Comprehensive Environmental Performance Research Articles

Integration of Sustainable and Net-Zero Concepts in Shape-Memory Polymer Composites to Enhance Environmental Performance.

This review research aims to enhance the sustainability and functionality of shape-memory polymer composites (SMPCs) by integrating advanced 4D printing technologies and sustainable manufacturing practices. The primary objectives are to reduce environmental impact, improve material efficiency, and expand the design capabilities of SMPCs. The methodology involved incorporating recycled materials, bio-based additives, and smart materials into 4D printing processes, and conducting a comprehensive environmental impact and performance metrics analysis. Significant findings include a 30% reduction in material waste, a 25% decrease in energy consumption during production, and a 20% improvement in shape-memory recovery with a margin of error of ±3%. Notably, the study highlights the potential use of these SMPCs as biomimetic structural biomaterials and scaffolds, particularly in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The ability of SMPCs to undergo shape transformations in response to external stimuli makes them ideal for creating dynamic scaffolds that mimic the mechanical properties of natural tissues. This increased design flexibility, enabled by 4D printing, opens new avenues for developing complex, adaptive structures that support cell growth and tissue regeneration. In conclusion, the research demonstrates the potential of combining sustainable practices with 4D printing to achieve significant environmental, performance, and biomedical advancements in SMPC manufacturing.

Conceptual design and life-cycle environmental and economic assessment of low-carbon cement manufacturing processes

Cement manufacturing, a fundamental process industry characterized by high CO2 emissions, sees over 58% of its emissions stemming from the limestone calcination process. However, this significant source of CO2 has not yet been adequately addressed by most existing cement decarbonization processes. As such, systematic environmental and economic comparisons between different cement processes are essential. This paper proposes a new cement process (NCP) that uses natural gas to react with limestone to reduce CO2 emissions and simultaneously produce high-value-added chemical products (methanol). To explore strategies for further improving the performance of the CO2 emission reduction, two processes are developed, integrating the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and carbon capture and storage (CCS) units with the traditional cement process (TCP) and the NCP, namely TCP-ORC-CCS and NCP-ORC-CCS respectively. Life cycle assessment (LCA) and economic analysis were performed on the TCP, NCP, TCP-ORC-CCS, and NCP-ORC-CCS processes, revealing their advantages and limitations in different scenarios. LCA adopts the "cradle to gate" system boundary, which includes the whole cement process from ore mining to clinker generation and other processes used for carbon reduction. The LCA results show that four cement processes exhibit different environmental performances when choosing different allocation methods. Under economic allocation, the global warming potential (GWP) of TCP, NCP, TCP-ORC-CCS, and NCP-ORC-CCS are 933, 300, 432, and 194 kgCO2eq/ton·clinker, respectively. The comprehensive analysis indicates that NCP has the best comprehensive economic and environmental performance when natural gas and methanol prices are 332 and 319 $/ton, respectively. The price fluctuation of natural gas and methanol is found to greatly impact the levelized cost of clinker (LCOC) of NCP through sensitivity analysis. NCP is economically preferred over TCP when the price of methanol (MeOH) is at least $76 above approximately two-thirds of the price of methane (CH4). Similarly, NCP-ORC-CCS is more advantageous than TCP-ORC-CCS when the price of MeOH is at least $87 above nearly two-thirds of the price of CH4. This study provides a comprehensive analysis for low-carbon cement process design to achieve CO2 emissions reduction.

Analytical model and comprehensive index construction of indoor air purification effect based on dynamic characteristics and energy efficiency

Meeting environmental regulation requirements while improving energy usage efficiency are crucial endeavors to achieve decarbonization and indoor environmental regulation. In this study, experimental testing, data analysis, and modeling are performed for the dynamic purification process of indoor PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) in the context of regulating the indoor environment of buildings. The results show that indoor PM2.5 levels are dynamically matched to the outdoor environment state and the requirements of environmental control. An analytical model of the effect of PM2.5 purification is constructed, which can accurately reflect the dynamic changes in the PM2.5 mass concentration during the indoor air purification process considering the outdoor PM2.5 concentration and the purification efficiency of the purification filters and purification systems, thus supporting the prediction of purification outcomes and accurately constraining the actual indoor air quality purification process. Meanwhile, an indoor air quality control index (IAQCI) is established based on the purification effect and purification energy efficiency under various combinations of air filters and purification systems. This approach is used to quantitatively assess the dual control of energy efficiency and environmental regulation, as well as the purification effect and efficiency of indoor purification schemes based on outdoor dynamic PM2.5 conditions.This study provides a set of innovative and feasible research methods for realizing comprehensive indoor environmental performance evaluations of buildings.

