Sustainability Assessment Of Products Research Articles

Assessing the Climate Performance Potential of Start-ups: Insights and Guidance on Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Young Ventures

The role of early-stage venture capital (VC) investment in financing for ambitious climate action is often overlooked. In the developing field of climate-tech investment, one of the biggest challenges is to identify the start-ups and business models that contribute to climate change mitigation. The potential of a start-ups business model to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is defined as the start-ups climate performance potential (CPP). The assessment of a start-up’s CPP could enable start-ups and VC investors to invest in a more informed way with greater precision, impact, and purpose. The objective of this paper can be expressed in two steps: First, to gain insights into and identify the potential for improvement in the environmental sustainability assessment practices of VC firms through an exploratory case study. Second, to provide life cycle-based guidance on environmental sustainability assessment of innovative products offered by start-ups to determine their CPP, by eliciting appropriate criteria and procedures for directionally sound assessment. For this, the assessment approach developed by the climate-tech VC firm World Fund was used for the exploratory case study. In a first step, the CPP assessment process was described, based on document review and observation. Next, the CPP carbon footprint method was compared with ISO standardizations of life cycle assessment (LCA) and carbon footprint (CF) along eight criteria. Development potential was identified and discussed for seven of the eight criteria, including, for example, the use of scenarios, the complexity of meta-analyses, and the need to avoid misleading incentives.

Integrating Absolute Sustainability and Social Sustainability in the Digital Product Passport to Promote Industry 5.0

The establishment of the digital product passport is regarded to be a prominent tool to promote environmental and social sustainability, thus enabling the transition towards Industry 5.0. In this way, it represents a holistic tool for the decision-making process of several actors of a product’s value chain. However, its development is still ongoing and the absolute perspective of environmental sustainability and the social sustainability have been overlooked. The present work aims to fill these gaps and complement the literature currently available on the digital product passport with a threefold purpose. Firstly, by referring to social life cycle assessment methodologies, useful social indicators to include in the digital product passport are discussed and proposed. Secondly, the need for an absolute perspective of environmental sustainability that respects the natural limits of our planet is presented; based on the LCA methodology and the Planetary Boundaries framework, environmental attributes and environmental impact indicators with the corresponding threshold are proposed to be included in the passport and enable the so-called absolute environmental sustainability assessment of products. Finally, a framework based on a cyber-physical system for filling in the digital product passport throughout a product lifecycle is conceived. This work represents an example of how the hallmark technologies of Industry 4.0 can be used towards Industry 5.0.

Food for the future: sustainability assessment of cricket products for policy decisions to move toward sustainable agriculture in Thailand

Insects will be an important alternative food for protein in the future. Crickets, with a high protein level (54-70%) and all the essential amino acids, have emerged as a high potential protein source. Thailand is taking a leading position in Southeast Asia when it comes to producing alternative proteins based on crickets, with an annual production capacity of 3,700 tonnes/year with 1,200 registered farmers. To provide supporting information for sustainable agriculture policy decisions toward food security, carbon footprinting was applied as the analytical tool to assess the environmental performance of house cricket farming and processing into frozen fresh crickets and cricket powder. The inventory data associated with the life cycle of cricket products were collected from 20 farms in the north and 16 farms in the northeast covering small-, medium-, and large-sized farms. In the processing stage, the inventory data were gathered from the internal recording systems of the production processing activities from a local cricket manufacturer. Based on the edible protein content as the functional unit, the carbon footprint values of frozen crickets and cricket powder were 4.6 and 11.3 kgCO2e/kg of edible protein, respectively. By calculating the revenue of cricket-based products per carbon footprint, we showed that the cricket powder had higher eco-efficiency values (almost 4 times) than fresh crickets. Furthermore, the net income from cricket farming and processing was 567-69,670 USD/year and the labour productivity was 16-223 USD/worker-day. This information should be very useful for government to support national policy decision-making on promoting and increasing the number of cricket farms, with the aim of enhancing market opportunities, especially in international markets. Cricket farming is expected to offer a livelihood strategy based of sustainable agriculture in Thailand, while making a strong potential contribution toward food security.

