Adoption Of Life Cycle Assessment Research Articles

Sustainable Manufacturing Practices in the Hydropower Industry: A review

Abstract Hydropower is a crucial source of renewable energy in the ever-changing world, contributing significantly to global electricity generation. As the world focuses more on sustainability, the manufacturing processes within the hydropower industry have undergone considerable transformations to align with eco-friendly practices. This review explores the landscape of sustainable manufacturing practices implemented in the hydropower sector, examining the various strategies, technologies, and initiatives adopted to minimize environmental impact while enhancing efficiency of the project. The review encompasses the significance of sustainable materials and manufacturing techniques within the context of hydropower, highlighting the industry’s commitment to reducing its carbon footprint. It consists of the utilization of advanced materials and technologies aimed at optimizing the manufacturing processes, enhancing the durability and efficiency of hydropower components, and reducing resource consumption. Also, the review highlights the adoption of life cycle assessment (LCA) methodologies in the development and manufacturing phases of hydropower components. These practices facilitate the evaluation of environmental impacts across the entire life cycle of hydropower projects. Furthermore, the review discusses about the implementation of innovative approaches such as Additive manufacturing and CNC machining process as well as casting methods, streamlining production while minimizing waste generation and energy consumption. It also includes the case study of best practices that are prevalent in the context of sustainable manufacturing Additionally, the review examines the role of regulatory frameworks, standards, and certifications in driving sustainable manufacturing practices within the hydropower industry scenario in the world. It also outlines potential future directions to further enhance sustainability in hydropower manufacturing.

Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) for design of climate-resilient bridges – a comprehensive review and a case study

The life cycle assessment (LCA) study of a bridge and bridge network would provide the environmental profile and hotspot information including the GHG emission of different life stages, among the components. Compared with a rapid adoption of Road LCA into the procurement process in the developed countries, Bridge LCA however remains a nascent area where a few studies conducted in North America. The critical issues of environmental profile, hotspots and benchmarks of bridges remain a challenge due to the complexity of bridge structures, data collection and unfamiliarity of LCA in the bridge community. To address the challenge, this study presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis and review regarding life cycle environmental impacts assessment of bridge projects around the world to identify the research pattern in order to capture the areas of research needed inside this theme. As a proof of concept, this study continues with conducting an LCA case study of a Bridge Replacement Project on a Canadian signature highway, demonstrating the adoption of the LCA methodology and a framework to streamline the collection of data, to develop, present, and interpret the environmental impacts, in terms of the durability and service life of the bridge asset. The study found that stainless steel rebar decks outperformed black steel decks in terms of CO2 reduction by over 10%, with transport fleet impacts being a significant part of the bridge’s overall environmental impact, highlighting the need for diverse functional units in bridge life cycle assessment studies.

Advancements and Applications of Life Cycle Assessment in Slope Treatment: A Comprehensive Review

Life cycle assessment (LCA) plays an increasingly important role in environmental management, particularly in promoting energy and carbon-conscious practices across various disciplines. This review provides an overview of the latest innovations and potential benefits of integrating LCA into ecological slope treatment strategies. This study explores new developments in LCA methodology and its application to slope treatment, aiming to improve the integration of infrastructure development and environmental stewardship. Through an extensive review of over 120 peer-reviewed journal articles and a critical analysis of the intersection of LCA with slope treatment, this paper identifies innovative techniques that have the potential to significantly reduce the environmental impact of slope management. The review emphasizes advanced LCA practices that quantify and mitigate carbon emissions throughout the life cycle stages of slope treatments. Key findings demonstrate that LCA enhances the methodological rigor in assessing ecosystem services and impacts, and reveals new strategies that emphasize the importance of ecological considerations in infrastructure projects. Future research directions focus on refining LCA data acquisition and promoting a standardized knowledge base to support precision in ecological impact assessments. In conclusion, the adoption of LCA in slope treatment is imperative for aligning industry practices with global sustainability targets, emphasizing the importance of integrating uncertainty analysis and long-term impact assessments to bolster the credibility of LCA outcomes.

