycle of a product, from raw material extraction to final disposition. In order to assess the role of LCA in environmental management, a comprehensive overview of its theoretical background (including recent aspects of its principles and framework) is presented in this paper. From this overview it is obvious that, in spite of its drawbacks, LCA is recognized as a valuable methodology in environmental management, capable of analysing and assessing in a scientifical way the environmental consequences of various products and activities. Complementary to this analysis, a life cycle inventory (LCI) case study from the Greek market is also presented. In this LCI application, all the methodological issues and guidelines are taken into consideration in order to calculate the resource requirements and the environmental loadings of ten alternative packaging products while some of them are presented by each life cycle stage. The results of this LCI case study cover a long list of inflows and outflows. Notwithstanding that these results are difficult to interpret, they are very detailed and not affected by uncertainties introduced by impact assessment.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4487
Author(s):  
Maghsoud Amiri ◽  
Mohammad Hashemi-Tabatabaei ◽  
Mohammad Ghahremanloo ◽  
Mehdi Keshavarz-Ghorabaee ◽  
Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas ◽  
...  

Evaluating the life cycle of buildings is a valuable tool for assessing sustainability and analyzing environmental consequences throughout the construction operations of buildings. In this study, in order to determine the importance of building life cycle evaluation indicators, a new combination method was used based on a quantitative-qualitative method (QQM) and a simplified best-worst method (SBWM). The SBWM method was used because it simplifies BWM calculations and does not require solving complex mathematical models. Reducing the time required to perform calculations and eliminating the need for complicated computer software are among the advantages of the proposed method. The QQM method has also been used due to its ability to evaluate quantitative and qualitative criteria simultaneously. The feasibility and applicability of the SBWM were examined using three numerical examples and a case study, and the results were evaluated. The results of the case study showed that the criteria of the estimated cost, comfort level, and basic floor area were, in order, the most important criteria among the others. The results of the numerical examples and the case study showed that the proposed method had a lower total deviation (TD) compared to the basic BWM. Sensitivity analysis results also confirmed that the proposed approach has a high degree of robustness for ranking and weighting criteria.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 100060
Author(s):  
Sheldon A. Blaauw ◽  
James W. Maina ◽  
Louis J. Grobler

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shamim Ahmad ◽  
Ismail Sahid ◽  
Vijaya Subramaniam ◽  
Halimah Muhamad ◽  
Anis Mokhtar

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Daniel Rivera Baena ◽  
Maria Valentina Clavijo Mesa ◽  
Carmen Elena Patino Rodriguez ◽  
Fernando Jesus Guevara Carazas

PurposeThis paper aims to determine the stage of the life cycle where the trucks of a waste collection fleet from a Colombian city are located through a reliability approach. The reliability analysis and the evaluation of curve of operational costs allow to know the moment in which it is necessary to make decisions regarding an asset, its maintenance or possible replacement.Design/methodology/approachFor a dataset presented as maintenance work orders, the time to failures (TTFs) for each vehicle in the fleet were calculated. Then, a probability density function for those TTFs was fitted to locate each vehicle in a region of the bathtub curve and to calculate the reliability of the whole fleet. A general functional analysis was also developed to understand the function of the vehicles.FindingsIt was possible to determine that the largest proportion of the fleet was in the final stage of the life cycle, in this sense, the entire fleet represent critical assets which in most of cases could be worth replacement or overhaul.Originality/valueIn this study, an address is exposed for the identification of critical equipment by reliability and statistical analysis. This analysis is also integrated with the maintenance management process. This is a broadly interested topic since it allows to support the maintenance and operational decision-making process, indicating the focus of resource allocation all over the entire asset life cycle.


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