ASP Course Global change and sustainability

1. ASP CourseGlobal change and sustainability Life Cycle Assessment Giovanni Dotelli, Dipartimento di Ingegnerica Chimica “G. Natta”Paco Melià, Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione Part 1: An overview of LCA

2. Life cycle perspective: from nature to nature the life cycle of a product comprises: • raw material extraction and acquisition • energy and material production and manufacturing • use • end-of-life treatment • final disposal ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

3. Washing machine: from cradle to gate iron ore mining transport steel production power plant: electricity washing machine production transport ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

4. Washing machine: from gate to grave transport washing machine manufacturing plant shopping centre power plant: electricity transport recycling use ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

5. What is missing? the life cycle of the washing machine sketched here is a simplified approach; raw materials other than iron, ancillary products and fuels are missing, for instance... ...the door and consequently the glass, the plastic gasket and so on... ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

6. LCA definition according to SETAC(1993) "Life Cycle Assessment is a process to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with a product, process, or activity by identifying and quantifying energy and materials used and wastes released to the environment; to assess the impact of those energy and materials used and releases to the environment; and to identify and evaluate opportunities to affect environmental improvements. The assessment includes the entire life cycle of the product, process or activity, encompassing, extracting and processing raw materials; manufacturing, transportation and distribution; use, re-use, maintenance; recycling, and final disposal". (The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, SETAC) ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

7. Rephrasing, Life Cycle Assessment …. … is a technique for assessing the environmental aspects and potential impacts associated with a product by • compiling an inventory of relevant inputs and outputs of a product system • evaluating the potential environmental impacts associated with those inputs and outputs ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

8. ISO standardisation the first European standard was published in 1997 ISO 14040:Environmental management – Life Cycle Assessment – Principles and Framework other standards completed the series: ISO 14041 to 14043. in 2006 there was the last revision: ISO 14044 ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

9. Phases of an LCA LCA studies comprise four phases: • goal and scope definition • inventory analysis (life cycle inventory) • impact assessment (life cycle impact assessment) • interpretation (life cycle interpretation) ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

10. Stages of an LCA according to ISO 14040 ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

11. Goal and scope • goal must answer the question:why are you carrying out the study? • scope explains the product system to be studied, its function and boundaries, the functional unit, the impact categories selected • functional unit is the reference unit used in the study to quantify the performance of the product system ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

12. A product system for the LCA ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

13. Unit processes ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

14. Inputs and outputs: the inventory • raw materials (iron ore, petrol, water,...) • ancillary products ( lubricants,...) • energy (electricity,...) • emissions to air (CO2, NOx,...) • emissions to water (detergents, NH4+) • emissions to soil (heavy metals,...) • solid waste ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

15. Impact assessment ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

16. ASP CourseGlobal change and sustainability Life Cycle Assessment Giovanni Dotelli, Dipartimento di Ingegnerica Chimica “G. Natta”Paco Melià, Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione Part 2: Impact indicators for LCA

17. From consumptions to impacts • material and energy flows • comprehensive evaluation of consumption, yet only indirectly linked to impacts • 1-dimensional approach: • cost-benefit analysis: all (?) impacts  money • ecological footprint: some impacts  biologically productive land • carbon footprint: climate impacts  CO2 equivalent • water footprint: freshwater consumptions but: some impacts are difficult to translate into a single indicator(e.g. human health to money) • multi-objective approach: • eco-indicators, DSS based on multi-criteria analysis ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

18. The DPSIR framework ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

19. Why using indicators/indices? • to represent complex problems in a simple and synthetic way • to investigate relationships between different phenomena at the same scale or between phenomena at the local and the global scale • to identify and analyse changes, trends, priorities, risks in a systematic way • to make a balance of adopted actions and monitor their effectiveness ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

20. Properties of a good indicator • a good indicator should be • unambiguous and measurable (possibly quantitatively, but also qualitatively) • relevant (or significant), i.e. provideuseful information on decision outcome • reliable, i.e. repeatable and notinfluenced by who collects the data • feasible, i.e. based upon data that can be collected easily, rapidly and cost-effectively ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

21. Monetary valuations: the ExternE project ExternE = Externalities of Energy • aimed at evaluating the impactsof electricity production and transport on human health,crops, materials, global warmingin monetary terms • uses an impact pathway approach References: European Commission (2003) External Costs. Research results on socio-environmental damages due to electricity and transport. EUR 20198. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities European Commission (2005) ExternE – Externalities of Energy – Methodology 2005 Update. EUR 21951 EN. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities http://www.externe.info/ ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