Research on waste gas treatment technology and comprehensive environmental performance evaluation for collaborative management of pollution and carbon in China's pharmaceutical industry based on life cycle assessment (LCA)

China is the largest industrial and pharmaceutical country in the world. The pharmaceutical industry, being a highly polluting sector, is the primary target of environmental regulation in the industry. The rapid development of pharmaceutical industry has posed a severe challenge to the environmental protection strategy of “carbon reduction and carbon neutrality” and the goal of “synergizing the reduction of pollution and carbon emissions” in China's “14th Five-Year Plan”. Therefore, this paper starts from the whole industry, takes the life cycle of the whole production process of the pharmaceutical industry as the guidance, and selects a pharmaceutical company in Tianjin as the research object. Then using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to Characterization, Standardization, and Weighting the environmental impact of the waste gas treatment process before and after improvement based on waste gas emission characteristics from the pharmaceutical factory. LCA results show that GWP and AP are the most important environmental impact types, which account for >85 % of the total characterization value. I and II - Chemical Pharmaceutical Stage is the critical life cycle stage, accounting for over 80 % of the total characteristic values. This research proposes emission reduction countermeasures based on LCA results and simulates Emission reduction scenarios and economic evolution. If effectively implementing emission reduction countermeasures, reducing the environmental characterization value by 80 to 90 %, and generating economic benefit of 2.66 × 108 RMB/year. This research could guide improvement plans and emission reduction countermeasures of waste gas treatment in the pharmaceutical industry, which realizes collaborative management about efficient reduction of pollution and carbon and generates significant environmental, technological, economic, and social benefits.

Comprehensive environmental performance of bottle-to-bottle recycling of PET bottles based on deposit-refund system in China

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a widely used packaging material and has high value in recycling. However, under China’s dominant informal recycling system, most PET bottles are downcycled into fibers. The deposit-refund system (DRS) is considered a feasible mechanism to facilitate the high-value recycling of PET bottles. To comparatively evaluate the environmental performance [reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) and pollutant emissions] under different scenarios using life cycle assessments, including the current system based on informal recycling, an improved system with a larger contribution from the source separation of municipal solid waste, and evolving systems with DRS application, five scenarios were set up. The DRS can reduce GHG emissions and the comprehensive environmental impact by 0.538 kg CO2 /kg PET bottles and 1.73 × 10−3 PE/kg PET bottles, respectively, compared to informal recycling. It can be concluded that the DRS-based recycling approach and the bottle-to-bottle recycling provide the substantial emission reduction potential of GHGs and pollutants.

Technical and environmental performance assessment of VOCs inhibited asphalt binders and mixtures

Asphalt materials will emit a large amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) under high temperature conditions, to address the environmental impact of asphalt pavement construction, this study selected different proportions of activated carbon (AC) and expanded graphite (EG) as composite inhibitors of asphalt VOCs, the road performance and environmental performance of asphalt mixtures are explored. Furthermore, the study proposed the VOCs resistance index (VRI) and VOCs environment-technique index (ETI) to evaluate the environmental and environmental-technical performance of asphalt mixture incorporating composite VOCs inhibitors. The results show that the VOCs inhibited asphalt mixtures with 5% AC-3% EG composite inhibitors has the best comprehensive environmental performance (80.15%), and its environmental technical performance (27.59%) is also the best, which is far higher than the other three VOCs inhibited asphalt mixtures. This study provides a reference and evaluation standard for the future development of efficient asphalt VOCs inhibitors.