Hierarchical analysis of barriers in additive manufacturing implementation with environmental considerations under uncertainty

Notwithstanding additive manufacturing has been gaining momentum in the industry, particularly during the fourth industrial revolution, their widespread implementation as a disruptive production technology has brought impacts on the environment. Considering this issue, the research for this paper was built upon the discussion concerning life cycle assessment (LCA) adoption in implementing additive manufacturing (AM). The capability of LCA to achieve environmental goals is a vivid illustration of why it has given researchers and practitioners an extensive impetus. However, to actualize such an effective approach, it is necessary to identify and face the barriers impeding its implementation in AM. Thus, this research aims to identify, classify, and analyze the most critical barriers hindering LCA adoption in AM implementation. To do so, the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process, along with a comprehensive literature review and thorough interviews with the relevant experts, was used to achieve the research purposes. The results revealed twenty-two barriers within five classifications, where the lack of financial resources to conduct LCA study on AM is the most dominant barrier, followed by the lack of LCA expertise in the AM context and the lack of laws and directives for LCA application in AM, respectively. The findings would be useful to decision-makers to develop suitable mitigation strategies and make more informed decisions with individual and/or cluster concentrations. This study can be fruitfully exploited as a guiding reference since no article has hitherto discussed, identified, or analyzed barriers in the understudied area.

Evaluating the challenges to Life Cycle Assessment using Best‐Worst Method and Decision‐Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory

AbstractPurposeOver the past few decades, the industrial sectors have been widely criticized for their adverse environmental impacts and uncontrolled resources consumption. Further, stringent environmental norms and growing environmental awareness has pushed industrial sectors to adopt sustainable industrial practice. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), an industrial performance assessment tool, has several limitations and hence, it is difficult to measure the performance of industrial sectors in terms of sustainability. The present study aims to identify and evaluate the challenges to LCA.MethodsCombining literature review and industrial interactions has identified 20 challenges to LCA under five‐category comparability, data, resource requirements, organizational structure, and uncertainty communication. An integrated Multi‐Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) technique comprising of Best‐Worst Method (BWM) and Decision‐Making Trial and Evaluation of Laboratory (DEMATEL) is used to evaluate the challenges to LCA. BWM is used to prioritize the challenges to LCA, and DEMATEL is used to reveal interrelationships among the challenges.ResultsOutcomes of BWM indicates problems with the quality of data, lack of inventory data, difficulty in comparison, absence of dedicated LCA method, and scale‐up issues as the top five critical challenges to LCA adoption. According to DEMATEL result, seven challenges come under cause category and the remaining 13 challenges come under effect category.ConclusionsChallenges to LCA have been evaluated using an integrated approach comprising of BWM‐DEMATEL. Outcome of the integrated approach helps in prioritizing the challenges and also in exposing the interrelationships among the challenges. The study's outcome would assist industrial management and practitioners in identifying the critical challenges to LCA. In addition, the findings may help the research community in developing a robust and reliable LCA tools.

Core capabilities for achieving sustainable construction project management

Embedding sustainability principles in planning, design, construction, and management of projects is an indispensable social responsibility of construction organizations. The present study aims to reconcile various views and conclude core capabilities reflecting project management aspects of sustainability in the construction industry using literature synthesis. A systematic literature review on the topic of sustainable construction project management was conducted to analyze the findings of previous studies and present a consistent overview of the body of knowledge. Scopus and Web of Science as two major databases for scholarly publications were searched and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol was followed for the screening and selection process. As a result of applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 30 studies were selected for full-text review that eventually led to the extraction of 42 capabilities and 23 themes in a conceptual framework. Regarding the adoption of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) perspective, the capabilities cover not only the stage of construction development but also the stages of design and commissioning. The research framework conceptualizes three aspects of sustainable project management in the construction industry. It was concluded that two groups of execution-oriented and product-oriented capabilities determine the level of sustainability in managing construction projects. A research gap was found concerning the product-oriented capabilities from the economic aspect, which needs to be addressed in future studies. A research agenda was also developed as a result of this review to direct future studies.