Sustainability Fingerprint - guiding companies in anticipating the sustainability direction in early design

During the early phases of design of new products, information necessary to guide and assess sustainability is typically incomplete. Manufacturers risk discovering the unfavorable sustainability impact too late to redirect the development. The purpose of this study is to search and review methods to anticipate the sustainability performance of new products in the early stages of the innovation process, and, together with a case company in the aeroengine manufacturing business, to develop and propose a systematic approach to anticipate sustainability performance. Following a literature review of 51 methods and research-based proposals, only five covered the social-, ecological-, and economic sustainability dimensions in the early phases of product development. Through an action research-based approach, a qualitative sustainability measurement tool, the Sustainability Fingerprint tool, was developed. This tool allows the development team in a company to systematically derive a sustainability performance from a set of criteria unique to the targeted product and/or product portfolio that is to be designed, from a set of scientifically well-established sustainability principles. The tool was applied in six different industry cases at the company, by the design teams and independent of any influence of the researchers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to learn about the usefulness, usability, and applicability of the tool. It was concluded that the Sustainability Fingerprint tool has no equivalent in the literature and was considered useful for the case company during early phase design for two main reasons. Firstly, the tool is tailor-made with defined company-specific sustainability criteria that represent the most important sustainability aspects to assess. Secondly, the support tool can be used also in later phases, thereby supporting a continued innovation process. It allows designers to anticipate a sustainability performance of the solution in: the development of sustainable innovations; comparison and down-selection of alternative solutions; sustainability assessments of the product portfolio to identify improvement measures; and sustainability assessment of current products to identify sustainability hotspots. Further research will include companies from other industrial sectors and will focus on adding digital support, improved practical instructions, and, integration to existing processes and established support tools in companies today.

Piloting Oiconomy Pricing: First experiences of producers applying full cost sustainability assessment of products

AbstractThe Oiconomy Pricing approach provides an innovative way of measuring and communicating (un)sustainability of products. It expresses (un)sustainability in a virtual monetary unit, the ‘Eco Social Cost Unit’ (ESCU). As closely as possible, the ESCU score of a product equals the externalities, which can also be described as hidden preventative costs. In the context of product sustainability assessment, these are the costs that need to be spent to avoid any damage to the environment or society that the product causes during its entire lifecycle. This paper presents the result of a pilot project with three companies operating in global value chains, applying the Oiconomy Sustainability Assessment Tool. The project encouraged end‐producer companies and their value chain partners to calculate the hidden preventative costs and jointly implement sustainable solutions. This article presents the results of these calculations for the three cases, the experiences of the companies and the implications for the market introduction of the tool.

Integrated Techno-Economic and Sustainability Assessment of Value-Added Products Generated from Biomass Gasification: An Energy–Water–Food Nexus Approach

Integrated Techno-Economic and Sustainability Assessment of Value-Added Products Generated from Biomass Gasification: An Energy–Water–Food Nexus Approach

Land Use Indicators in the Context of Land Use Efficiency

In recent decades, the land use changes induced by various economic activities in agricultural ecosystems have affected many aspects of human life. This is the reason why land use change is considered as one of the agriculture-related environmental impacts in a sustainability assessment of food and bio-based products. At the same time, the methodology applied for the quantification of land use change effects is still under intensive research, stimulating scientific discussions. The overall objective of this paper is to fill the gap in knowledge of responsible and sustainable land use management. Specifically, the research provides a comprehensive set of land use change indicators in the context of land use change and land use efficiency. The indicators can be measured based on publicly available databases with the applicability to agricultural sustainability assessment of land use change on a local, regional and global scale. The high share of artificial land and dominant agricultural use of land with low land use intensity were noted in Belgium, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Slovenia, Cyprus, Croatia, Finland, Germany, and United Kingdom. However, land use efficiency was also low. In turn, heterogeneous land cover (but less artificial areas than in other EU countries) and heterogeneous land uses with diverse land use intensity were noted in Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, and Sweden. The challenge in future research could be aggregation of different indicators in assessing the similarity of land use between countries.

