Organizational life cycle assessment: A case study in the fashion industry small and medium enterprises

The environmental performance of mining operations: Comparison of alternative mining solutions in a life cycle perspective

The environmental sustainability of microalgae‐to‐biodiesel production systems was examined at open (outdoor) and closed (indoor, using artificial light and temperature control) raceway ponds in a Mediterranean climate (southern Greece). Spirulina platensis and Nannochloropsis sp. species were considered, with the latter having a slightly better environmental performance. In terms of energy efficiency, large cumulative energy demand (CED) values were observed, while the energy return‐on‐investment (EROI) ratio was well below 3 in all cases, indicating that, with current technology, algae‐to‐biodiesel systems have not reached sustainability yet. The impact on land use was minimal, as nonarable land was used. Shallow‐pond cultivation systems are energy intensive, especially the closed ones, and therefore were found to be associated with high environmental footprints. In all cases, the main environmental hotspot was, by and large, the electricity consumption from the Greek fossil‐fuel depended energy mix (90%). Pellet, a process co‐product, largely reduced the total environmental footprint by up to ~47%, which highlights the importance of co‐product valorization. Closed systems exhibited significantly higher environmental footprints compared to open ones, due to the large energy inputs for artificial solar irradiation and for indoor temperature control. In all the cases examined, the microalgae‐to‐biodiesel production system's environmental footprint was higher than that of fossil diesel (i.e. petrodiesel), indicating that ample room exists to improve their environmental performance. A sensitivity analysis revealed that the introduction of renewable energy solely to cover for electricity needs substantially improves environmental sustainability and could render microalgae‐to‐biodiesel systems an environmentally friendlier solution than petrodiesel. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

The world's oceans are an important part of the global carbon cycle, having already absorbed one-quarter of the anthropogenic carbon emissions, however, at the expense of surface ocean acidity, which has increased around 30% since the Industrial Revolution, affecting marine ecosystems. Ocean liming, whereby particulate calcium oxide or, more likely, hydroxide is spread to surface ocean waters can address, at least partly, both the need for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and ocean acidification. While the idea was proposed almost three decades ago, previous studies have focused on techno-economic feasibility but not on environmental sustainability. Life cycle assessment revealed that limestone calcination is the main environmental hotspot followed by the capture and storage of the calcination CO2 emissions. Mining, comminution, and hydration had a small impact, while results were sensitive to the kiln technology, fuel type, electricity mix, and transportation. Differences between the carbon and environmental footprint highlight that multi-issue life cycle impact assessment methods may be more appropriate when assessing CDR rather than only using carbon balances. Clean and energy efficient kilns (e.g., solar calciners) and the use of renewable energy optimize the system's environmental performance (total carbon and environmental footprint −1031 kgCO2eq and −15.1 Pt per ton of lime spread in the ocean, respectively). The valorisation of the CO2 emissions from limestone calcination, e.g., for fuels, chemicals, or plastics production, could potentially further improve ocean liming's environmental profile, through avoided emissions, however net removal would depend on the longevity of the use. Results imply that CO2 removal at the Gt yr.−1 scale can be achieved, however more research is required on the biological and ecological implications of this CDR approach.

Sustainability in steel production is considered a global challenge which needs to be faced with coordinated actions. The aim of this study is to assess the environmental improvements of a steel mill in a circular economy perspective, through the Organizational Life Cycle Assessment (O-LCA) and the Product Life Cycle Assessment (P-LCA) methodologies. This study explores to what extent the improvements and the efforts to recover the steel slag can be detected using an organization perspective and making a comparison with the more traditional product perspective.The results obtained show that the case in which the steel slag is recovered has lower impacts than the case in which it is landfilled through both O-LCA and P-LCA applications and that the percentage variations are similar for 8 categories out of 10 demonstrating that for our case study, O-LCA and P-LCA can detect the efforts to recover slag similarly. Two categories, namely ADP-minerals&metals and EP-freshwater, are affected by the greater amount of metal and mineral raw materials needed if the slag is not treated and by the steel slag landfill disposal more significantly. What the results tell us is that the variations obtained for this study in the P-LCA application are greater than those obtained in O-LCA application, due to two methodological aspects, namely the application of allocation procedures and the choice of the system boundaries. Finally, it emerges that O-LCA methodology can detect environmental improvements of circularity practices, but the reduction of the impacts is less clear than P-LCA application. What is transferable is that O-LCA and P-LCA methodologies are not interchangeable to quantify the environmental benefits and address the efforts to improve a process in terms of circularity.

