Carbon Footprint Assessment Research Articles

An Assessment of Building Energy Consumption Characteristics Using Analytical Energy and Carbon Footprint Assessment Model

The study aims at developing an analytical assessment model for use in assessing building energy consumption and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emission characteristics. The methodology includes selecting appropriate indicators, tool development and description, indicators description, energy and carbon characteristics assessment, and performance evaluation. The characteristics measured are renewable energy adoption (REA), overall and roof thermal transfer values (OTTV), (RTTV) and (U-value), natural ventilation and daylighting access (NVA) and (NDA), thermal comfort index (TCI) and daylighting access factor (DAF). Operational characteristics indexes are building energy and carbon indexes (BEIx) and (BECIx), energy and carbon reduction indexes (BERI) and (BECRI), energy and carbon intensities (BEIy) and (BECIy), and billing cost reduction (BCR). Four faculty buildings and a library building were assessed and tagged as case studies A, B, C, D, and E. The case studies assessed have BEI of 79.85, 131.37, 60.21, 161.47, and 63.86 kWh/m2/year and BECI of 55, 91, 42, 112, and 44 kg.CO2e/m2/year respectively. These values lead to BERI and BECRI of 22, 16, 27, 16, and 36% respectively. From these results it can be seen that case studies A, C and E have the lowest BEI of 80, 60, and 64 kWh/m2/year and the highest BERI and BECRI of 22, 27, and 36% respectively. These give them a higher billing cost reduction of 36%, greater than 80 points, and excellent practice performance. The tool provides all the project-level design and operational considerations, emission reduction strategy, and estimation. The ability of the tool to assess the case study buildings makes it suitable for adoption by organizations and governments for accounting and monitoring energy usage and GHG emission associated with building life cycle activities. The study shows that utilizing appropriate strategies and practice on building design and operation respectively improves building energy usage.

Life Cycle Based Carbon Footprint Assessment and Techno-economic Evaluation Methodologies of Hydrogen Energy Systems

Life Cycle Based Carbon Footprint Assessment and Techno-economic Evaluation Methodologies of Hydrogen Energy Systems

Laboratory tests, field application and carbon footprint assessment of cement-stabilized pure coal solid wastes as pavement base materials

Solid wastes from coal industry, such as coal gangue (CG), coal bottom ash (CBA) and fly ash (FA) from coal-fired power plants, pose a significant impact on the environment. Thus, it is essential to fully study the potential values of these coal solid wastes (CSW) as construction materials. In this study, cement-stabilized FA, CBA and CG were performed as pavement base materials, and the mechanical properties and environmental benefits were systematically investigated in order to achieve the utilization of CSW in road construction. The unconfined compressive strength (UCS) test, splitting tensile strength (STS) test, ultrasonic test, triaxial test, and field application were conducted. The results show that CBA exhibits a negative effect on the early strength of the mixtures. However, the negative effect gradually decreases with the extension of the curing age. In addition, the relationship models between UCS and STS, between UCS and amplitude, between peak stress, peak strain and confining pressure with different CBARR and cement content were proposed. Based on the Mohr-Coulomb (M-C) failure criterion, the unified function expression and parameter-related function expressions with various CBARR and cement content of the shear stress τ were established. The laboratory tests indicate that the mixture with CBARR of 50% exhibits preferable mechanical performance. Field application and carbon footprint assessment verify that the mixture has great potential to be used as a new eco-friendly pavement base material and meets the technical requirements for heavy traffic of class II highways in China.

Overview and comparative analysis of digital carbon footprint assessment tools

The study provides a review of foreign approaches and basic methodologies for assessing the carbon footprint from individuals and industrial products. The scope of greenhouse gas emissions (1–3) is described taking into account direct, indirect energy and other types, respectively. The article compares digital tools used for assessing the carbon footprint, their advantages, disadvantages, principles of the methodologies used and the range of source data. The key functions, requirements and scope of application for the analogue of the digital carbon footprint assessment tool are determined.