Sustainability assessment of products - Case study of wind turbine generator types

This study proposes a product sustainability assessment tool (PSAT) that addresses the environmental, health and safety, social, and economic sustainability aspects from a life cycle perspective. The proposed PSAT uses the principles of Green Chemistry, Industrial Ecology, and Green Engineering as guidelines in the development of its assessment criteria. The developed assessment criteria are expressed as easy-to-answer questions covering the environmental, social, health and safety and economic aspects of sustainability. PSAT also incorporates life cycle assessment impact categories and the Circular Economy approach. PSAT comprises an Excel checklist of a questionnaire with a drop-down list of answers to select from describing the sustainability impact of the assessed product. PSAT serves to highlight the sustainability hotspots in a product's life cycle. The questionnaire consists of qualitative and quantitative assessment criteria and contains a total of 97 questions, out of which there are 11 design questions, 22 materials selection questions, 31 manufacturing questions, 24 use questions, and 9 end-of-life questions. The PSAT scoring system enables users to compare the sustainability performance of their products. PSAT aims to aid users in making informed decisions before purchasing a product based on the information on how the product is designed and what materials it contains, how it was manufactured, how it will perform during its use, and what will happen at the end of its useful life. It also aims to aid product manufacturers and designers in incorporating sustainability into all stages of the product life cycle. The PSAT methodology promotes a holistic view of a product life cycle, including the design, materials selection, manufacturing, use, and end-of-life stage.As a case study, PSAT was used to perform a comparative sustainability assessment of two types of 3 MW rated power wind turbines: a direct-drive permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) and a doubly-fed induction generator with a gearbox (DFIG). The results from the sustainability assessment reveal that the DFIG wind turbine had a better sustainability impact than the direct-drive PMSG in the materials selection, manufacturing, and end-of-life life cycle stages. On the other hand, the direct-drive PMSG had a better sustainability impact than DFIG in the life cycle stages design and use. Overall, DFIG demonstrated a better sustainability impact than the direct-drive PMSG.

Sustainability Assessment of Products - Case Study of Wind Turbine Generator Types

Sustainability Assessment of Products - Case Study of Wind Turbine Generator Types

Sustainability Assessment of Products manufactured by the Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) Process

Assessing the sustainability of a product is dependent on considering individual product life cycle data. Based on the information on material, energy and information flows, evaluation tools such as the life cycle assessment (LCA) or the calculation of the cumulative energy consumption can be used. Especially the methodology of LCA according to ISO 14040/44 allows a selection of alternative analysis and measurement cycles as well as a combination of impact assessment indicators that have a direct and significant influence on sustainability. The comparison of various manufacturing processes allows the identification of relations between the applied evaluation tools and the product- as well as process-specific parameters during the production phase, and throughout the entire product life cycle. Within the various case studies considered, a distinction can be made both between the definition and the indicators of sustainability and between the ecological, economic or social dimensions within the motivation formulated. This paper describes the results of the literature review on the sustainability assessment of additive manufacturing processes in general as well as the Laser Powder Bed Fusion process as an example. A research map shows which phases of the product life cycle of an additive manufactured component are considered and which methods can be used to assess their sustainability. The result is a summary of the state of the art regarding the methods of sustainability assessment of additive manufacturing processes. In addition, an outlook can be determined on how the different phases of the product life cycle can be evaluated with tools that currently receive less attention.