PurposeAs the scale of the organic cultivation sector keeps increasing, there is growing demand for reliable data on organic agriculture and its effect on the environment. Conventional agriculture uses chemical fertilizers and pesticides, whilst organic cultivation mainly relies on crop rotation and organic fertilizers. The aim of this work is to quantify and compare the environmental sustainability of typical conventional and organic pepper cultivation systems.MethodsTwo open field pepper cultivations, both located in the Anthemountas basin, Northern Greece, are selected as case studies. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is used to quantify the overall environmental footprint and identify particular environmental weaknesses (i.e. unsustainable practices) of each cultivation system. Results are analysed at both midpoint and endpoint levels in order to obtain a comprehensive overview of the environmental sustainability of each system. Attributional LCA (ALCA) is employed to identify emissions associated with the life cycles of the two systems. Results are presented for problem-oriented (midpoint) and damage-oriented (endpoint) approaches, using ReCiPe impact assessment.Results and discussionAt midpoint level, conventional cultivation exhibits about threefold higher environmental impact on freshwater eutrophication, than organic cultivation. This arises from the extensive use of nitrogen and phosphorus-based fertilizers, with consequent direct emissions to the environment. The remaining impact categories are mainly affected by irrigation, with associated indirect emissions linked to electricity production. At endpoint level, the main hotspots identified for conventional cultivation are irrigation and fertilizing, due to intensive use of chemical fertilizers and (to a lesser degree) pesticides. For organic pepper cultivation, the main environmental hotspots are irrigation, machinery use, and manure loading and spreading processes. Of these, the highest score for irrigation derives from the heavy electricity consumption required for groundwater pumping associated with the fossil-fuel-dependent Greek electricity mix.ConclusionsOrganic and conventional cultivation systems have similar total environmental impacts per unit of product, with organic cultivation achieving lower environmental impacts in ‘freshwater eutrophication’, ‘climate change’, ‘terrestrial acidification’ and ‘marine eutrophication’ categories. Conventional cultivation has a significantly greater effect on the freshwater eutrophication impact category, due to phosphate emissions arising from application of chemical fertilizers.

Life cycle assessment of household biogas production in Egypt: Influence of digester volume, biogas leakages, and digestate valorization as biofertilizer

Cities contribute to and are affected by several environmental pressures within and beyond city boundaries. Urban decision makers struggle to find environmentally sound strategies while respecting their obligation to provide the basis for a viable society. Methods to assess the environmental performance of cities beyond greenhouse gases either lack a holistic or multi-impact perspective which limits the informational value of recommendations for improvement. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is already seen as a promising tool to overcome this gap although research on LCA at city scale is still in its infancies. This paper introduces a novel approach for city-scale environmental decision support and extends the current methodological discussion to organizational LCA (OLCA). A four-step procedure was followed. Firstly, a universal city structure was developed by reviewing different city characteristics and by conducting a virtual case study. Secondly, this structure was split into assessment levels by a stakeholder analysis to reflect different levels of decision support. Thirdly, OLCA’s capabilities to cover the required assessment levels were evaluated. Lastly, methodological uncertainties were discussed, and the assessment framework was finalized by giving guidance on how to extend OLCA to city needs. An environmental assessment framework containing four assessment levels is proposed. Results show that OLCA is well suited to estimate potential environmental impacts associated with the provision of public services by the local government (level 1) and by contracted companies (level 2). Methodological challenges were encountered regarding the uncertain definition of the local government’s influence on private activities beyond public service provision (level 3a). Including activities that are neither directly nor indirectly influenced by the local government go beyond OLCA’s capabilities (level 3b). The framework proposed will support local governments in tracking their environmental performance, prioritizing mitigation measures, and considering transformational change in their strategic decisions. The organizational perspective makes OLCA a valuable approach for decision support at city level. This perspective, however, does not allow to capture all activities taking place within the city boundary and methods have to be found that adequately estimate a local government’s influence beyond public service provision. When aiming at developing long-term strategies to improve a city’s environmental performance, future availability of new technologies and business models that may further impact a local government’s influence need to be considered.

