Life Cycle Assessment Software Tools Research Articles

A Research on Determination of Database and Software Tool in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Method: The Sample of Turkish Building Industry

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a scientific method for quantitatively assessing the environmental, social and economicimpacts associated with a product, process or service throughout its life cycle. It is complex and time-consuming asit requires the processing of a large number of data and assumptions. "LCA databases" and "LCA software tools" arebeing developed to reduce this effort and time. With the increasing interest in the LCA method for the Turkishconstruction industry, the “TLCID” and "TurComDat" databases has been prepared; however, the software tool touse these databases have not yet been developed. This situation reveals the need for a guiding "decision supportmechanism" for the selection of the most appropriate database and software tool to be used. In this study, databasesand software tools were critically reviewed to determine their possible adaptation to the Turkish constructionindustry. It was concluded that the "SimaPro" software tool, which enables international use, and the "Ecoinvent"database supported by the software can be adapted and used with Turkey's energy average and water data. Withthis study, it is aimed to create guiding evaluations for the choices to be made within the scope of LCA.

A review of building life cycle assessment software tools: Challenges and future directions

A review of building life cycle assessment software tools: Challenges and future directions

Ionic Liquid-Based Green Solvents for Extraction and Purification of Natural Plant Products

Introduction: This research paper explores the environmental sustainability of ionic liquid-based green solvents in the extraction and purification of natural plant products, with a focus on their entire life cycle. The objectives of the study were to assess the environmental impact of ionic liquid synthesis, energy consumption, water usage, emissions, recycling rates, policy effects, and stakeholder perceptions. Method: Methodologically, we conducted a comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that involved primary data collection through field surveys and interviews with key stakeholders in the ionic liquid production and usage industry across various regions in India. The data were analyzed using specialized LCA software tools to quantify environmental impacts. Key findings include the identification of synthesis as a major contributor to environmental impact, emphasizing the need for greener synthesis methods. Result: The study revealed the significant carbon footprint, energy consumption, and water usage during production, highlighting opportunities for improvement. Emissions data underscored the importance of emission control measures, particularly for greenhouse gases and volatile organic compounds. Recycling and reuse were identified as environmentally friendly disposal methods. Policy compliance varied among stakeholders, indicating room for stricter regulations. Stakeholder perceptions varied, with researchers having the most positive outlook. Implications of the findings extend to sustainable chemistry practices, emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration and the importance of considering the entire life cycle of chemical processes. Conclusion: This research contributes to a deeper understanding of green solvents and provides a foundation for promoting sustainable practices in industrial processes in India and globally

Performing a Life Cycle Assessment for Self-service Devices: A Case Study of Self-checkout

Nowadays, self-checkouts are becoming increasingly popular in stores and markets. This is simply because they offer customers the convenience of shopping without having to wait in line and provide store owners with an opportunity to increase sales and improve the customer experience. Meanwhile, the sustainability options of the devices have gained more traction, such as reducing the CO2 emissions of the product and production. However, it is initially unknown how to investigate the sustainability of self-service devices due to insufficient research in this area. To address this issue, the different methodologies have been analyzed based on domain-oriented boundaries. The life cycle assessment (LCA) is chosen to assess the sustainability. Then, the inventory analysis is worked out to gather the relevant raw data. Subsequently, the model of the product’s life cycle is established in an LCA software tool. The assessment and interpretation is carried out. A case study of self-checkout is conducted in the industrial company and the results shows that recycled material zincor and using solar energy could lead to a reduction of CO2 emissions of up to 41.8%.