Clusters of key barriers to life cycle assessment adoption in the South African construction industry: perspectives of stakeholders

PurposeThe South African Construction Industry (SACI) in recent times has been characterized by a strong emphasis towards achieving sustainable building practices in infrastructural delivery. However, the lack of progress encountered in making gains in achieving sustainable practices has raised concerns over the effectiveness and understanding of the extent to which life cycle assessment (LCA) techniques may aid in meeting requirements of sustainable construction. Most efforts at LCA have been blighted with numerous barriers that have not been rigorously pursued and aggregated. Ironically, there is a lack of knowledge and understanding of the limitations and barriers to these methodologies, especially in the South African context. The purpose of this study is to delineate the cluster of barriers to the adoption of LCA methodologies in the SACI.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire survey was carried out from a deductive research design elicit primary data based on the experience of purposively sampled stakeholders in LCA in the SACI on the extent they perceived the presence of well-established barriers in LCA adoption culled from the extensive literature review.FindingsThrough the use of factor analysis, three aggregated clusters of key barriers to LCA adoption in the SACI were identified, which were knowledge and enabling conditions constraints, cost and time constraints and technical constraints. The results confirm that indeed human and technical barriers have been notable in limiting gains in LCA adoption and achieving sustainable practices.Originality/valueThese findings are, thus, useful in overcoming challenges to LCA methodologies in achieving sustainable building practices in building and infrastructural delivery in SACI.

Embodied energy data implications for optimal specification of building envelopes

ABSTRACTHighly insulated building envelopes have become more commonplace as environmental imperatives require reduction of building carbon footprints. Whilst increased insulation levels reduce operational energy demand, the additional embodied energy investment can increase the buildings’ overall environmental impact. The embodied energy consideration can determine whether, and to what extent, additional insulation is justified. The following paper investigates the impact of uncertainties of embodied energy data on the cumulative operational and embodied energy analyses and holistically appraises its implications for different stakeholders involved with the construction sector. Limitations in current life cycle assessment (LCA) calculation methods and high uncertainty of available data are recognized and reflected in the analyses through studying available environmental product declarations of various types of insulation materials and by modelling a typical semi-detached residential building in the UK as the case study. The results of such approach illustrate ‘optimum insulation thicknesses’ beyond which the embodied energy penalty outweighs operational energy savings. These essentially represent idealized levels of building envelope insulation that can inform the development of future standards for low energy/carbon buildings and support the adoption of LCAs as decision-making tools in informing the urgent debate of optimal insulation requirements of buildings.

Measures to improve the adoption of life cycle assessment in the South African construction industry

PurposeIn spite of the urge among stakeholders to increase sustainability in the built environment, the South African Construction Industry (SACI) continues to suffer from low level of adoption of strategies such as life cycle assessment (LCA) to increase sustainable building practices in building and infrastructure delivery, hence the need to increase the adoption of sustainable concepts and sustainability practices is an emergent necessity. This study aims to identify the measures that can increase the adoption of LCA toward overcoming the practical difficulties, theoretical concerns and structural differences encountered in making gains in achieving sustainable practices in the SA construction industry.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted a deductive research design using a questionnaire survey with mean scores, Kruskal–Wallis and least square regression analysis done.FindingsThe study determined ten measures that can significantly influence about 88 per cent improvement in the success of LCA adopting in the SA industry. Also, there was a higher level of consensus in the findings which offers credence and good representation of the practical reality in the LCA adoption in South Africa.Originality/valueThese measures could be seen to embrace behavioural, social, technical and policy dimensions of LCA adoption. The findings are thus crucial in overcoming challenges to LCA methodologies in achieving sustainable building practices in the construction process in building and infrastructural delivery in SACI.

Machine Learning for Sustainable Structures: A Call for Data

Buildings are the world's largest contributors to energy demand, greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, resource consumption and waste generation. An unmissable opportunity exists to tackle climate change, global warming, and resource scarcity by rethinking how we approach building design. Structural materials often dominate the total mass of a building; therefore, a significant potential for material efficiency and GHG emissions mitigation is to be found in efficient structural design and use of structural materials.To this end, environmental impact assessment methods, such as life cycle assessment (LCA), are increasingly used. However, they risk failing to deliver the expected benefits due to the high number of parameters and uncertainty factors that characterise impacts of buildings along their lifespans. Additionally, effort and cost required for a reliable assessment seem to be major barriers to a more widespread adoption of LCA. More rapid progress towards reducing building impacts seems therefore possible by combining established environmental impact assessment methods with artificial intelligence approaches such as machine learning and neural networks.This short communication will briefly present previous attempts to employ such techniques in civil and structural engineering. It will present likely outcomes of machine learning and neural network applications in the field of structural engineering and – most importantly – it calls for data from professionals across the globe to form a fundamental basis which will enable quicker transition to a more sustainable built environment.

