Multivariate environmental and social life cycle assessment of circular recycled-plastic voided slabs for data-driven sustainable construction

Charting the Future of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment: A Special Issue

Addressing the social life cycle inventory analysis data gap: Insights from a case study of cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Chapter 11 - Biodiesel plants: real-world sustainability analysis using environmental and social life cycle assessment

Environmental and social life cycle assessment of bamboo bicycle frames made in Ghana

Social and Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (SELCA) is an analytical tool for profiling and evaluating the interaction between the social and technological systems within the life cycle of given service. Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (ELCA) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) are undertaken with their own objectives using independent methodologies. Integrating the outcomes of the two assessments provides more comprehensive and insightful descriptions of the potential impacts of a life cycle, including the key social factors through which the life cycle is sustained and modified. The SELCA approach is outlined using the examples of two fuel cycles of coal and waste in energy-generation. There are some methodological issues in combining ELCA and SLCA which we highlight in order to encourage further work on the integration of environmental and social processes in LCA.

The evolution and management of the Built Environment are critical components of today’s societal challenges. The construction sector, therefore, plays a vital role in meeting the global demand for (affordable) housing materials and techniques that minimize both environmental and social impacts. This study explores the potential of traditional composite wood-clay shear wall systems, known in the Americas as bahareque , as a viable alternative to conventional block masonry construction. For this, a comparative evaluation between the two types of walls was conducted using environmental Life Cycle Assessments (e-LCA). Social Life Cycle Assessments (s-LCA) and an ethnographic method were applied to explore bahareque constructions sustainability beyond environmental aspects. This study builds upon a minimum house model, located in the Andean Region of Ecuador (i.e., 83 m 2 , designed for 3 occupants with 7 functional areas) over its entire lifecycle. The findings indicate that the carbon footprint of the minimum house (measured as the Global Warming Potential, GWP100) can be reduced by 30-40% when using bahareque . For the s-LCA residents show uniformly positive outcomes, while construction workers had more heterogeneous results (e.g., high satisfaction and a high percentage of minimum wage access offset by limited association rights and formal contracts). The study also reports how cultural mechanisms—community structure, family, and cooperative labour—help to preserve bahareque construction technical knowledge. Subsequent investigations are required to address residual environmental and social impacts. Overall, these insights aim to foster better-informed decision-making in environmental, social and cultural terms for the Built Environment .

A proposal metric for sustainability evaluations of wastewater treatment systems (SEWATS)

Comparative environmental and economic life cycle assessment of phytoremediation of dredged sediment using Arundo Donax, integrated with biomass to bioenergy valorization chain

A case study has been conducted on the reduction of N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) solvent waste in the manufacture of polyimide and polybenzoxazole precursors. The evaluation includes the environmental and economic life cycle assessment of solvent recovery and solvent substitution strategies. A two-step distillation process proved effective in recovering 95 % of the NMP at a purity of 99.97 % from an aqueous waste stream comprised 17 % NMP, 0.5 % hydroxyethyl methacrylate, 0.5 % trifluoroacetic acid, and 0.5 % hydrochloric acid. Yearly operating costs were reduced by 83 %, with the greatest impact on the reduction in virgin NMP purchase and hazardous waste disposal cost. Even if a capital acquisition was needed, the recovery option would still result in a net present value at 10 years of 3.12 MM $US. The environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) showed that a 44 % reduction of total emissions is possible with the solvent recovery process, impacting the virgin NMP and hazardous waste disposal life cycle emissions the most. The efficiency in the reduction in life cycle emissions is limited by the thermodynamics of the system, in particular the large composition of water in the waste stream which requires significant energy to distill, thus generating significant life cycle emissions. Solvent substitutes dimethyl sulfoxide and sulfolane reduce life cycle emissions by 44 and 47 %, respectively, when they replace NMP in the process, even without a recovery operation, due to their greener manufacturing profile. Although, when the recovery systems for the solvent substitutes are incorporated into the design, no further reductions in the environmental impact are seen. This demonstrates the need for a complete analysis of all the aspects of a greener design (including the recovery step), since the thermodynamic characteristics of the solvents are important when performing an LCA. Water reuse was also considered for the overall process, but not recommended due to the cost of recovering it from the waste stream to ultrapure water standards.

Sustainable production and consumption patterns require a change in approach at the early conceptual stages, i.e., when planning and designing products and services. This article presents an example of sustainable kitchen design aimed at the needs of seniors and people with physical disabilities, which takes into account social, economic, and environmental aspects. The interdisciplinary project team used a variety of traditional design methods such as the identification of requirements using QFD (Quality Function Deployment) and FMEA (Failure Mode Effects Analysis), the development and verification of the technical concepts of the designed objects and their use, the development of construction and technological documentation, assembly drawings of the product architecture and its parts, function cost analysis, virtual and real prototyping, and tools based on the concept of a life cycle such as environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC). The analysis of the design solutions from the point of view of several criteria and several life cycle stages shows the complexity of the decision-making process and the difficulties in selecting a clearly favourable solution. Environmentally preferred materials may be difficult for users to accept due to their costs. On the other hand, materials that have a high environmental impact at the production stage may show great potential for final disposal.

