scholarly journals A Predictive Environmental Assessment Method for Construction Operations: Application to a Northeast China Case Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3868 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kailun Feng ◽  
Weizhuo Lu ◽  
Thomas Olofsson ◽  
Shiwei Chen ◽  
Hui Yan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Environmental Assessment ◽  
Northeast China ◽  
Dynamic Environments ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Process Information ◽  
Construction Operations ◽  
Impact Reduction

Construction accounts for a considerable number of environmental impacts, especially in countries with rapid urbanization. A predictive environmental assessment method enables a comparison of alternatives in construction operations to mitigate these environmental impacts. Process-based life cycle assessment (pLCA), which is the most widely applied environmental assessment method, requires lots of detailed process information to evaluate. However, a construction project usually operates in uncertain and dynamic project environments, and capturing such process information represents a critical challenge for pLCA. Discrete event simulation (DES) provides an opportunity to include uncertainty and capture the dynamic environments of construction operations. This study proposes a predictive assessment method that integrates DES and pLCA (DES-pLCA) to evaluate the environmental impact of on-site construction operations and supply chains. The DES feeds pLCA with process information that considers the uncertain and dynamic environments of construction, while pLCA guides the comprehensive procedure of environmental assessment. A DES-pLCA prototype was developed and implemented in a case study of an 18-storey building in Northeast China. The results showed that the biggest impact variations on the global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), eutrophication (EP), photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP), abiotic depletion potential (ADP), and human toxicity potential (HTP) were 5.1%, 4.1%, 4.1%, 4.7%, 0.3%, and 5.9%, respectively, due to uncertain and dynamic factors. Based on the proposed method, an average impact reduction can be achieved for these six indictors of 2.5%, 21.7%, 8.2%, 4.8%, 32.5%, and 0.9%, respectively. The method also revealed that the material wastage rate of formwork installation was the most crucial managing factor that influences global warming performance. The method can support contractors in the development and management of environmentally friendly construction operations that consider the effects of uncertainty and dynamics.

scholarly journals Carbon Footprint Assessment of Construction Waste Packaging Using the Package-to-Product Indicator

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 10094
Author(s):  
Jan Pešta ◽  
Markéta Šerešová ◽  
Vladimír Kočí
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Environmental Assessment ◽  
Energy Recovery ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Environmental Footprint ◽  
Product Environmental Footprint ◽  
Material Recovery ◽  
Construction Products ◽  
Tile System ◽  
The Impact

The environmental impacts of buildings are based on the construction products, which together with their packaging can be assessed as one product system. To reduce the environmental impacts of buildings, the products and their packaging need to be optimised and analysed using environmental assessment. The purpose of this study is to assess the packaging related to the product according to the Life Cycle Assessment method. The environmental assessment was performed using the Product Environmental Footprint methodology, version 3.0. To compare the primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging, the results of the climate change indicator were used as a base to calculate the Package-to-Product (PtP) indicator. Among the considered scenarios to handle the waste packaging (landfilling scenario, material recovery scenario, energy recovery scenario, and the mixed scenario), the material recovery scenario is the most preferable and, for most of the packaging materials, the scenario with the lowest impact. Following the PtP result, the secondary packaging in the roof tile system has a significant share of the impact of the whole system (16% for the energy recovery scenario). Moreover, the results confirm the PtP indicator as the appropriate indicator to analyse the environmental impacts of construction products.

scholarly journals Should biogenic carbon be analysed separately in the calculation of the GWP indicator?

2021 ◽  
Vol 2042 (1) ◽  
pp. 012168
Author(s):  
Endrit Hoxha ◽  
Alexander Passer
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Relative Difference ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Time Dependent ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Fossil Energy ◽  
Biogenic Carbon ◽  
Static Approach

Abstract The life cycle assessment method is widely accepted for calculating the environmental impacts of buildings. However, the approaches used to translate greenhouse gas emissions to a global warming potential score are largely criticised. By following a static approach (known as 0/0) and a time-dependent approach (known as dynamic) in this paper, we assessed the environmental impacts of two buildings with structures made of reinforced concrete and wood, respectively. The relative difference between the results calculated with the 0/0 approach and the time-dependent approach were larger for the building with the wooden structure. A more detailed analysis identified biogenic carbon as the source that was most responsible for this difference in results. For this reason, biogenic carbon should be treated separately and must be calculated with the time-dependent approach. Meanwhile, the impacts from fossil energy sources should be calculated with the 0/0 approach.