Whole life cycle environmental impact assessment of buildings: Developing software tool and database support for the EU framework Level(s)

The European Commission has published a framework on the environmental sustainability of buildings, called Level(s), a set of indicators addressing the resource efficiency and environmental impact of buildings. This framework is now a key element of European initiatives to develop a circular economy and aims to address whole life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to drive a renovation wave for existing buildings. Analysis of the whole life cycle environmental impact of buildings, with an emphasis on GHG emissions, is also the focus of initiatives in several EU Member States. To support users, Level(s) was accompanied by a list of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) software tools and databases for calculating such indicators. A need was identified for practical, user-orientated information about the scope, consistency, cost, and accessibility of LCA software tools and databases. Therefore, a list of LCA tools and databases used in Europe for the assessment of the whole life cycle environmental impacts of buildings was compiled in 2017–2020 and their characteristics analysed based on a set of criteria. This paper describes the policy context of Level(s) and discusses criteria that can be used for the characterisation of LCA software tools and databases from the list compiled for Level(s). The methods included a literature review, surveys/interviews, and the co-creation of criteria for the categorization of tools and databases. The results are criteria including construction-specificity, system boundaries & scope, indicators, modelling granularity, methodological adherence to Level(s) and EN standards, data quality, transparency and verification, accessibility, data exchange and interoperability, cost, training and support, as well as additional information. By providing greater visibility regarding the features of tools and databases, this paper contributes to the mainstream use of Level(s) and also to the implementation of key EU policy initiatives aimed at enhancing the environmental sustainability of the built environment, such as the EU Renovation Wave, the New European Bauhaus, and the EU taxonomy for sustainable activities.

Оценка жизненного цикла интеллектуальных устойчивых городов

Introduction. The problem of the life cycle-based assessment of cities (LC), involving systems of indicators for a smart sustainable city, is relevant. The objectives of the study include the review and analysis of existing LC-based methods in construction, housing and utilities sector (HUS), the review and analysis of systems of indicators, evaluation frameworks, benchmarking systems that exist both in the format of standards and are proposed as research developments, the review of the software used for the assessment of the LC of facilities in construction and HUS, the review of open-access databases for the LC assessment of construction and HUS, drafting a thematic plan for the training course “Life Cycle Assessment for Sustainable Cities”. Materials and methods. Research articles in indexed journals, standards, guidelines, and specifications were used. The search was performed using the following databases: eLIBRARY.RU, Google Scholar, Scopus, ScienceDirect, ISI Web of Knowledge, researchgate.net, standards.ru, iso.org, shop.bsigroup.com. The key words, used to search for the information, include life cycle assessment (LCA), smart sustainable cities, city assessment, sustainability assessment, environmental assessment, environmental impact, sustainability indicators, construction, housing and utilities sector (HUS). Results. A sample thematic plan for the training course titled “The life cycle assessment of sustainable cities” was developed on the basis of the analysis of the sources and the systematization of the information thus obtained. Conclusions. The research and its results show that the problem of LC-based assessment of cities, involving the use of indicator systems for smart sustainable cities, has many solutions. The goal, which was to accumulate, analyze and use the information in the training course, has been achieved. Of particular practical interest are the LCA software tools available in construction and HUS. Of great importance for the LCA are open-access databases focused on construction and HUS.

Life Cycle Information Models: Parameterized Linked Data Structures to Facilitate the Consistent Use of Life-Cycle Assessment in Decision Making

The recent enactment of the Buy Clean Act (2017) in California requires highway construction contractors to produce an environmental product declaration (EPD) at the point of installation for a list of all eligible construction materials. An EPD is an instrument that communicates life cycle assessment (LCA) outcomes for a product or process in compliance with the ISO Standard 14025. LCA methodology requires the use of life cycle data from interconnected industries and sectors that contribute to the supply chain of a product. This provides a challenge of consistent and reliable use of inventory data for the LCA of pavements, specifically when considering the geographic expanse of energy profiles, supply chain diversity of pavement materials, and additives. Hence, the objective of this paper is to develop life-cycle information models (LCIMs) that serve two purposes: first, allows for pavement LCA domain-specific knowledge representation, management, and sharing; and second, allows for consistent, reliable, and transparent use of life cycle inventory data. The first purpose is achieved by developing an ontological representation of key components and relationships underlying a pavement LCA to support formal parametric data structures. The second purpose is achieved by identifying life cycle inventories to be mapped to the data structures through a collaboration with the Federal LCA Commons. As LCA software tools are developed to support decision making for departments of transportation, the ontological representation of the pavement domain can serve as a specification outlining a common set of protocols and LCIM designed for reuse to support reliable decision support applications.