China’s Outward Foreign Direct Investment and the Environmental Performance of the “Belt and Road Initiative” Countries

Since the launch of the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) in 2013, China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) has grown rapidly. Moreover, the environmental protection issues introduced by these investment behaviors to BRI countries have attracted widespread attention from the international community. With the unbalanced panel data of 66 BRI countries from 2006 to 2020, this paper studied the impacts of China’s OFDI on the environmental performance of BRI countries from a systemic and partial perspective. We found that from a systemic perspective, China’s OFDI is conducive to the improvement of the comprehensive environmental performance of countries along the “Belt and Road”. From a partial perspective, the environmental performance influences of China’s OFDI in countries along the “Belt and Road” are threefold: (1) China’s OFDI can help mitigate climate change; (2) China’s OFDI improves wastewater treatment capacity; and (3) China’s OFDI has no significant impact on air quality. Therefore, China’s OFDI needs to continue its efforts to promote and improve the environmental performance of BRI countries to achieve their sustainable development goals. Some BRI developing countries should gradually change their extensive economic growth models; reduce their share of high energy-consuming, high-pollution, and inefficient industries in the national economy; and expand the proportion of their environmentally friendly industries while refraining from improving environmental performance by imposing high environmental pollution taxes.

Impacts of green rating systems on the economy and society

This study examines the impact of green rating systems on the construction industry in sustainable development. Five widely used green rating systems, BREEAM, LEED, Green Star, Green Mark and CASBEE, were examined to identify their effectiveness in promoting sustainable construction practices, specifically in the economic and social aspects. Results revealed that all rating systems offer a comprehensive environmental performance assessment but have varying degrees of success in the rest pillars of sustainability. The rating systems have notably influenced the construction sector, motivating developers and designers to integrate sustainable elements into their structures. The advantages of such rating systems extend beyond singular buildings, benefiting society as well by decreasing environmental harm, advancing the health and well-being of occupants, and stimulating economic progress. Furthermore, the study suggests that construction companies that design and build green-certified buildings have a competitive advantage in the market. Overall, the study highlights the benefits of using green rating systems to promote their wider adoption in the construction industry.

Selection of the Most Appropriate Sustainable Buildings Assessment Categories and Criteria for Developing Countries: Case of Ethiopia

Sustainable buildings can save 36% of total energy use, 65% of electricity consumption, 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, 30% of raw materials use, 30% of waste output, and 12% of potable water consumption. Several sustainable building assessment tools were used by both developed and developing countries. However, Ethiopia’s buildings were not critically assessed and evaluated from a sustainability point of view because there was no such type of study conducted so far. This paper aims to explore the most significant and widely used tools as well as the basis for other sustainable building assessment tools, such as Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology (BREEAM), Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency (CASBEE), Sustainable Building Tool (SBTool), Comprehensive Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme (CEPAS), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen (DGNB), and Green Mark and Green Star. The methodology employed is the selection of the 10 most commonly and widely utilized sustainable building assessment tools (SBATs) from the 57 SBATs based on desk review and document analysis. The results of the study identified that all 10 SBATs have their own assessment categories and criteria based on many factors, such as climatic conditions and availability of resources, plus methods employing demographic dynamics and legal aspects of the sector for assessing the sustainable/green buildings. It distinguishes the most commonly and repeatedly used assessment categories and criteria and uses a consensus-based approach with experts in the building sectors, a four-quadrant model, and a circular and helical flow model, to develop a new sustainable building assessment tool suitable for Ethiopia.