Environmental burden caused by an organization occurs both within its boundaries and in its value chain. Organizational life cycle assessment (LCA) was proposed as a method for calculating impacts of an organization throughout its life cycle; nevertheless, companies are still lacking a universal approach to conduct inventory analysis and face challenges in data collection. This paper introduces a hybrid approach for compiling the inventory for the indirect activities on organizational level in an effective manner. Three existing accounting methods (namely product related, process based, and monetary based) are connected within the hybrid approach. The potential to apply each method for an indirect activity is analyzed with regard to the system boundary requirements and availability of activity data and emission factors. The calculation procedures are introduced for selected activities. The advantages and limitations of the hybridization on organizational level are discussed. The developed approach is applied in a case study to the automotive supplier Brose Fahrzeugteile GmbH & Co.KG. The framework for application of the hybrid approach including the required activity data and emission factors for every indirect activity and each accounting method is provided. The product-related and process-based methods are recommended as more robust; nevertheless, hybridization with the monetary-based method might be essential for compiling a comprehensive inventory by limited data availability. Such limitations as double counting, truncation error, and insufficient data resolution may influence the results and should be considered when applying the hybrid approach. The case study demonstrated that the proposed approach allowed establishing an inventory for all relevant indirect activities. However, due to missing emission factors, only the impact category climate change was calculated for all activities; acidification and water use were quantified for six activities. The introduced hybrid approach enables selecting the most suitable accounting method for the indirect activities depending on data availability. This promotes application of the organizational life cycle assessment in particular for small and medium enterprises and companies that do not have access to the commercial LCA datasets. Availability of the emission factors for all impact categories in public databases is essential to provide robust results using the hybrid approach.

The paper, derived from a previously performed by the co-authors empirical study on the topic of attitudes, barriers and options for adoption of renewable energy sources (RES) in their various types (biomass, wind turbines, biofuels, photovoltaics), represents a general methodology concept and its relevant practical approbation for improving the awareness and capacity of regional actors within the triple-helix matrix (business, government, academia) for adoption and application of renewable energy sources (RES) in their activities. In line with one of the topics of the in the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) the methodological approach is practically implemented in drafting a project proposal focused on supporting the effective cooperation of regional actors in Ruse region (Bulgaria), also a cross-border region with Romania. Object of the pilot action is the Intermodal transport and logistics cluster of Ruse (ITLC Ruse) and the empirical results from the approbation are connected with increased knowledge about the motivation for using RES, obstacles, expected results from using RES in business, government and academic organizations; sharing of knowledge, experience and good practices of the stakeholders; elaboration of an integrated policy for better energy efficiency and application of RES in ITLC Ruse, which is set to be practically implemented by a Road map for improving capacity for adoption of RES.

Organizational life cycle assessment (O-LCA) is an emerging method to analyze the inputs, outputs, and environmental impacts of an organization throughout its value chain. To facilitate the method’s application, the Guidance on Organizational Life Cycle Assessment was published within the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative and applied by 12 “road-testing” organizations. In this paper, different aspects of the road testers’ studies are displayed and analyzed according to the feedback of the road testers. An anonymous survey about the method application was conducted among the road testers. The analysis assessed, among others: (i) which goals the organizations initially pursued and their achievement; (ii) how previous experience with environmental tools contributed to the study design; (iii) which methodological options were chosen (like the scope of the study, data collection approaches, impact assessment methods and tools, and data sources); and (iv) which methodological challenges were faced. The survey showed that analytical goals were of priority for most road testers and obtained a higher achievement level than managerial and societal goals for which either long-term measures or the inclusion of stakeholders are needed. Previous experience with product- or organization-related tools considering the whole life cycle proves useful due to available data and/or organizational models. The categorization of organizational activities, data collection, data quality assessment, and interpretation proved being the most challenging methodological elements. In addition, three cross-cutting issues of method application were identified: aligning the O-LCA study to previous environmental activities, designing the study, and availability of personnel and software resources. The road-testing organizations verified the applicability and usefulness of the O-LCA Guidance and significantly widened the pool of case studies available. On the other hand, additional guidance for methodological challenges particular of the organizational level, the availability of software tools able to support O-LCA application, region-specific LCI databases, and a broadly recognized data quality assessment scheme would facilitate conducting O-LCA case studies.