Visualization supported corporate decision making for life cycle sustainability assessment – Illustrated using a case study for selecting a sustainable packaging system for self-leveling compounds

Product life cycle assessment (LCA) and sustainability assessment have proven as powerful methods to identify sustainability hotspots and support decision making. In practice, corporate decision support is often hampered by the complexity resulting from the three sustainability dimensions and inherent uncertainties. In this study, a novel a posteriori visualization is presented, based on the concept of satisficing or similarly sustainable alternatives integrating scenarios to account for different use options. This allows the decision makers (DMs) including management-relevant information in their decision while selecting a satisficing alternative. The presented approach supports consensus building among DMs with differing weighting preferences for the three pillars of sustainability as common in life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) and leads to a consensus in product selection for relevant scenarios. This also supports the selection of more robust alternatives under a variety of use cases compared to the common focus on best performing alternatives for a particular use case.For illustration, a case study of a self-leveling compound (mortar) manufacturer interested in selecting a sustainable packaging system for a variety of different use cases is presented. Paper bags, flexible intermediate bulk container, one-way cardboard container and a pumping truck, all used with different machinery, are evaluated under several scenarios. Using first-hand field data, this case study shows how the proposed visualization supports consensus building among DMs. The case study shows that in 87% of all scenarios the use of the 25 kg paper bag in combination with a mixing drum and cart resulted as a satisficing sustainable alternative.

Multiple Climate Tipping Points Metrics for Improved Sustainability Assessment of Products and Services.

Mounting evidence indicates that climate tipping points can have large, potentially irreversible, impacts on the earth system and human societies. Yet, climate change metrics applied in current sustainability assessment methods generally do not consider these tipping points, with the use of arbitrarily determined time horizons and assumptions that the climate impact of a product or service is independent of emission timing. Here, we propose a new method for calculating climate tipping characterization factors for greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide) at midpoint. It covers 13 projected tipping points, incorporates the effect that the crossing of a given tipping point has on accelerating the crossing of other tipping points, and addresses uncertainties in the temperature thresholds that trigger the tipping points. To demonstrate the added value of the new metric, we apply it to emissions stemming from end-of-life of plastic polymers and compare them with commonly used metrics. This highlights the need to consider climate tipping in sustainability assessment of products and services.

Strengths and gaps of the EU frameworks for the sustainability assessment of bio-based products and bioenergy

BackgroundThe high number of bioeconomy (BE) policies and strategies indicates the interest in the BE in many nations. The development of the BE holds opportunities but also risks for sustainability. Thus, the future development of a sustainable BE should be based on coherent policy frameworks. There are already links between private governance approaches and public policy frameworks that might support each other for this purpose. The aim of this study was to evaluate how the current EU BE policy frameworks consider sustainability aspects and if non-governmental governance approaches could support their enhancement.MethodsAn inventory of BE policy documents on EU and EU member state levels relevant to sustainability was conducted applying desktop research. Major sustainability risk perceptions in the BE sectors were identified. We provide a list of sustainability risks within different BE sectors, based on an expert survey. In a qualitative evaluation, most commonly identified sustainability requirements in policy documents were benchmarked against most important sustainability risk perceptions.ResultsSustainability requirements have been identified in 56% of the policy documents. The influence of the policy frameworks on the industry was found to be rather low. Specific targets and goals are included in 72% of the analysed BE policy documents, but only 50% are quantifiable. Identification of major sustainability risks revealed that in the biomass production stage, mostly environmental risks are most relevant. A “hot spot sector” with accumulated sustainability risk perceptions or a tendency to higher risk levels was not identified. Most important sustainability risk perceptions matched with requirements in policy documents, but requirements were mostly stated in a noncommittal way.Discussion and conclusionsCoherence amongst the sustainability criteria included in the various BE frameworks should be increased. Groundwork developed by non-governmental governance approaches should be picked up by policy makers for more harmonised terminologies of sustainability requirements, BE definitions, etc. BE monitoring approaches should take policy targets, sustainability requirements and sustainability risks into account and should adjust them in a dynamic way.