Life cycle assessment research and application in Indonesia

This paper presents a review of the research and application of life cycle assessment (LCA) in Indonesia over the last 20 years and analyzes challenges and opportunities for future development. The study assessed 107 peer-reviewed scientific publications on LCA about Indonesia or written by authors affiliated with institutions in Indonesia. Relevant programs and recommendations to advance LCA adoption were elaborated. The first paper on the subject of LCA appeared as early as in 1996, while the number of publication significantly increased since 2010. The majority of these articles came from universities, research institutions, and international organizations. Drivers were mainly related to product competitiveness aiming to fulfill sustainability requirements of the global commodities market. Government policies also played an essential role in many aspects, including a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, sustainable consumption and production, green public procurement, eco-labeling, and green industry. Simultaneously, life cycle thinking has been embraced by governments and industries, especially with an immediate increase in the number of organizations implementing the recent version of ISO 14001. Increased participation in voluntary sustainability reporting also provides evidence of the prevalence of the sustainability concept. We believe that this development can serve as an essential step toward the spread of LCA studies in the future. Furthermore, the recent adoption of ISO 14040/44 as national standards in 2016/2017 also marked the commitment of Indonesian governments in LCA and is expected to stimulate the adoption of LCA-based environmental labels, such as carbon footprint, environmental product declaration, and product environmental footprint. The research and application of LCA in Indonesia are still in its infancy, as partly proved by a relatively small number of publications as compared to some other Southeast Asian countries. However, there was a notable increase in publication over the last 5 years, indicating a growing interest in LCA, mainly from academics and to less extent from private sectors. Although LCA has not been explicitly formulated in the national strategies and legislation, Indonesian governments do require life cycle thinking to inform policy-making. Nevertheless, the lack of incentives for green products, LCA programs, LCA expertise, and localized inventory data hampers its implementation. In the future, improvement should focus on LCA capacity building, the establishment of a forum to communicate LCA studies and resources, development of national life cycle inventory databases, and provision of market incentives for green products.

Challenges to Using Environmental Product Declarations in Communicating Life-Cycle Assessment Results: Case of the Asphalt Industry

The objective of this paper is to discuss the challenges encountered in creating an environmental product declaration (EPD) program for asphalt mixtures that ensures the consistent, transparent, and reliable communication of life-cycle assessment (LCA) results between stakeholders in the paving industry. The formal process outlined in ISO 14025 for developing an EPD program has partially ameliorated the challenges that have deterred the adoption of LCA by requiring stakeholder participation and industrywide agreement on assumptions that define an LCA. This requirement has led to a new set of challenges, both technical and organizational, in addressing issues of data quality, validation, consistency, and transparency during the product category rules (PCR) development process. The paper provides an overview of the EPD program development process and establishes the role played by stakeholders in the decision-making process given their affiliations and relationship to the asphalt materials industry. Some of the LCA results that supported the decision-making process in developing the PCR are discussed. In addition, the paper highlights how the analysis supporting an EPD can also be used to improve plant operational efficiencies, while providing insights into the asphalt mixture design process, accounting for performance and environmental impacts.

Perceptions on LCA implementation: evidence from a survey on adopters and nonadopters in Italy

Purpose This paper introduces the results of an Italian survey on the implementation of life cycle assessment (LCA). Both LCA adopters and nonadopters were involved, in order to understand the main benefits and barriers to the adoption of LCA and how the experiences of LCA adopters differ from the expectations of nonadopters.

COMPARATIVE LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT STUDY OF THREE WINTER WHEAT PRODUCTION SYSTEMS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Three different winter wheat production systems for three European countries (United Kingdom, France and Italy), all with different climatic conditions, soil management and input levels (e.g. tillage, fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides) were analysed from an environmental perspective. The intended applications were the analysis and comparison from a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) perspective and the identification of the key parameters which have the greatest influence on final results. The analysis considered the entire production system, including the extraction of raw materials, production of farming inputs and all agricultural operations. The adoption of LCA was considered the most appropriate methodology to define the environmental impact. The functional unit considered was 1 hectare of winter wheat production. The results showed that the impact due to machinery use was mostly dependent on the number of interventions related to the application of fertilizers, herbicides and plant protection. Emissions due to on-field fertilizer application and their production also showed a significant contribution for each impact category showing percentages reaching 90% of the total, whereas the impact due to fungicides and herbicides were negligible, since their contribution never exceeded 4% of the total emissions. Emissions to soil, air and water were affected by factors such as local weather conditions and soil characteristics, which can vary on a local scale, the time of farming activities, N, P and K uptake by the plants, amount and typology of fertilizers adopted. Nitrate losses from arable cropping may be reduced by limiting N-based fertilizer inputs.