Evaluation of passive envelope systems with radiative sky cooling and thermally insulated glazing materials for cooling

Passive envelope systems for building cooling are of great significance to achieve sustainable and low-energy buildings. Although promising advances in radiative sky cooling and enhanced glazing materials have been achieved recently, there still lacks performance evaluation on integrating these novel materials as passive building envelope systems for the cooling purpose. To this end, the study newly proposes a passive envelope system by synthetically incorporating radiative cooling roofs, colored cooling walls and thermally insulated glazing windows into a standard-compliant commercial building archetype. Comprehensive building thermal, energy, economic and environmental performance across a variety of typical climates in the United States was evaluated. The results were compared to the baseline model, in which the envelope properties are location-dependent and in accordance with ASHRAE Standard 90.1 (β = 0.3, βvis = 0.3, ε = 0.9 for exterior walls, β = 0.23–0.55, ε = 0.75–0.9 for roofs, and U = 1.9–2.8, SHGC = 0.23–0.38, VT = 0.253–0.418 for windows). The highly solar reflective and thermally emissive radiative cooling coating (β = 0.98, ε = 0.97) applied on roofs is able to achieve the cooling electricity savings ranging from 8.2% to 29.7% in response to different climate regions. In comparison, the colored (yellow) cooling paint (β = 0.72, βvis = 0.59, ε = 0.95) applied on walls can achieve annual cooling energy savings regionally from 3.5% to 9.3%. Besides, the thermally insulated windows with the improved visual comfort can save cooling energy from −2.1% to 3.7%. From the maximized cost saving perspective, the optimal design schemes of passive cooling building envelopes for each region were accordingly determined, by which the net cost saving ranges from 0.03 to 2.13 $/(m2·year) in response to climate variability. Notably, the optimal building envelopes regionally correspond to the net avoided CO2 emissions ranging from 0.11 to 16.72 kg/(m2·year)), indicating the noticeable carbon neutral potential induced by the proposed passive envelope system. This research is an effort to provide effective passive cooling envelope systems by combining the existing advanced cooling materials towards sustainable and energy-efficient buildings.

Life Cycle Assessment of Bioethanol Production: A Case Study from Poplar Biomass Growth in the U.S. Pacific Northwest

Biomass appears to be one of the most prominent renewable resources for biofuels such as bioethanol, mainly due to its better environmental performance compared with fossil fuels. This study addresses a comprehensive environmental performance of bioethanol production, employing empirical data from hybrid poplar grown in the U.S. The study considers 1 MJ as a functional unit and employs a cradle-to-grave approach, which entails the feedstock and harvesting production of poplar, transport to a biorefinery, bioconversion of the biomass process, and fuel use. On average, bioconversion is the main contributor to environmental degradation in all the categories evaluated (77%). The second main contributor is either the feedstock and harvesting production of poplar (17%) or fuel use (6%), depending on the environmental category. Thus, focusing on only one category may induce a misinterpretation of the environmental performance of bioethanol production. Finally, environmental credits in the global warming potential (GWP) category were obtained from the carbon sequestered in the biomass during the growing period and from avoided fossil fuel emissions due to electricity production from a renewable source. This means that the net GWP of the life cycle of bioethanol from poplar biomass is slightly negative (−1.05 × 10−3 kg CO2-eq·MJ−1).

An evaluation of the retrofit net zero building performances: life cycle energy, emissions and cost

ABSTRACT This study aims to assess the comprehensive energy, environmental and economic performance of a retrofit zero energy building (ZEB). Three life cycle assessments were conducted: life cycle energy (LCE), life cycle carbon emissions (LCCE) and life cycle cost (LCC). Actual building construction cost data and energy use data were used in the assessments. The analysis results indicated that during the whole building life span, the operational life stage (B6) was a major contributor to LCE (82%) and LCCE (77%), but not to LCC (18%). Within the life cycle embodied carbon (LCEC), A3 was the life stage with the highest contribution (56%), which is mainly related to the manufacturing of building assemblies. This case study provides new empirical evidence of ZEB performance in the United States. The findings suggest that to achieve the carbon neutrality goal, current ZEB certifications or designations are not adequate to measure actual building performance. A further reduction of operational energy, in addition to reducing the embodied carbon released during manufacturing, should be the focus.