MFA vs. LCA, particularly as environment management methods in industry: an opinion

MFA was born in the 1980s, independently, in various laboratories around the world. On the one hand, Industry was trying then to put numbers on its circular economy practices, while, on the other, Academia endeavored to construct a metaphor ofnatural ecology(BioGeoChemical Cycles [BGCC]) or of themetabolism of ecosystemsto describe the activities of the anthroposphere, especially its material and the energy flows (and stocks). This article briefly reviews the early efforts of Usinor (now ArcelorMittal) in this area, in the framework of a program called “The Cycle of Iron” and points out what it was trying to achieve: basically, analyze and evaluate a true recycling rate (RR) of steel. MFA turned out to be potentially a more powerful tool than ad hoc models of materials circularity too and Industry left the leadership to academic groups to flesh out the new methodology to confront such difficult questions as the evaluation of a RR. Then the article conducts a kind of methodological and epistemological audit of the present status of MFA, positioning it in the wide framework of descriptions of material flows in space and time, and thus picturing it as a competing methodology to LCA. While the former is macro-scale, synchronic, broadly economy-oriented, the latter is micro-scale, diachronic, product and value chain-oriented, while both “report” to different communities, the Industrial Ecology community and the LCA community respectively, and more. Both schools of thoughts have been attending SAM conferences regularly, where they have been reporting their continuous search for new developments and their search for a better sustainability assessment of materials, products, industrial systems and economic activities of all kinds. The various contributions over the first 12 SAM events are analyzed. Finally, MFA and LCA are compared, feature by feature, in terms of the communities they serve and of their strengths and weaknesses. Unsurprisingly, the conclusion is that they are more complementary than competing with each other.

Sustainability of innovative urban surfaces – a new approach of assessment

The physical design of urban surfaces determines the management processes that are required to ensure that their intended functions are fulfilled within a set period of time and influences their linked material flows. Those flows are causing numerous environmental, economic, and social impacts. In the field of urban surfaces, there is a broad variety of innovations available that has the potential to contribute to a more sustainable environment and quality of life in cities. However, before implementing any kind of innovation, it is important to quantitatively and qualitatively assess its sustainability impacts in a holistic manner. While current assessment methods provide a suitable framework for the sustainability assessment of products and services, without modification, they cannot be applied to urban surfaces and related management processes.The herein introduced methodological approach is designed to overcome this problem by not only being tailored to the sustainability assessment of innovations in the field of urban surfaces but also by combining life cycle thinking with a holistic approach. By integrating SDGs, it will provide insight into the possible impacts of an innovation in all three dimensions of sustainability at the municipal level. This knowledge can be used to support the municipality in its decision on the design of urban surfaces and management processes by showing whether or not it is advisable to implement an innovation from a sustainability point of view. The focus of this publication is on the development of a general life cycle of urban surfaces and its interaction with product innovations.

Bio-Based Products

Communicating the related environmental benefits of bio-based products to consumers represents a key component of their market uptake. In this regard, the use of ecolabels ISO 14024 Type I play a crucial role. This article identifies and analyzes different criteria proposed by ecolabels for conducting a sustainability assessment of bio-based products considering its entire lifecycle. A comparison of the selected criteria with existing indicators ruled out by the SDGs is proposed. Through expert consultation, the suitability of existing ecolabel criteria for bio-based products has been tested for four applications of biobased products: food packaging from PLA; biobased automotive components; bio-based mulch film; and bio-based insulation material.

Introducing a product sustainability budget at an automotive company—one option to increase the use of LCSA results in decision-making processes

