Abstract
This research project aims to evaluate the potential reduction of environmental impacts from circular economy strategies on an industrial sector at a regional scale with a case study on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in Quebec's steel industry and its value chain. To do so, an integrated model has been created based on the matrix approach, building on material flow analysis (MFA) tracking flows and stocks and on life cycle assessment (LCA) to compute direct (from the activity, e.g., combustion process) and indirect (from the supply chain, e.g., production of raw material inside or outside of region) emissions. This theoretical model is designed to be applied to any emissions or environmental impacts from a specific sector in a given region and enable to model the effects of circularity strategies to both flows and related environmental impacts. The overall mitigation potential of individual or combined circular economy strategies on a specific sector could thus be evaluated across its entire value chain. In the case study, a set of the most promising circular strategies applicable in the Quebec context were identified, and the GHG reduction potential within and outside the province is calculated and compared with actual emissions. Six circular strategies were analyzed acting at three different levers, namely, GHG/material (increase iron recycling rate, switch to hydrogen-based reduction production), material/product (reduce weight of vehicle, limit over-specification in building construction), and product/service (increase buildings and cars lifetime, increase car-sharing), and therefore impact rather direct or indirect emissions on different stages of the steel life cycle. Combining these six strategies into a consolidated scenario shows that a circular-driven economy allows to cut down GHG emissions of the cradle-to-gate steel industry value chain by −55%, i.e., 1.67 Mt CO2e. Taking into account use phase of steel, overall reductions are estimated at −6.03 Mt CO2e, i.e., −30% of the whole life cycle.
Highlights
Production of anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas (GHG) has increased drastically in recent decades, threatening the global balance on a long-term basis (Pecl et al, 2017; IPCC, 2018)
Our study expanded the scope of the analysis to account for the whole value chain of a material and provided a general framework and decision tree to guide a practitioner in applying it in any context to assess mitigation potential of circular economy strategies for any material in any region
The model developed by this research work enables to put into perspective potential impacts from GHG emissions from activities across all stages of the value chain of a material scaled at the level of a territory
Summary
Production of anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas (GHG) has increased drastically in recent decades, threatening the global balance on a long-term basis (Pecl et al, 2017; IPCC, 2018). In this context, a group of nations, including Canada, has signed an international agreement (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change., 2017) to mitigate the quantity of GHG release in the atmosphere and limiting temperature rise well below 2◦C in 2050 compared with 1990. Industrial GHG emissions have long been discarded and considered hard to reduce compared with the transport, building, or electricity sectors (Allwood et al, 2012). Understanding the economic and environmental implications of circular economy will require the development of new tools to facilitate the modeling of environmental implications of circular economy actions at a regional scale
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