Process-oriented life cycle assessment modelling in EASETECH

Life cycle assessment (LCA) modelling of resource-related technologies can be challenging in the context of circular economy, bioeconomy, recycling and integrated waste management, where materials are recirculated within processes and undergo chemical-physical transformations. This implies redefinition of physical flows within the LCA model. Additionally, physical flows may have non-linear responses to changes in model parameters and background processes, involve activities such as extraction of materials and chemical substances, and directly affect emissions. However, these non-linear responses and links between physical flows within technologies are often neglected. In this study, four novel LCA modelling features are provided: i) mixing and/or redefinition of physical flows; ii) substance recirculation within physical flows; iii) integration of physical flows from background processes into foreground processes; and iv) (multi)-conditional sequence flows, while maintaining substance and material balances throughout the system. As an expansion of EASETECH, an existing user-friendly LCA software tool for modelling of environmental technologies, a “process editor” (EASETECH+) allows implementation of these four features into EASETECH. The modelling features are implemented into EASETECH as seven individual processes “modules” and applied in an illustrative case-study focusing on anaerobic digestion of source-segregated organic household waste. The case-study demonstrated that the new modelling approach for physical flows, including recirculation, links between flows from background to foreground processes and conditional flows, considerably affected both results and interpretation of the LCA modelling. The recommendation is that process-oriented LCA modelling as presented here can provide critical new insight into the environmental performance of waste technologies and systems.

The life cycle analysis of a dental examination: Quantifying the environmental burden of an examination in a hypothetical dental practice.

Global sustainability is considered the number one health concern facing our planet. Dental care is currently not provided in a sustainable way. This study aims to quantify the potential environmental burden of an examination in a hypothetical dental practice and identify major contributors to environmental harm. A life cycle analysis was performed for the life cycle of an examination of one patient in a hypothetical dental practice. The equipment and products analysed were those available at the Faculty of Dentistry, Malmö University. The Ecoinvent version 3.5 database and the life cycle assessment software tool OpenLCA version 1.10 were chosen for this study. Normalized results indicate that the impact categories to which the modelled examination most significantly contributes are water scarcity, freshwater eutrophication and human toxicity (cancer effects). The major contributors or hotspots relating to the environmental harm of an examination procedure are soaps and detergents, disposable bibs, surface disinfection, stainless-steel instruments, clothing, water use and wastewater. Normalized results indicate that the potential environmental impact of an examination compared to one individual's impact per year is minimal. Considering the potential number of dental examinations and other dental procedures performed every year puts the findings in another perspective. This paper touches on some of the ways that the environmental burden of an examination could be reduced. Small changes to everyday practice, such as always making sure the dishwasher and washing machines are full when turned on, using less environmentally damaging soaps, more sustainable clothing alternatives and using necessary instruments could significantly reduce dentistry's environmental impact. Changes in materials and practice may result in potential trade-offs. Research would need to be carried out comparing the environmental burden of any alternatives. We hope in the near future that there will be more evidence relating to products used within dental care settings, potential trade-offs and dentistry's environmental burden.

A schematic framework for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Green Building Rating System (GBRS)

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) tools link the environmental context of a building to the design decision-making framework. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Green Building Rating Systems (GBRS) are the two approaches commonly used to holistically analyse the environmental performance of the whole building. While GBRS is mostly based on a checklist with many qualitative criteria, LCA compels decision-makers to base the analyses on numerical evidence, facilitating the comparison between design choices. Some GBRS, such as LEED, BREEAM and Green Star, have been incorporating LCA as part of their assessment system. This practice brings transparency to the design process and increases designers' awareness of the building's environmental impact. Consequently, this paper aims to develop a schematic EIA framework within the design life cycle, proposing future research directions to support its development. The framework was based in three parallel analyses: (1) comparison between LCA and GBRS assessment methodologies, (2) analysis of the LCA parameters within GBRS, and (3) investigation of LCA software tools focused on buildings that comply with GBRS requirements. The research found that, rather than performing either a GBRS or an LCA, the most appropriate EIA methodology will depend on the design life cycle stage. Graphical outputs and connection with 3D modelling will improve the evaluation of environmental impacts as a process integrated with the design.