Product sustainability assessment should evaluate the impacts on all three dimensions of sustainability (environment, economy, and society). Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) is a framework that extends life cycle-based product assessment to all three dimensions. Evaluation of trade-off situations poses a challenge within LCSA in a business context, especially if improvement measures for product sustainability lead to higher costs. This paper introduces the concept of the Product Sustainability Budget (PSB) to enable a decision for improvement measures despite of rising costs. It demonstrates a way to create such a PSB and how to combine it with an operationalized LCSA framework at an automotive company. A survey was carried out asking 250 potential customers of the premium car segment in Germany via Choice-Based-Conjoint-Analysis (CBCA) about their preference of a sustainability interior package in a car. The sustainability package was one of the three specifications of a potential car interior (standard, luxury, sustainability) and was asked along four other attributes (price, drive train, engine power, and consumption). The survey was expanded by an Advanced-Van-Westendorp analysis to ask respondents about their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for such a package. The major findings of the study (take rate and price for the sustainability interior package) were then implemented in a business case logic from which the PSB was created. Nineteen percent of the entire sample would prefer the sustainability interior package to the other packages (=potential take rate) while the rest (81%) favored the luxury package. The package should be sold to this (potential) target group at price premium of 1.3–1.7% for a middle class limousine (or 0.4–1.1% when corrected for overstated WTP). It could be shown in a theoretical business case logic for such a sustainability package that the profit could be converted to form the PSB, which could compensate an increase in costs caused by a measure to improve product sustainability. The PSB opened up a solution space to identify the ideal set out of several possible improvement measures. The introduction of an LCSA evaluation scheme on component level in combination with the proposed Product Sustainability Budget could enable substantial product sustainability improvement even when costs increase. The combination of an implicit CBCA and an explicit WTP study delivered a sound basis for creating this Product Sustainability Budget. The proposed concept should be applied in a business context to test its viability and additionally investigate customers’ WTP for improved social impacts.

Product sustainability assessment for product life cycle

The product sustainability assessment is a progress to evaluate sustainability with indicators for product sustainability in the whole product life cycle. However, the current approaches could not deal with the relationships of those closed-loop indicators. This paper is devoted to a graph theory-based product sustainability assessment approach to avoid those closed loops of the evaluation indicators. The hierarchical evaluation system for mechanical product sustainability assessment with energy, environmental, resource, technical, and economic indicators is proposed. The product sustainability assessment approach is proposed with five steps: rationalization of the directed graph of the evaluation system, construction of the hierarchical structure, transformation from reachability matrix to judgment matrix, consistency check and adjustment of judgment matrix, and indicator weight determination and comprehensive assessment of evaluation system. The product sustainability assessment of an underactuated exoskeleton robot is given as an example to demonstrate the proposed methodology.

Social Life Cycle Approach as a Tool for Promoting the Market Uptake of Bio-Based Products from a Consumer Perspective

The sustainability of bio-based products, especially when compared with fossil based products, must be assured. The life cycle approach has proven to be a promising way to analyze the social, economic and environmental impacts of bio-based products along the whole value chain. Until now, however, the social aspects have been under-investigated in comparison to environmental and economic aspects. In this context, the present paper aims to identify the main social impact categories and indicators that should be included in a social sustainability assessment of bio-based products, with a focus on the consumers’ category. To identify which social categories and indicators are most relevant, we carry out a literature review on existing social life cycle studies; this is followed by a focus group with industrial experts and academics. Afterwards, we conduct semi-structured interviews with some consumer representatives to understand which social indicators pertaining to consumers are perceived as relevant. Our findings highlight the necessity for the development and dissemination of improved frameworks capable of exploiting the consumers’ role in the ongoing process of market uptake of bio-based products. More specifically, this need regards the effective inclusion of some social indicators (i.e., end users’ health and safety, feedback mechanisms, transparency, and end-of-life responsibility) in the social life cycle assessment scheme for bio-based products. This would allow consumers, where properly communicated, to make more informed and aware purchasing choices, therefore having a flywheel effect on the market diffusion of a bio-based product.

Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Products in the Context of Competitiveness

Abstract Sustainability is a concept adopted and approached in public and private organizations as a guiding principle that contributes to organizational development. However, the greatest challenge for organizations is its real implementation and the steps to be taken in this respect. At the same time, another challenge is how this sustainable development performance can be measured (for products and processes). These concepts are addressed in a competitive business environment, where differentiation and attraction of customers are among the main directions of action. In this context, the present paper presents Life cycle sustainability assessment of products in the context of competitiveness. At the end of the paper, an approach for the interpretation of the results obtained from the Life cycle sustainability assessment is presented.