Early-stage materials selection based on embodied energy and carbon footprint

Abstract

Relevant properties and appropriate methodology should be defined to support engineers during the material selection process. Environmental requirements are generally included in projects and processes that are already defined instead of inserting environmental requirements in conceptual early design stage. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the most recognized methodology for the evaluation of environmental burdens, which is related to a product or a service during all the life cycle stages, from the extraction of raw materials to the end of life. Nevertheless, a rigorous quantitative assessment of all burdens is a time-consuming task and requires deep skills of those involved, leading many companies to abandon this approach. In this study, the embodied energy and carbon footprint will be used for assessing the environmental burden, not for replacing a complete LCA, but for providing fast and reliable information to those involved in the design of a new product. The present work applies data published in the literature to the validation of the proposed materials selection procedure. The results showed that it is possible to use a reliable software with metrics of embodied energy and carbon footprint to pre-assess the environmental burden in the early stages of development and materials selection.