COMPARISON OF LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT TOOLS IN CEMENT PRODUCTION

The cement industry is known to be the largest consumer of energy and natural resources. Globally, an average of a ton of cement is needed by every individual each year. Cement, being the major constituent of concrete, is the most manufactured and most consumed product, and its environmental impact continuously increases; this in turn causes climate change and global warming. This has stimulated the quest to understand the environmental implications of the cement industry through life cycle assessment. The need to review life cycle assessment (LCA) software that is available for cement production is thus germane, as the desired output to be obtained in an LCA largely depends on the choice of the software package to be used. Of the 45 LCA software tools reviewed, we report on a comparison of four suitable and prominent software packages — GaBi, OpenLCA, SimaPro, and Umberto — for the cement industry. From our analysis, SimaPro emerged as the best software tool for the cement industry, based on the required standards. However, every user knows what is required in a tool; thus this paper helps to link the desired output to a particular software tool.

LCA and ecodesign teaching via university-industry cooperation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to report on a life cycle assessment (LCA)-based ecodesign teaching practice via university-industry collaboration in an industrial engineering undergraduate course.Design/methodology/approachA new course was designed and taught in the Industrial Engineering undergraduate course of a Federal University in Brazil. The course comprised explanatory lectures and a practical project developed in a partnership between the university and an industry partner where students had to develop Ecodesign proposals based on LCA to improve the environmental profile of both solid and reticulated paint brushes. To that end, students used the LCA software tool Umberto NXT v.7.1.13 (educational version), where they modeled the life cycle of four plastic brushes and assessed it using the impact categories of climate change and resource consumption, and the Ecoinvent v.3.3 database. After course completion, students, professors and industry collaborators were asked to provide feedback on the project performance and expectations.FindingsThe course design used was welcomed by both students and the industry partner. Students found the novel approach intriguing and useful to their future careers. The results also exceeded the industry partner’s expectations, as students formulated valuable insights. Professors observed that learning was made easier, as content was put into practice and internalized more easily and solidly. The approach was found to be a win-win-win.Practical implicationsStudents acquired a fair share of knowledge on sustainability issues and potential existing trade-offs, which is valuable to industrial practices. The industry noticed the valuable contributions that academia can provide. The university profited from providing students with a real case challenging traditional teaching methods.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first case studies to show how LCA and ecodesign teaching practice can support sustainability learning in an industrial engineering undergraduate course.

Why using different Life Cycle Assessment software tools can generate different results for the same product system? A cause–effect analysis of the problem

There are different software tools to perform Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and results may be different according to which software the user chooses. This paper aims to present how different LCA results can be achieved due to using different LCA software tools for the same product system. The present study focuses on analyzing four LCA software tools: SimaPro, Gabi, Umberto® and openLCA, and a standard case study was designed for the LCA comparisons for the particleboard production in Brazil. The product system was modeled in terms of gate-to-gate (G2G) and cradle-to-gate (C2G) approaches, and the ILCD midpoint was the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) method. Characterized and normalized impacts were calculated and compared in terms of maximum/minimum relative deviation for five different impact categories. An analysis of the current software tools indicates that photochemical ozone formation and ecotoxicity freshwater categories were highlighted because of their high relative impacts. However, the G2G impacts for all the software tools were less affected than the C2G impacts, which indicate there are differences in the causes of the impacts for the background datasets. Furthermore, an analysis of the Characterization Factors (CFs) was designed and the results were revealed: i) missing CFs in some software, ii) additional CFs in some software, and iii) different CFs for the same flows. Based on that, a cause–effect analysis was performed, and two root causes were identified: import process for background datasets, and lack of rules for implementing LCIA methods in the software tools. To deal with such root causes, a roadmap was proposed and we recommended to include LCIA methods into a node at the Global LCA Data network, and consequently all software tools should update their databases from there. This would help to at least reducing the discrepancies of LCA results.

