ECOCOST: A Software Tool That Makes Life Cycle Assessment Evaluations Available for the Business Decision Makers

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Levizzari ◽  
Massimo Debenedetti ◽  
Eugenia Accusani
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Software Tool ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Business Decision

scholarly journals From Buildings’ End of Life to Aggregate Recycling under a Circular Economic Perspective: A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment Case Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 9625
Author(s):  
Ambroise Lachat ◽  
Konstantinos Mantalovas ◽  
Tiffany Desbois ◽  
Oumaya Yazoghli-Marzouk ◽  
Anne-Sophie Colas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Open Loop ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Construction And Demolition Waste ◽  
Recycled Aggregates ◽  
Demolition Waste

The demolition of buildings, apart from being energy intensive and disruptive, inevitably produces construction and demolition waste (C&Dw). Unfortunately, even today, the majority of this waste ends up underexploited and not considered as valuable resources to be re-circulated into a closed/open loop process under the umbrella of circular economy (CE). Considering the amount of virgin aggregates needed in civil engineering applications, C&Dw can act as sustainable catalyst towards the preservation of natural resources and the shift towards a CE. This study completes current research by presenting a life cycle inventory compilation and life cycle assessment case study of two buildings in France. The quantification of the end-of-life environmental impacts of the two buildings and subsequently the environmental impacts of recycled aggregates production from C&Dw was realized using the framework of life cycle assessment (LCA). The results indicate that the transport of waste, its treatment, and especially asbestos’ treatment are the most impactful phases. For example, in the case study of the first building, transport and treatment of waste reached 35% of the total impact for global warming. Careful, proactive, and strategic treatment, geolocation, and transport planning is recommended for the involved stakeholders and decision makers in order to ensure minimal sustainability implications during the implementation of CE approaches for C&Dw.

A CASE STUDY IN PARTICIPATORY ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS ASSESSMENT WITH THE USE OF MULTIMEDIA MATERIALS AND QUANTITATIVE LCA

2007 ◽  
Vol 09 (04) ◽  
pp. 399-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. SINCLAIR ◽  
S. COWELL ◽  
R. LÖFSTEDT ◽  
R. CLIFT
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
Environmental Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Systems ◽  
Structuring Knowledge

While participation in environmental decision-making is widely recognised and valued in democratic countries as beneficial, its format and scope have not always been the source of agreement. The use of environmental systems assessment (ESA) offers the opportunity for structuring knowledge and decision-making systematically and appropriately to decision makers' concerns, to enable lay publics to participate in development of policy and implementation in public sector initiatives. In order to perform participatory ESA, effective means of involving lay people are required. This paper describes the development and testing of an innovative interactive multimedia package (WOMBLE), written for non-experts to enable them to use the expert tool WISARD, a quantitative life cycle assessment package, to enable involvement in developing and assessing options for management of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW). It was shown that this combination of tools can reduce the time needed to achieve effective communication, learning and active engagement.

scholarly journals Exploring the current challenges and emerging approaches in whole building life cycle assessment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haibo Feng ◽  
Kasun KN Hewage ◽  
Rehan Sadiq
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Structure Complexity ◽  
Building Life Cycle ◽  
Significant Attention ◽  
Critical Literature ◽  
Goal And Scope ◽  
Goal And Scope Definition

The environmental impacts of building stock has received significant attention as buildings release one third of total greenhouse gas emissions. Whole-building life cycle assessment (WBLCA) has become a trend to address this limitation by ensuring best environmental performance of a building However, the current WBLCA development faces many challenges which makes it hard to create reliable and comparable results. The study aims to conduct a critical literature review to summarize the current challenges on WBLCA applications, and the emerging approaches that might address these challenges. Three main challenges are listed: variances on goal and scope definition, building structure complexity, and varieties on LCA database and methods. Emerging approaches are also presented to address these challenges including integration of BIM into WBLCA and EPD applications in impact assessments. Findings of this study could support researchers and decision makers with the most popular approaches to conduct WBLCA and achieve reliable outputs.

scholarly journals Social Life Cycle Assessment of Brine Treatment in the Process Industry: A Consequential Approach Case Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (21) ◽  
pp. 5945 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgios Archimidis Tsalidis ◽  
Gijsbert Korevaar
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Economic Assessment ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Social Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
System Boundaries