CARBON FOOTPRINT OF A CONCRETE TRANSPORT STRUCTURE - A DEEP TUNNEL

The research object of this scientific work is the massive concrete structures of underground low-deep transport tunnels, reinforced with steel and non-metallic composite reinforcement. Circular-section tunnels with the frame nominal diameters of 5, 10 and 15 m are considered. The subject of the research study is the assessment of the averaged carbon footprint in both types of the constructive solution throughout their entire life cycle. The presented research is due to the need to implement the European Climate Law (the European Green Agreement. At the same time the Paris Agreement (2016) recommends to stop producing and using carbon steel in construction by 2030. The ecological impact of both types of transport tunnels is expressed in the form of carbon footprint, as the equivalent of carbon dioxide emissions, which is calculated separately for each stage of their existence in accordance with the current European Codes, including the recommendations of the proprietary methodology. To determine the required sizes of the tunnels concrete frames and their reinforcement, the numerical routine (B3) experiment was carried out in PLAXIS software complex in accordance with the current regulations. Averaged according to three different diameters and generalized carbon dioxide emissions during the life cycle of the reference structure (type 1) and proposed one (type 2) of the underground transport tunnel with the length of 1 m.p. were, respectively, 15.97 t СО2 eq and 11.551 t СО2 eq, i.e. decreased by almost 1.4 times. The conducted research made it possible to analyze the carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, to systematize the existing factors and impact factors of the specified building on the environment, and to determine the ways of their reduction. The possibility and expediency of using basalt-plastic reinforcement instead of steel in monolithic concrete structures, incl. transport tunnels, according to the criterion of reducing greenhouse gas emissions are proved. Keywords: carbon footprint, carbon dioxide emissions, underground transport tunnel, monolithic heavy concrete, steel and non-metallic composite reinforcement, construction life cycle, stage, information group (module).

Carbon Footprint Assessment of Hydrogen and Steel

Hydrogen has the potential to decarbonize a variety of energy-intensive sectors, including steel production. Using the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology, the state of the art is given for current hydrogen production with a focus on the hydrogen carbon footprint. Beside the state of the art, the outlook on different European scenarios up to the year 2040 is presented. A case study of the transformation of steel production from coal-based towards hydrogen- and electricity-based metallurgy is presented. Direct reduction plants with integrated electric arc furnaces enable steel production, which is almost exclusively based on hydrogen and electricity or rather on electricity alone, if hydrogen stems from electrolysis. Thus, an integrated steel site has a demand of 4.9 kWh of electric energy per kilogram of steel. The carbon footprint of steel considering a European sustainable development scenario concerning the electricity mix is 0.75 kg CO2eq/kg steel in 2040. From a novel perspective, a break-even analysis is given comparing the use of natural gas and hydrogen using different electricity mixes. The results concerning hydrogen production presented in this paper can also be transferred to application fields other than steel.

Carbon Footprint Assessment of a Seabass Farm on the Mediterranean Moroccan Coast

Abstract The present study assesses the carbon footprint of the only operating marine fish farm in Morocco. Five years of data were used to assess its carbon footprint, following ISO/TS 14067 standard, the PAS 2050 and the IPCC 2006 guidelines. The obtained carbon footprint ranged from 2.34 to 2.85 kg CO2e/kg. The emission value for 2017 is 38% lower than the highest value. Fish feed contributes most to the carbon footprint of the farm. Based on PAS 2050, the inshore cage farming product ranks in the same category as dairy products. Furthermore, the comparison showed that it is almost 67% lower than the carbon footprint of other protein production. This study evaluates some scenarios for reducing the carbon footprint of the fish farm, which can be a basis for further studies.

Carbon footprint model and low–carbon pathway of inland shipping based on micro–macro analysis

China's inland shipping industry is under urgent pressure to reduce its emissions. Identifying carbon emission sources and estimating carbon emissions from multiple perspectives form the basis for scientifically proposing low-carbon pathways for inland shipping. Carbon footprint assessment models for inland ships were developed from both micro and macro perspectives to assess the carbon emissions of individual ships and fleets. An inland diesel-powered ship was taken as an example to analyse the carbon footprint of LNG (liquid nature gas) and methanol as alternative fuels, and the uncertainty and economy were analysed. The carbon emissions from China's inland shipping in 2019–2020 were studied using an improved turnover method, and the carbon intensities of inland passenger and freight transportation were analysed. Finally, low-carbon pathways for inland shipping were proposed. The results show that the CO2-eq of the LNG scheme was 6.83% and 53.99% less than that of diesel and coal-based methanol, respectively, making it a suitable fuel alternative for ships. CO2 emissions from inland shipping reached 20.924 million tons in 2019, followed by a 0.98% reduction by 2020. The carbon intensity of freight transportation was less than that of passenger transportation; however, the energy consumption carbon intensities of both were approximately equal.