Environmental sustainability of light-driven processes for wastewater treatment applications

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) production from waste streams using mixed microbial cultures (MMC) can unlock the potential of PHA to substitute oil-based plastics. However, these processes are still at low technology readiness level (4–6). Demonstrating a better environmental performance would boost their deployment at industrial scale. Hence, including environmental guidance during their development, when there are still opportunities for major alterations, is essential. To the best of our knowledge, this work elucidates for the first time how waste-to-PHA biorefineries could develop in the future by combining prospective LCA with scenario methodology and where the attention of stakeholders should be focused. Four future scenarios were derived considering both surrounding (e.g., scale, environmental or bioeconomy policies) and technological parameters (e.g., acidification yield, PHA content in biomass or recovery yield). Those scenarios derived under ambitious environmental and bioeconomy policies shop up to 50% lower environmental impacts than those under business-as-usual policies. These differences are caused by the different background processes’ environmental burdens (e.g., electricity mix with low renewable energies share) and the higher consumption of chemicals and utilities. However, the environmental impacts caused by lower yields can be partially mitigated by valorizing the intermediate waste streams into biogas. Sensitivity analysis results pointed out recovery yield and PHA content as the parameters that influence most the environmental performance, being responsible for up to 60% of variance in environmental performance. These parameters determine the chemicals and utilities consumption in PHA downstream processing, which is confirmed as the main environmental hotspot. This work goes beyond previous LCA studies on PHA production and quantifies the influence of different parameters on the environmental performance.

This study focuses on the environmental assessment of European copper production. Life cycle assessment is applied to analyse copper cathode production in Sweden, including its mining (an open-pit mine) and refining (pyrometallurgy), and using two combinations of software and databases: SimaPro software with ecoinvent database and GaBi software with GaBi database. The results are compared with results from other case studies from literature. A cradle-to-gate LCA was conducted considering 1 tonne of copper as functional unit. The inventory for the foreground system was elaborated using primary data gathered by the staff from the mine, the concentrator and the smelter. For the background data, LCA databases are used considering datasets for the Swedish market whenever possible. As the smelter has multiple useful outputs, economic allocation was applied at the inventory level. The calculation method CML-IA baseline 3.5 was considered for both combinations of software and database, reporting all the impact categories of the method plus the Cumulative Energy Demand. The inventory of the system and the main environmental hotspots were presented, such as the explosives for blasting (due to their supply chain) or the electricity used in the concentrator. The results obtained with the two combinations of LCA software and databases yield large differences for categories such as abiotic depletion (7.5 times higher for SimaPro and ecoinvent), possibly due to differences in the system boundaries of the databases and the characterisation factors of the method. Although the case study has a relatively high cumulative energy demand (140/168 kMJ/tonne Cu) compared to other mines, its performance in global warming (3.5/4.7 tonne CO2eq/tonne Cu) is much better due to the low greenhouse gas emissions from electricity, which shows that the electricity mix is a key aspect. The environmental performance of mining depends partially on the specific conditions of the deposit, e.g., the ore grade and the mining type. LCA practitioners should consider the potential different results that can be obtained using different combinations of software and database and exert caution when comparing cases, especially for abiotic depletion, human toxicity and ecotoxicity categories. Finally, the use of renewable energies can be key to improve the environmental sustainability of copper production.

Assessing the sustainability of acid mine drainage (AMD) treatment in South Africa

This paper investigates the intricate interplay between carbon emissions and foreign direct investment within the context of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) for the period spanning 2000 to 2022. In our comprehensive analysis, we incorporate ecological footprint, renewable energy, globalization, and technological innovations as exogenous variables. Employing a system of simultaneous equations across the BRICS panel, we aim to fully elucidate the proposed relationships. Our empirical findings underscore the following key insights: foreign direct investment, technological innovations, and the adoption of renewable energy sources significantly contribute to the mitigation of carbon emissions in these selected nations. However, it is essential to note that ecological footprints exhibit a positive association with carbon emissions, raising concerns on two fronts: escalating environmental degradation and increased land pressure, both of which contribute to rising ecological footprints in BRICS countries. Additionally, our analysis reveals that foreign direct investment is influenced by its capacity to reduce carbon emissions and bolster renewable energy adoption, while globalization amplifies investment trends within the BRICS nations. To address the environmental repercussions of mining activities, it is imperative to implement stringent control and regulation measures, given their potential adverse impacts, including soil pollution, acid mine drainage, erosion, biodiversity loss, excessive water resource consumption, and wastewater disposal challenges. Nevertheless, proactive steps such as recycling mining waste, adopting environmentally friendly mining equipment, combatting illegal mining, and enhancing overall mining sustainability offer promising avenues to mitigate the environmental footprint of mining operations.