Life cycle assessment of sea cucumber production: A case study, China

Environmental pollution caused by aquaculture production has become an increasing problem in China. In the present study, life cycle assessment (LCA) was used to evaluate and analyze the environmental impact of sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicas) production in Dalian as an example for Chinese aquaculture cleaner production (CP) research. The production process included three stages: feeding, farming, and processing. In addition, to analyze the key factors that influence the environmental performance, the feeding stage was divided into breeding and culturing phases; the farming stage was divided into planting and harvesting phases; and the processing stage comprised sorting, stewing, salting, and freezing phases. The popular LCA software tool GaBi and the CML-2001 method for a problem-oriented approach to LCA were used to calculate the environmental impact at each stage and phase of the sea cucumber production process. The results showed that the normalization results of LCA in the three stages were 1.21 E−08 yr, 2.44 E−10 yr, and 1.11 E−09 yr, respectively. The feeding stage had the greatest environmental impact, because high levels of electricity, fossil fuel, and water are required to maintain the culturing water temperature and oxygen status for juvenile sea cucumbers. Moreover, from the analysis of the LCA normalization results in each phase, we found that the marine aquatic ecotoxicity potential (MAETP) was the largest contributor to the environmental impact, with electricity use, water requirements, and fossil fuel consumption as the key factors that affected the results. Improvement measures toward CP in each stage were proposed, such as energy substitution (nuclear energy, natural gas, or solar-energy), water reduction (microecologics), and bio-waste management (bio-waste recycling). These measures will provide a reference for policy makers and enterprise managers to enact strategies to improve the sustainability of Chinese aquaculture.

Building-information-modeling enabled life cycle assessment, a case study on carbon footprint accounting for a residential building in China

Abstract Building Information Modeling (BIM) is regarded as a potential vehicle to tremendously improve the information flow throughout the life cycle of a building. The integration of BIM and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has potential to reduce the time for life cycle inventory, and at the same time, substantially improve the representativeness of the LCA results for the specific building design. The latter merit is not trivial. For instance, due to time limit, most building LCA studies estimate the building materials and fuels consumed in construction phase quite roughly, which excludes the choices on a wide range of construction techniques, materials, specialties and machines, no need to mention the energy consumption in operation phase, which is usually estimated in an even bolder manner. The roughness of the LCA practice undermines its credibility and hinders its application as a decision supporting tool for low carbon design. Currently, China's Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector is undergoing a smart transformation, steered by the increased use of BIM. This paper presents a BIM-enabled LCA method and illustrates how the method can be used to facilitate the low carbon design under the circumstance of the smart AEC transition in China. A case study on carbon footprint accounting for a residential building is conducted. In this study, various software tools and data sources are combined to enhance the data flow and interoperability between BIM models and LCA models. BIM tools are used to create the BIM model, calculate the inputs (materials, construction machines, energies, water and so on) of on-site construction process and simulate the energy consumption of building operation. The eBalance, a China's local LCA software tool is applied to build the LCA model. The Chinese Life Cycle Database is used as the main data source (72.73%) to calculate the carbon footprint of the given building while the Ecoinvent database and European Life Cycle Database act as supplementary. The results show that the carbon footprint of the building is 2993 kg CO2eq/m2. The operation phase contributes to 69% of the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, while the building material production contributes to 24%. Concrete is the most used building material, which accounts for 82% of mass but contributes to only 44% of the material related GHG emission. Although steel and aluminum account for only 2.6% and 1.4% of mass, they contribute to 28% and 17% GHG emission, respectively. Through BIM-enable LCA modeling, the potential life cycle environmental performance of the buildings can be assessed in detail. This makes the LCA not only more accessible but also more credible for the AEC professionals to use it as a guide for the low carbon design of buildings.