Methodology for Improving the Sustainability of Industrial Buildings via Matrix of Combinations Water and Carbon Footprint Assessment

In Spain, 90% of companies are small- or medium-sized and are usually located in industrial areas, in warehouses with particular characteristics. This paper presents a methodology for the environmental assessment of this type of construction with water and carbon footprint indicators. A database was developed for the identification of typologies and common construction elements based on a sample of 87 projects in the province of Seville. Based on this, the paper proposes a methodology for comparative analysis that merges the data obtained from the research survey with environmental and economic data. The work proposes a systematic classification of the construction units of industrial buildings in order to improve the sustainability of the decision-making process by introducing environmental information on construction materials and machinery. First, the most impactful elements were identified, and then the technical solutions were adjusted using solutions already in the sample of 87 industrial projects. Reductions of up to 74% in the carbon footprint and 54% of the water footprint were found, as well as 14% reduction in construction costs in the most favorable case.

The carbon footprint of stone fruit production: Comparing process-based life cycle assessment and environmentally extended input-output analysis

The development of sustainable products and practices must be supported by methodologies capable of evaluating their environmental performance in an objective and systematic manner. The most popular tool for carbon footprint (CF) assessment is arguably process-based life cycle assessment (pLCA). However, interest in tools such as environmentally extended input-output analysis (EEIOA) is growing rapidly due to the convenience of using economic-based inventories rather than material/energy-based ones. The objective of this investigation is to evaluate divergences between conventional pLCA and EEIOA in the analysis of CF using the production of stone fruits as a case study. The study uses a cradle to grave approach and it is based on a detailed economic, material and energy life cycle inventory of nectarines produced in Southeast Spain. The analyses yielded 1.07 kg CO2 eq./kg for the EEIOA and 0.899 kg CO2 eq./kg for the pLCA. This difference, which might sound acceptable, is due to the compensation of larger opposing discrepancies in the various stages and processes that make up the product life cycle. Thus, pLCA yielded significantly higher total CF emissions than EEIOA (0.23 EEIOA/pLCA ratio) in the upstream stage (agricultural and packaging processes). The opposite is observed in the core stage, where EEIOA carbon emissions were significantly higher than those calculated by pLCA (4.38 EEIOA/pLCA ratio). Differences in the downstream stage (mainly distribution and storage, and EoL phase) were less notable (1.40 EEIOA/pLCA ratio). Economic-based inputs, used in EEIOA (such as labour and service costs) and unaccounted for in pLCA, may be partly responsible for such divergences, while others should be linked to differences in the impact assessment procedures followed by each of these methodologies. These results raise some doubts about the potential of EEIOA and calls for further research on the validity, complementarity and the application domains of these methodologies. In any case, both modelling approaches agree in identifying the distribution and storage life cycle stages as main contributors to carbon emissions, calling for the implementation of measures to promote the consumption of seasonal and local fruit.

Household Carbon footprint Assessment across an Urban Area, Tirunelveli of India

Household Carbon footprint Assessment across an Urban Area, Tirunelveli of India

Food Waste and Carbon Footprint Assessment of Eateries in Kelantan, Malaysia

Introduction: Food service establishments in Malaysia have grown positively in response to the rising demand for dining out and takeaway food. However, they also exert a high demand for energy resources and contribute to negative environmental impacts. In this study, an environmental assessment of food waste generation was carried out alongside carbon footprint quantification across electricity and water consumption in two different food service establishments with a focus on cafeterias and casual dining restaurants. Methods: Ten food premises with the same criteria in service were selected, consisting of cafeterias and Thai food restaurants located in Kelantan state of Malaysia. Food waste from preparation losses, serving losses and plate waste were collected and measured for a 7-day period to establish respective quantities. Material Flow Analysis (MFA) was used to visualize the material flow from the operation of both the cafeterias and Thai food restaurants while carbon footprint analysis was undertaken to calculate carbon emissions. Results: The findings revealed consistent results for both the cafeterias and Thai food restaurants as higher proportions of food waste arose from customer plate waste (67.99% and 62.12%) rather than preparation losses (32.01% and 37.88%). It was identified that cafeterias contribute larger volumes of carbon emissions for both electricity (105.93 kgCO2e) and water related consumption (8.39 kgCO2e) compared to Thai food restaurants (57.58 kgCO2e and 3.63 kgCO2e). Conclusion: These findings may provide guidance for the food service management to recognize the priority areas of improvement in reducing environmental impact associated food service sector.

Agricultural greenhouse gas emissions of an Indian village - Who's to blame: crops or livestock?