It is necessary to assess a product's sustainability from both environmental and social perspectives. However, combined environmental and social performance assessments have not been given enough attention. This paper presents a combined Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (E-LCA) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) of an industrial LED luminaire through its life cycle. The LCA screening studies were conducted in line with ISO 14044 and United Nations Guidelines for E-LCA and S-LCA with Ecoinvent and PSILCA databases. The study analysed the key potential risks as well as the interrelation between E-LCA and S-LCA results, in which the production of LED driver, LED panel, and electricity consumption were identified as the hotspot processes to both environmental and social impacts. Four social issues were identified, namely ‘association and bargaining rights’, ‘sanitation coverage’, ‘public sector corruption’ and ‘pollution’. LED driver and panels are responsible for 78% and 20% of the environmental impacts respectively in the production phase. Electricity accounts for an average of 51% of environmental impacts. The process also made the key contribution to the ‘social responsibility along the supply chain’ (52%), ‘industrial water depletion’ (84%) and ‘contribution to environmental load’ (63%) risks. Meanwhile, in the category ‘contribution to economic development’, 18% positive social impacts were identified. Based on the results obtained, recommendations were derived for the development of sustainable LED lighting products and services with a trade-off between the environmental impact and the socio-economic benefits. According to the literature review, this research is the first attempt to assess a combined environmental and social performance in industrial LED lighting products and provides a valuable contribution to knowledge for future research in this area.

E10 is a blend of 10% bioethanol and 90% gasoline that can be used in the engines of most cars without causing damage. Currently for the E10 blend, Jamaica imports gasoline from Trinidad & Tobago and bioethanol from Brazil because the bioethanol production in Jamaica is at an early stage. However, the country has great potential for bioethanol production. In order to assess the environmental and economic feasibility of bioethanol in Jamaica, this paper presents an economic and environmental life cycle assessment for a case study in Jamaica in two different scenarios. The Baseline Scenario represents the use of E10 in the current conditions in which bioethanol comes from Brazil and gasoline from Trinidad & Tobago. Scenario I represents the use of E10 with bioethanol from Jamaica and gasoline from Trinidad & Tobago. The comparative environmental life cycle assessment revealed that the Baseline Scenario had better results than Scenario I in ten environmental categories. The economic assessment results in Scenario I were 7% higher than in the Baseline Scenario. Hence, the current context (Baseline Scenario) was identified as the scenario with the best economic performance. Therefore, the current situation in Jamaica (Baseline Scenario) scored better results than Scenario I from an environmental and an economical point of views. It is recommended to increase the bagasse cogeneration of Scenario I to lower the environmental impacts. To improve their productivity, it is necessary to improve the Jamaican sugar infrastructure by combining molasses and cane juice to produce bioethanol.

The improper disposal of PET bottle waste in Brazil jeopardizes the sustainability goals, impacting the social, economic, and environmental aspects. In order to tackle this issue, this study introduces a framework that was developed using a combination of environmental and social life cycle assessments (LCAs), along with a modified Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology. Nine disposal scenarios were evaluated in Bauru, Brazil, including various combinations of landfills, sorting cooperatives, and incineration. Environmental (Env-LCA) and social (S-LCA) assessments followed the ISO 14040 standards, with the S-LCA incorporating the UNEP/SETAC guidelines. Scenario 9 was identified as the most sustainable option from the evaluated scenarios, with 100% of the waste sent to sorting cooperatives, with modified collection schemes. Conversely, Scenario 1, with a high landfill percentage, proved to be the least sustainable.

Based on a case study in a Sri Lankan crepe rubber mill, this study performs a comprehensive sustainability assessment to uncover the underlying potential of improving the performance of the NR processing sector. This sustainability assessment consists of three steps: 1. quantification of mill`s resource use, economic loss, greenhouse gas emissions, and the impact on workers using material flow analysis (MFA), material flow cost accounting (MFCA), environmental life cycle assessment (ELCA), and social life cycle assessment (SLCA). 2. Selection and proposal of improvement options with the help of Pareto and What-if analyses, field interviews, and literature; and 3. Validation of the suggested improvement options via the re-execution of MFA, MFCA, LCA, and SLCA. With the support of this methodical hierarchy, the underlying economic, environmental, and social hotspots in the current manufacturing process can be identified, and moreover, the degree of improvement potential can also be assessed. Keywords: n atural rubber processing, material flow analysis (MFA), material flow cost accounting (MFCA), environmental life cycle assessment (ELCA), social life cycle assessment (SLCA)

The UK Water Industry currently generates approximately 800GWh pa of electrical energy from sewage sludge. Traditionally energy recovery from sewage sludge features Anaerobic Digestion (AD) with biogas utilisation in combined heat and power (CHP) systems. However, the industry is evolving and a number of developments that extract more energy from sludge are either being implemented or are nearing full scale demonstration. This study compared five technology configurations: 1 – conventional AD with CHP, 2 – Thermal Hydrolysis Process (THP) AD with CHP, 3 – THP AD with bio-methane grid injection, 4 – THP AD with CHP followed by drying of digested sludge for solid fuel production, 5 – THP AD followed by drying, pyrolysis of the digested sludge and use of the both the biogas and the pyrolysis gas in a CHP.The economic and environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) found that both the post AD drying options performed well but the option used to create a solid fuel to displace coal (configuration 4) was the most sustainable solution economically and environmentally, closely followed by the pyrolysis configuration (5). Application of THP improves the financial and environmental performance compared with conventional AD. Producing bio-methane for grid injection (configuration 3) is attractive financially but has the worst environmental impact of all the scenarios, suggesting that the current UK financial incentive policy for bio-methane is not driving best environmental practice. It is clear that new and improving processes and technologies are enabling significant opportunities for further energy recovery from sludge; LCA provides tools for determining the best overall options for particular situations and allows innovation resources and investment to be focused accordingly.