Comprehensive environmental performance index (CEPI): an intuitive indicator to evaluate the environmental quality over time

Current environmental indicators assess environmental quality, but no single indicator measures the overall environmental performance of a country, state, or region in an easy and intuitive methodology. This paper provides a simple but informative indicator known as the Comprehensive Environmental Performance Index (CEPI) for 48 Asian countries for the period from 1996 to 2020. The CEPI represents a step toward clarity by combining six different indicators (Ecological Footprint, Environmental Quality, environmental vulnerability, environmental sustainability, adjusted net savings, and pressure on nature) data into one indicator. Contrary to other indices, the CEPI does not use complex mathematical procedures but is designed for simplicity, which facilitates understanding and applying economics to professionals and laymen. We adopt PCA (Principal Component Analysis) to maximize ease of understanding. In addition to Raw CEPI, which gives equal weightings to its components, we build weighted CEPI and show that the two indices behave similarly to the Asian data.

Comparative life cycle assessment of LFP and NCM batteries including the secondary use and different recycling technologies

Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries and lithium nickel cobalt manganese oxide (NCM) batteries are the most widely used power lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in electric vehicles (EVs) currently. The future trend is to reuse LIBs retired from EVs for other applications, such as energy storage systems (ESS). However, the environmental performance of LIBs during the entire life cycle, from the cradle to the grave, has not been extensively discussed. In this study, life cycle assessment (LCA) was used to quantify and compare the environmental impacts of LFP and NCM batteries. Apart from the phases of production, the first use in EVs, and recycling, the repurposing of retired LIBs and their secondary use in the ESS were also included in the system boundary. Also, the environmental impacts of various recycling processes were evaluated. The LCA results suggested that the NCM battery had better comprehensive environmental performance than the LFP one but shorter service life over the whole life cycle. In China, the first and secondary use phases contributed most to the environmental impacts with electricity mostly generated from fossil fuels. The LIB production phase was relevant to all assessed impact categories and contributed more than 50% to Abiotic Depletion Potential (ADP elements) particularly. The environmental loads could be mitigated through the recovery of metals and other materials. And, hydrometallurgy was recommended for recycling waste LIBs by better environmental advantages than pyrometallurgy and direct physical recycling. Sensitivity analysis revealed that by optimizing the charge-discharge efficiency of LIBs, particularly LFP batteries, all environmental burdens could be considerably decreased. Therefore, improving the electrochemical performance of LIBs and increasing the use proportion of clean energy were crucial to reduce the environmental impacts over their entire life cycle.

Research on environmental cost control of manufacturing enterprises under double carbon target——Take the "public benefit snack box" product as an example

Environmental cost control is an important part of enterprise cost management, which is based on the premise of enterprise environmental cost management objectives, environmental cost prediction, and the adoption of appropriate models and policies to control the whole process of environmental cost formation. This paper focuses on manufacturing enterprises and takes "charity snack box" as an example to establish a comprehensive environmental cost control system and performance evaluation system for charity snack box. It adopts specific methods to assist analysis, promote the development of environmental cost control for charity snack box enterprises and maximize the comprehensive benefits of economic and environmental benefits.

Selection of the Most Appropriate Sustainable Buildings Assessment Categories and Criteria for Developing Countries: Case of Ethiopia

Sustainable/green buildings can save for 36% of total energy use, 65% of electricity consumption, and 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, 30% of raw materials use, 30% of waste output, and 12% of potable water consumption. Several sustainable/green building assessment tools were existed and used by both developed and developing countries. However; Ethiopia's buildings were not critically assessed and evaluated from sustainability points of view because there was no such type of studies conducted so far. This paper aims to explore the most significant and widely used as well as the basis for other sustainable/green building assessment tools such as Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology (BREEAM), Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency (CASBEE), Sustainable Building Tool (SBTool), Comprehensive Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme (CEPAS), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen (DGNB), Green Mark and Green Star. The methodology employed for this paper is the selection of the 10 most commonly and widely utilized SBATs from the 57 SBATs based on desk review and document analysis. The results of the study identified that all these 10 SBATs have their own assessment categories and criteria based on many factors like climatic conditions, availability of resources plus methods employed demographic dynamics, and legal aspects of the sector for assessing the sustainable/green buildings. It distinguishes the most commonly and repeatedly used assessment categories and criteria and uses a consensus-based approach with experts in the building sectors, a four-quadrant model, and a Circular and Helical flow model, to develop a new sustainable building assessment tool (SBAT) suitable for Ethiopia.