Social life cycle assessment (SLCA) was developed to complement the environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) and economic assessment. Contrary to LCA, SLCA is not yet standardized, and the consequential approach is little discussed in literature. This study aims to perform a consequential SLCA and investigate the applicability of the method in industrial decision making. The aforementioned assessment is done within the Zero Brine project, which works on zero liquid discharge technology for water, salt, and magnesium recovery from brine effluents. The developed SLCA systems are gate-to-gate, and the analysis is performed at two levels: Hotspot and site-specific. The system boundaries consist of a demineralized water (DW) production company, a chlor–alkali company, an electricity provider, a magnesium distributor in the Netherlands, and a Russian mining company. The latter exists only in the boundaries before the change due to the Zero Brine project, because recovered magnesium is expected to replace the Russian magnesium imported in the Netherlands. Within the system boundaries, the stakeholders contributing the most are the DW and the magnesium distributor companies. The former produces the brine and thus recovers the magnesium and salt. The latter is the exclusive distributor of Russian magnesium in the Netherlands. Overall, we find that the recovered magnesium results in improving social performance mainly in “Freedom of association and collective bargaining”, “Fair salary”, and “Health and Safety” due to decreasing the dependency of the Netherlands on Russia, while increasing operation in a country with much stronger environmental regulation and corporate commitment to sustainability issues. Modelling with SLCA may not result in the expected societal benefits, as the Russian community and workers may not benefit due to the large geographical boundaries of the system under study. Nevertheless, the application of the consequential approach can be considered suitable, yet complicated, for offering decision makers adequate social information. We recommend that decision makers in the DW company invest in magnesium recovery and that decision makers in the magnesium distributor company distribute the recovered magnesium.

scholarly journals A Software Tool for a Stochastic Life Cycle Assessment and Costing of Buildings’ Energy Efficiency Measures

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7975
Author(s):  
Edoardo Baldoni ◽  
Silvia Coderoni ◽  
Elisa Di Giuseppe ◽  
Marco D’Orazio ◽  
Roberto Esposti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Software Tool ◽  
Investment Projects ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Efficiency Measures ◽  
Support Decision Making

This article presents a novel software tool for the assessments of life-cycle environmental impacts and costs, which is aimed to support decision-making in the design phase of retrofit interventions in the building sector. By combining Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) calculations and functionalities, this tool allows evaluating the long-term trade-offs between economic and environmental performance of investment projects in energy efficiency for buildings, while accounting for uncertainties in input parameters and economic scenarios. A major novelty of the software tool is the stochastic nature of both the LCC and LCA dimensions. The LCA is implemented with Monte-Carlo methods, while the LCC accounts for the probabilistic interdependence of macroeconomic variables over time. The software also includes advanced specific tools for parametrization and sensitivity analysis. Exemplary applications are presented in order to illustrate the novelty and the functionalities of the software tool.

scholarly journals A Multi-Criteria Evaluation Method of Product-Level Circularity Strategies

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 5129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yohannes A. Alamerew ◽  
Marianna Lena Kambanou ◽  
Tomohiko Sakao ◽  
Daniel Brissaud
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Evaluation Method ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Business Decision ◽  
Business Outcomes ◽  
Product Level ◽  
Multi Criteria Evaluation ◽  
Life Cycle Perspective ◽  
Need To Evaluate

The circular economy (CE) can drive sustainability. For companies to select and implement circularity strategies, they need to evaluate and compare the performance of these strategies both in terms of progress towards CE but also based on their feasibility and business outcomes. However, evaluation methods for circularity strategies at the product level are lacking. Therefore, this research proposes a multi-criteria evaluation method of circularity strategies at the product level which can be used by business decision-makers to evaluate and compare the initial business of the company, transformative and future circularity strategies. This multi-criteria evaluation method aims to assist business decision-makers to identify a preferred strategy by linking together a wide variety of criteria, i.e., environmental, economic, social, legislative, technical, and business, as well as by proposing relevant indicators that take into consideration, where possible, the life cycle perspective. It also allows for flexibility so that criteria, sub-criteria, and weighing factors can be altered by the business decision-makers to fit the needs of their specific case or product. Two illustrative examples based on case companies are presented to verify and illustrate the proposed method.

scholarly journals Application of Life Cycle Assessment to Lithium Ion Batteries in the Automotive Sector

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 4628
Author(s):  
Rosario Tolomeo ◽  
Giovanni De Feo ◽  
Renata Adami ◽  
Libero Sesti Osséo
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Lithium Ion Batteries ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Lithium Ion ◽  
Software Tool ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Automotive Sector ◽  
Transportation Sector

This study is a critical review of the application of life cycle assessment (LCA) to lithium ion batteries in the automotive sector. The aim of this study is to identify the crucial points of the analysis and the results achieved until now in this field. In the first part of the study, a selection of papers is reviewed. In the second part of the study, a methodological approach to LCA is adopted to make clear the strengths and weaknesses of this analysis method. The lack of primary data is a crucial concern. Even if the cradle-to-grave approach is the most chosen system boundary, further scientific contribution to the life cycle inventory phase is necessary. It is likely that the more the electric vehicle becomes widespread, the more data will be accessible. Many authors have not specified the chemistry of the used batteries (5% of the studies), the software tool used (30%) or the functional unit used (17%) and, consequently, their obtained results can be questionable. However, even with the aforementioned limitations, the performed review allows us to point out the potential of electric vehicles and lithium ion batteries to reduce the overall contribution of the transportation sector to GHG emissions.

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