A carbon footprint assessment, combining various scales of analysis and including a territorial assessment, is proposed to estimate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from crops and livestock in an Indian village impacted by both Green (for crops) and White (for milk) revolutions. It is based on the GHG assessment of 10 cropping systems, 8 livestock farming systems and 9 production systems using the comparative agriculture and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approaches. Results show that mineral fertilisation, irrigation and methane from paddy fields are the main drivers of emissions at plot level. Livestock farming systems emit from 4.7 tCO2eq/female to 8.6 tCO2eq/female, enteric fermentation being the first source of emission. Disparities at farm level are huge, ranging from 9 to 733 tCO2eq. At village level, emissions yield 37 tCO2eq/ha and livestock contributes to 60 % of GHG emissions. The high GHG emissions are a legacy of the Green and White Revolutions: the livestock population is high, fed on highly emissive fodder and concentrates and produces little milk. The results enhance our understanding of the share of carbon emissions from crops and livestock at farm and territorial level. They pinpoint the environmental and socio-economic downsides of livestock farming intensification.

Factors influencing the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices: the case of seven horticultural farms in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT The production of fruits and vegetables is expected to increase in the United Kingdom (UK) as a response to increasing consumers’ demand, coupled with impacts of Brexit on the imports from the European Union (EU). Retailers and consumers are more aware of the environmental impact and provenance of food and are demanding to their suppliers to implement sustainable agricultural practices. Seven horticultural farmers and farm managers across the UK were interviewed to investigate the implementation of sustainable practices, and the motivations and enablers for adoption, as well as perceptions on sustainability and climate change. Factors influencing adoption mainly were efficiency and cost reduction, regulations, and market demand, even though, environmental, and social consciousness also played a role in adoption. There was little evidence that participation in knowledge networks or the perception of climate change and impacts, and of carbon footprint assessments influenced the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices, but this finding deserves further investigation. Farmers’ awareness of the importance of soil was clear and governments should encourage farmers’ involvement in the monitoring of soil health, as a mean of engaging them in the wider discussion about the implementation of sustainable land management, including climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Carbon footprint assessment of a whole dairy farming system with a biogas plant and the use of solid fraction of digestate as a recycled bedding material

Biogas generated from livestock manure is a renewable energy source and the digestate is used as a fertilizer. Moreover, dewatered biogas digestate can be used as a bedding material (recycled bedding material). The aims of the present study were to model a whole dairy system with a biogas plant using recycled bedding material and to assess the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Emissions from the material flow of dairy cattle production, manure treatment and organic fertilizer application to on-farm crops were evaluated. In the emissions from organic fertilizer storage and recycled bedding material production, CH4 emission was decreased by 43.0%, and consequently the system with a biogas plant reduced total GHG emissions by 6.8% compared with conventional slurry storage and straw bedding. The use of recycled bedding material from a biogas plant has the potential to create a resource cycle and to be beneficial as a GHG mitigation strategy.

BASF partners with database firm for carbon footprint assessment

BASF partners with database firm for carbon footprint assessment

A standardized methodology for economic and carbon footprint assessment of CO2 to transport fuels: Comparison of novel bicarbonate electrolysis with competing pathways

Early evaluation of carbon capture and utilization (CCU) pathways in terms of cost and emission reductions is critical in guiding future R&D and commercialization. However, such evaluation is challenging due to varying technology readiness levels (TRL) of pathways, unavailability of cost and emission data for new technologies and uncertainty of performance parameters of lab scale technologies. In this study, we propose a standardized methodology that allow comparing synthetic fuel production pathways based on early stage lab scale CO2 electrolysis technologies with mature CCU technologies and incumbent technologies. This methodology provides guidelines for defining pathways, modeling and cost and carbon footprint (CF) assessment supported by a bottom-up framework to scale- up the costs and CF of lab scale technologies. We apply the developed methodology to evaluate Fischer-Tropsh synthesis (FTS) fuel production pathways based on bicarbonate electrolysis, a novel early stage CO2 electroreduction technology with integrated CO2 capture, and reverse water gas shift (RWGS) reaction, a mature thermocatalytic CO2 conversion technology. The cost of diesel fuel production using RWGS and bicarbonate electrolysis pathways were 1.7 $/L and 1.5 $/L, respectively, which is more than 140% of current cost of diesel. Nevertheless, both pathways were able to achieve significant emissions reductions with bicarbonate electrolysis reducing 90% and RWGS reducing at 70% compared to conventional diesel. Based on the uncertainties of calculated cost, neither pathway is more economically competitive than the other. However bicarbonate electrolysis pathway offer more opportunities for emission reduction as most of its energy demand can be provided by renewable electricity. RWGS pathway with relatively higher thermal energy demand will need to rely on high level of energy recovery and integration to achieve similar emission reductions.