Coupling life cycle assessment with process simulation for ecodesign of chemical processes

Because of the central position of the chemical industries along the value chain, process design has a pivotal role, involving many decision makers and multiple levels of decisions. To tackle the environmental concern at source, this article presents a methodological framework for process ecodesign, coupling flowsheeting simulators both for production and energy processes with a Life Cycle Assessment module that generalizes and automates the evaluation of environmental impacts. The life cycle inventory is carried out through the combined use of mass and energy balances resulting both from the global simulation of the process and its associated energy production requirement and from the use of inventory database (i.e., Ecoinvent v3) embedded in the Life Cycle Assessment software tool used (SimaPro). Different process alternatives can thus be evaluated in a systematic way and the energy‐related emissions for any given process that match exactly the real situation can be computed without introducing a bias in the estimation. Through comparisons between a case base and process alternatives, a systematic decision can be made in terms of whether a solution is moving the process towards a more sustainable operation. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is first illustrated through the case study of benzene production and second, by a biodiesel production process from waste vegetable oils which is one of the foremost alternative fuels to those refined from petroleum products. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 37: 777–796, 2018

Air emission and environmental impact assessment of Korean automotive logistics

In South Korea, the automotive industry generates a significant amount of air emissions during the distribution stage of its life cycle. In order to understand the environmental effects of the finished automobile logistics, this study assesses the emissions of seven air pollutants and four types of environmental impact potentials from finished vehicles transported via three transportation modes. To estimate the total amounts of air emissions, this study utilizes an attributional life cycle approach in terms of the transport load for the distribution stages of domestic and oversea production cases of South Korea’s automotive industry, while further assessing the environmental impact of the finished vehicle logistics using the life cycle assessment software tool, Gabi. The results of the case study indicate that the transportation activities of total finished vehicles made in South Korea and the United States for Korean-owned automobile manufacturers generate a significant amount of carbon emissions and a negligible amount of nitrous oxide to the atmosphere. With respect to the environmental impacts, the results indicate that the vessel for the South Korean logistics and the truck for the United States logistics have the largest influences on global warming potential and acidification potential.

Investigation of the environmental impacts of municipal wastewater treatment plants through a Life Cycle Assessment software tool

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the total and per capita environmental impacts of municipal wastewater treatment in the function of the population equivalent (PE) with a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach using the processes of the Ecoinvent 2.2 database available in the software tool SimaPro v.7.3. Besides the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), the study also considers the sewerage system. The obtained results confirm that there is a ‘scale factor’ for the wastewater collection and treatment even in environmental terms, in addition to the well-known scale factor in terms of management costs. Thus, the more the treatment plant size is, the less the per capita environmental impacts are. However, the Ecoinvent 2.2 database does not contain information about treatment systems with a capacity lower than 30 PE. Nevertheless, worldwide there are many sparsely populated areas, where it is not convenient to realize a unique centralized WWTP. Therefore, it would be very important to conduct an LCA study in order to compare alternative on-site small-scale systems with treatment capacity of few PE.

Green Building Rating Systems and Whole-Building Life Cycle Assessment: Comparative Study of the Existing Assessment Tools

AbstractThere is a growing interest in integrating life cycle assessment (LCA) into building design decision making due to LCA’s comprehensive and systemic approach to environmental evaluation. Many green building rating systems (GBRSs) use LCA to various degrees. In this paper, a comparative study was performed to evaluate the LCA software tools available to building designers. A whole-building LCA was performed for a large building using three software LCA tools. The software tools vary in key aspects, such as intended users (e.g., LCA experts or novices), design stage in which they can be used, and time. The evaluated LCA tools varied significantly in the possibility of their use in early design and decision making. Some of the applications rely on a bill of materials that changes constantly in design alterations. However, others showed a greater advantage in that they can be integrated from the beginning of the design process. The comparative LCA results indicated that the impact of LCA software is de...

The Importance of Integrating LCA into the LEED Rating System

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a rating system that rates green buildings; LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) is a tool to evaluate the environmental impacts of building materials. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of integrating LCA into LEED to enhance its rating system. The LEED Gold building presented in this research is the Centennial College Progress Campus located in Toronto, Canada. Using ATHENA® Impact Estimator version 4.5 to conduct the LCA, this study analyses how different building envelope solutions and building materials affect the results of the environmental assessment of a whole building over the building's life cycle of 60, 80 and 120 years. Environmental impact assessment of LEED buildings is discussed, further research topics are suggested; for example how to develop specific LCA software tools and integrate them into LCA analysis for green building rating system.