scholarly journals Exergy-Based Life Cycle Assessment of Buildings: Case Studies

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 11682
Author(s):  
Martin Nwodo ◽  
Chimay Anumba
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Resource Use ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Comparison Of Results ◽  
Sustainability Assessments

The relevance of exergy to the life cycle assessment (LCA) of buildings has been studied regarding its potential to solve certain challenges in LCA, such as the characterization and valuation, accuracy of resource use, and interpretation and comparison of results. However, this potential has not been properly investigated using case studies. This study develops an exergy-based LCA method and applies it to three case-study buildings to explore its benefits. The results provide evidence that the theoretical benefits of exergy-based LCA as against a conventional LCA can be achieved. These include characterization and valuation benefits, accuracy, and enabling the comparison of environmental impacts. With the results of the exergy-based LCA method in standard metrics, there is now a mechanism for the competitive benchmarking of building sustainability assessments. It is concluded that the exergy-based life cycle assessment method has the potential to solve the characterization and valuation problems in the conventional life-cycle assessment of buildings, with local and global significance.

Case Study 1: ChinaBenefiting from Global Warming: Agricultural Production in Northeast China

IDS Bulletin ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 15-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erda Lin ◽  
Xiu Yang ◽  
Shiming Ma ◽  
Hui Ju ◽  
Liping Guo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Northeast China

scholarly journals A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Meat Trays Made of Various Packaging Materials

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (19) ◽  
pp. 5324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Maga ◽  
Markus Hiebel ◽  
Venkat Aryan
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Polyethylene Terephthalate ◽  
Environmental Assessment ◽  
Life Stage ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Ethylene Vinyl Alcohol

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.

Epistemic and Methodological Challenges of Dynamic Environmental Assessment: A Case-Study with Energy Production from Solar Cells

2013 ◽  
Vol 572 ◽  
pp. 535-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertrand Laratte ◽  
Bertrand Guillaume
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Solar Cells ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Environmental Assessment ◽  
Global Warming Potential ◽  
Energy Production ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Rebound Effect ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Evolution Of Technology

During the last decades, life cycle assessment (LCA) has been one of the most common approaches for environmental impact assessment. This methodology has become more and more complex in its representation of the real environmental impacts of products. However, it does not take into account temporal and cumulative aspects, and therefore appear not so suitable to observe potential rebound effect of new technologies. In this paper, we explore the limits of static LCA and understand how some dynamic LCA can be interpreted, by comparing the results of two environmental impacts assessments of energy production from solar cells. The global warming potential (GWP) of different technologies was accounted from the last 50 years. We show with this example how any temporal evolution of technology matters for environmental assessment (e.g. the global warming potential). Turning then to the future, we offer scenarios to see the evolution of greenhouse effect in long term regarding different mixes of technologies. This example opens new horizons for future research in the field of temporal LCA and its applications.

Environmental analysis of chemicals and energy consumption in water treatment plants: case study of Oslo, Norway

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Venkatesh ◽  
Helge Brattebø
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Water Treatment ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Water Treatment Plants ◽  
Environmental Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Abiotic Depletion

This paper studies the trend in the consumption of energy and chemicals and the associated environmental impacts, for water treatment plants (WTPs) in Oslo, over the years between 2000 and 2009. The Norwegian Drinking Water Regulations stipulate that supplied water should comply with over 50 quality criteria. Abiding by the regulations and improving the water quality has its costs – economically and environmentally. Quality improvement entails, inter alia, the consumption of more chemicals, both in terms of quantity and variety, and a rise in energy consumption. In order to determine the environmental impacts of the consumption of chemicals and energy, an environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) was carried out. It was observed that the impacts of chemicals have increased dramatically after 2007, courtesy of a process upgrading at one of the WTPs. Except in the years 2004 and 2007, the impacts attributable to chemicals consumption have exceeded those due to energy consumption. Global warming is the key impact in both cases, though in the case of energy consumption, abiotic depletion and acidification are also significant.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document