Enhancing the Adoption of Life Cycle Assessment by Small and Medium Enterprises Grouped in an Industrial Cluster: A Case Study of the Tanning Cluster in Tuscany (Italy)

SummaryGreenhouse gas emissions from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) account for 70% of the industrial pollution in the European Union. Owing to limited economic and human resources, only a few SMEs start procedures to evaluate the environmental impact of processes and products through life cycle assessment (LCA). In this work, a cluster life cycle assessment (Cluster‐LCA) is proposed as an instrument for the diffusion and realization of LCA analysis in clustered SMEs. This methodology is illustrated with a case study in the tanning cluster in Tuscany. The different characteristics of the methodology are analyzed by identifying the intrinsic strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The application of this methodology in a particular cluster is then discussed in order to gather some helpful insight for the application of this methodology in different clusters.

Actors and barriers to the adoption of LCC and LCA techniques in the built environment

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the existing barriers to the slow adoption of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) in construction, and the main responsible actors.Design/methodology/approach– The research design is based on a two-phase approach. First, the existing literature was studied through a multiple-step content analysis (CA) approach, which combined unsupervised concept mapping with computer aided CA. Using a relational CA approach, statistical-based analysis tools were initially used to identify the relationships between actors and barriers. Later, a Delphi study was administered to a panel of experts, to triangulate, validate, and refine the initial results.Findings– The study revealed that organizational culture is the most relevant barrier, and that clients and professionals are the actors that predominantly influence the adoption of LCC and LCA in projects. Technical and financial barriers, such as the lack and quality of input data and the high costs of implementation are also deemed relevant.Research limitations/implications– The CA was performed by a single rater on a sample that included 50 papers in English language. Future research may focus on enlarging the sample, extending it to other languages, and linking the source (or the expert) to their professional context to evaluate geographical differences in barriers.Originality/value– The adopted approach gives new insights on the relationships behind the rejection of LCA and LCC suggesting that solutions at the organizational level may be more effective than technical ones.

Who Cares About Life Cycle Assessment?

Who Cares About Life Cycle Assessment?

Life Cycle Assessment guidelines for the sustainable production and recycling of aggregates: the Sustainable Aggregates Resource Management project (SARMa)

The mining/quarrying industry is a sector of industry where there are very few Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools, and where the role of LCA has been poorly investigated. A key issue is the integration of three inter-dependent life cycles: Project, Asset and Product. Given the unique features of mining LCAs, this Note from the Field presents a common methodology implemented within the Sustainable Aggregates Resource Management (SARMa) Project (www.sarmaproject.eu) in order to boost adoption of LCA in the aggregate industry in South Eastern Europe. The proposed methodology emphasises the importance of resource efficiency and recycling in the context of a Sustainable Supply Mix of aggregates for the construction industry. Through its adoption, aggregate producers, recyclers, and governmental planners would gain confidence with LCA tools and conduct consistent and meaningful life cycle analyses of natural and recycled aggregates.

Integrated life cycle management of aggregates quarrying, processing and recycling: definition of a common LCA methodology in the SARMa project

Most of the environmental knowledge, presently used to understand or design sustainable industrial systems, is derived from an application of life cycle assessment (LCA). The mining/quarrying industry is probably one of the sectors where there has been relatively less use of LCA tools, or where LCA has received less consensus. A key issue is the integration between three inter- dependent life cycles: project, asset and product life cycles. Given the unique features of mining LCAs, this paper presents a common methodology implemented within the EU sustainable aggregates resource management project in order to boost adoption of LCA in the aggregate industry in South Eastern Europe.

Life Cycle Assessment Concepts and Application in Brazil

This article is based on an exploratory research regarding Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), an environmental management tool towards product system. It was analyzed its origin, concepts, benefits, barriers, methodology and its implementation in Brazil during the last decades. Based on the results, it was observed that in order to apply this tool in Brazil it is necessary to acquire more experience in its use. Besides that, it is essential that there be a standardization of its methodology and government incentives. Therefore, it is observed that the LCA adoption represents an important strategic change, which can assist both in the environmental management system of the company and in the productivity profits of the system.