Performance comparison and investigation of two different renewable energy fueled multigeneration systems

In this study, the comprehensive thermodynamic, exergoeconomic and environmental per-formance of two multigeneration systemsfuelled by biomass and solar energy is surveyed. The multigeneration system A utilizes municipal solid waste and solar energy to produce power, heating, cooling, fresh water, and hydrogen which is considered to be located in the north of Iran with a moderate climate. Whereas, the multigeneration system B consumes bagasse and solar energy to supply power, heating, cooling, liquefied natural gas, and freshwater which is assumed to be located in the south of Iran with a hot climate. The results of the study show thatsystem B provides better performance from a thermodynamic viewpoint with energy and exergy efficiencies of 82.45% and 15.75%. Moreover, according to the outputs of exergoeco-nomic modelling, system B presents better performance because of lower capital costs. Finally, environmental profit is attained by accomplishing system B because of avoiding 1.14 million tons of NOx and 0.31 million tons of CO2 depletion to the atmosphere per year. In the end, through conducting a parametric study, the effect of key parameters on the thermodynamic, economic, and environmental performances of two systems is discussed.

Study on Environmental Performance Evaluation Model of Coal Mine Using Balanced Scorecard and Ubiquitous Computing

Based on the analysis of the current situation of environmental performance evaluation of coal enterprises in China, this paper uses the Balanced Scorecard as the basic framework to comprehensively evaluate environmental performance from the dimensions of environmental finance, internal environmental management, stakeholders and learning and growth. Set up a number of indicators in each dimension, use AHP to determine the weights of indicators at all levels, and test the rationality of index weights through consistency, and establish a comprehensive environmental performance evaluation system.

Sustainable natural pozzolana concrete – A comparative study on its environmental performance against concretes with other industrial by-products

With increasing environmental sustainability concerns in the construction industry and a demand for producing more durable and sustainable concrete, effort is devoted to producing concrete with Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) being substituted by alternative binder materials. By considering the compressive strength, the comprehensive environmental performance of natural pozzolana in concrete was evaluated comparatively by developing six mix-designs of concrete with OPC, and commonly used industrial by-products as supplementary cementitious materials such as fly ash (FA) and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) based on the lifecycle assessment (LCA) approach. The results show that comparable compressive strengths can be achieved for the use of 20% and 30% volcanic ash (VA) against conventional SCMs. Using the volume as functional unit, the LCA results have demonstrated that higher environmental savings are associated with VA concrete compared to that of OPC, GGBS (30%) and FA (25%), but almost similar when 50% GGBS is used. For example, 15–24% and 10–19% lower global warming potential are associated with VA concretes compared to that of OPC and FA concretes, respectively, but much higher saving is found when considering the strength of the concrete, as they are about 11–12%, 10–11% and 29–30% compared to that of GGBS, FA and OPC concretes, respectively. The results can be used as valuable guidelines for VA-based in sustainable concrete production, which would further enhance the sustainability of the concrete industry.

Construction of the Evaluation System of Sustainable Utilization of Large Stadiums Based on the AHP Method

Large-scale sports stadiums are an important part of China’s sports stadium system and an important material basis and prerequisite for China’s basic public sports service system. This paper aims to establish the evaluation index system by exploring the utilization of large stadiums and gymnasiums under the background of sustainable development and to provide important reference for the construction and utilization of stadiums and gymnasiums in the future. Using literature methods, quantitative statistics, analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and other methods, focusing on sustainable use, this study develops a postgame utilization evaluation system for large stadiums, considering the design, construction, operation, and management of the stadium. This paper identifies 5 first-level indicators, 13 second-level indicators, and 38 third-level indicators, which mainly included five aspects of comprehensive performance, service level, environmental performance, economic performance, and venue maintenance. The AHP method was used to determine the index weight coefficient, thus forming a sustainable use evaluation index system for the large stadiums. Finally, taking Bengbu Sports Center in Anhui province as an example, this paper makes an empirical analysis.