An open-source tool to assess the carbon footprint of research

The scrutiny over the carbon footprint of research and higher education has increased rapidly in the last few years. This has resulted in a series of publications providing various estimates of the carbon footprint of one or several research activities, principally at the scale of a university or a research center or, more recently, a field of research. The variety of tools or methodologies on which these estimates rely unfortunately prevents any aggregation or direct comparison. This is because carbon footprint assessments are very sensitive to key parameters (e.g., emission factors) or hypotheses (e.g., scopes). Hence, it is impossible to address fundamental questions such as: is the carbon footprint of research structurally different between disciplines? Are plane trips a major source of carbon emissions in academic research? Massive collection and curation of carbon footprint data, across a large array of research situations and disciplines, is hence an important, timely and necessary challenge to answer these questions. This paper presents a framework to collect and analyse large amounts of homogeneous research carbon emission data in a network of research entities at the national scale. It relies on an open-source web application, GES 1point5, designed to estimate the carbon footprint of a department, research lab or team in any country of the world. Importantly, GES 1point5 is also designed to aggregate all input data and corresponding GHG emissions estimates into a comprehensive database. GES 1point5 therefore enables (i) the identification of robust local or national determinants of the carbon footprint of research and (ii) the estimation of the carbon footprint of the entire research sector at national scale. A preliminary analysis of the carbon footprint of more than one hundred laboratories in France is presented to illustrate the potential of the framework. It shows that the average emissions are 479 t CO2e for a research lab and 3.6 t CO2e for an average lab member (respectively 404 and 3.1 t CO2e without accounting for the indirect radiative effects of aviation), with the current scope of GES 1point5. Availability and implementation: GES 1point5 is available online at http://labos1point5.org/ges- 1point5 and its source code can be downloaded from the GitLab platform at https://framagit.org/ labos1point5/l1p5-vuejs.

Impact of waste management and conversion technologies on cost and carbon footprint - Case studies in rural and urban cities

Bioenergy pathways based on waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies are potential solutions to address two major societal challenges: climate change and a lack of sustainable municipal solid waste (MSW) diversion solutions. This study identifies and addresses the absence of an integrated decision-making framework that includes upstream operations (collection, separation, and delivery) and energy recovery technologies of the MSW supply chain. Modeling tools are developed for each WTE stage and integrated for the first time under a single cost and carbon footprint assessment framework. This framework is validated using two case studies to capture urban and rural characteristics. The first pathway includes gasification and an Internal Combustion Engine, and the second pathway consists of combustion and an Organic Rankine Cycle. The outcomes of this study show that Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions of the WTE pathways are slightly higher than fossil-based heating. This difference is explained by two factors. First, upstream logistics (often overlooked) are a major contributor to the net GHG emissions (36% in rural cases), and their emissions would offset the potential credits when replacing the current heating systems with the WTE pathways. Secondly, MSW is not entirely carbon neutral, and when the fossil-based carbon is accounted for, WTE pathways show higher GHG emissions for both rural (12–16%) and urban (17–19%) communities, which confirms that the WTE pathways still require more technology optimization and improvement. However, integrated framework revealed that WTE pathways are economically competent to reduce the current heating cost by up to 36% in rural and 25% in urban communities.

Biogas catalytic methanation for biomethane production as fuel in freight transport - A carbon footprint assessment

The use of biomethane can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from road transport in trucks. To assess its potential contribution, two biomethane production pathways were analysed: conventional biogas upgrading and catalytic methanation of carbon dioxide from biogas, contained in biogas or separated via biogas upgrading. Pig manure was used as feedstock for biogas production. Throughout a life cycle assessment methodological approach, the total GHG equivalent emissions were calculated for each production pathway, considering the chemical absorption, pressure swing adoption and membrane separation technologies for biogas upgrading, and renewable sources of electricity (wind and photovoltaic) for hydrogen production further processed in methanation. Catalytic methanation via micro-structured reactors was selected as a reference process. The assessments show that emissions vary from 0.28 to 0.72 kg CO2-eq./m3 in biomethane production via biogas upgrading and from 0.36 to 1.04 kg CO2-eq./m3 via catalytic methanation. These values are comparable to those of natural gas conditioned as fuel for transportation, which lie between 0.038 and 0.55 kg CO2-eq./m3. Due to its emission neutrality, in the use phase of biomethane in trucks total emissions are substantially lower than those associated with fossil fuels (natural gas and diesel). For the investigated use cases, they range from 0.03 to 0.07 kg CO2 -eq./t km for biomethane, whereas for natural gas or diesel from 0.16 to 0.18 kg CO2 -eq./t km and 0.17–0.19 kg CO2-eq./t km. These results demonstrate the environmental benefits of biomethane in freight transport in terms of reduction in GHG emissions.