22. Monetary valuations: ecosystem services • gas regulation 1341 G$/yr • climate regulation 684 G$/yr • disturbance regulation 1779 G$/yr • water regulation 1115 G$/yr • water supply 1692 G$/yr • erosion control 576 G$/yr • soil formation 53 G$/yr • nutrient cycling 17075 G$/yr • waste treatment 2277 G$/yr • pollination 117 G$/yr • biological control 417 G$/yr • habitat / refugia 124 G$/yr • food production 1386 G$/yr • raw materials 721 G$/yr • genetic resources 79 G$/yr • recreation 815 G$/yr • cultural 3015 G$/yr 33268 G$/yr world GDP: ~18000 G$/yr Source: Costanza R. et al. (1997) The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387: 253-260 ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

23. The Ecological Footprint • producing and consuming goods and services requires ecological systems providing energy and materials and absorbing waste • Ecological Footprint: a measure (usually expressed in global hectares) ofhow much biologically productive land and watera country requires • to produce all resources (energy and materials)it consumes • to absorb the waste it generates using prevailing technology and independentlyfrom its geographic location • human demand can be directly compared to nature’s supply (biocapacity) Reference: Wackernagel M & Rees W (1996) Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

24. EF global trends Source: WWF (2008) Living Planet Report 2008 ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

25. The carbon footprint • it calculates the impact of human activities on climate change by measuring all greenhouse gases produced (expressed in kg of CO2 equivalent) • is is a subset of the ecological footprint(yet expressed in different units) • the impact of products is calculated through an LCA approach (cradle-to-grave) • primary footprint: related to direct carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning • secondary footprint: indirect emissions from the whole lifecycle of products ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

26. The eco-indicator approach Source: www.pre.nl/download/EI99_Manual.pdf ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

27. Impact on human health: the DALYs DALY: Disability-Adjusted Life Year 1 DALY = one year of healthy life lost DALY = YLL + YLD YLL = N × LE Years of Life Lost N number of deaths LE standard life expectancy at age of death (years) YLD = I × DW × L Years Lost due to Disability I number of incident cases DW disability weight (0: perfect health; 1: death) L average duration of the case until remission or death (years) Reference: Murray CJL & Lopez AD (1996) Evidence-Based Health Policy – Lessons from the Global Burden of Disease Study. Science 274: 740-743 ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

28. Impact on ecosystems: PAF and PDF PAF: Potentially Affected Fraction the fraction of species exposed to a concentration ≥ NOEC(No Observed Effect Concentration) PDF: Potentially Disappeared Fraction the fraction of species with a high probability of no occurrencein a region due to unfavourable conditions how to combine PAFs and PDFs? ...just sum them up, given that PDF = PAF/10 (!) Reference: Goedkoop M & Spriensma R (2001) The Eco-indicator 99 – A damage oriented method for Life Cycle Assessment. Methodology Report. Pré Consultants ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

29. Impact on resources when non-renewable resources are extracted, the quality of the remaining resource stocks decreases and the energy to extract a given amount of resource (or an equivalent amount of a substitute resource) increases surplus energy • minerals: • marginal increase of energy needed to extractthe same resource amount due to decreasingconcentration of the mineral • fossil fuels: • marginal increase of energy needed to extract an equivalent amount of a substitute resource (e.g. coal from anthracite vs. lignite) Reference: Goedkoop M & Spriensma R (2001) The Eco-indicator 99 – A damage oriented method for Life Cycle Assessment. Methodology Report. Pré Consultants ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

30. The eco-indicator methodology Source: www.pre.nl/download/EI99_Manual.pdf ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

31. Normalizing, weighting and ranking • results can eventually be • normalized (with respect to a reference system) • weighted (to account for the relative importance of the 3 impact dimensions) • aggregated into a single score (that can be used to rank different alternatives) • however, according to ISO standards, these are optional steps of the LCA that cannot be used in public comparisons Source: modified from Goedkoop M & Spriensma R (2001) The Eco-indicator 99 – A damage oriented method for Life Cycle Assessment. Methodology Report. Pré Consultants ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

32. The weighting problem: social perspectives ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

33. Case studies • Assessing environmental sustainability of waste management strategies through LCA • The role of materials in the reduction of GHGs emissions in the building sector: the LCA approach • Food packaging materials: sustainability analysis through LCA • LCA comparison of alternative technologies for domestic lighting ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment

34. Formalizing the problem • system boundaries • stakeholders • which are the actors involved in the decision process? individuals, groups, lobbies... and their relevant viewpoints • objectives • how do different viewpoints translate into specific goals? • indicators/indices • how to measure the achievement of the goals? • decision variables • what are the variables the decision can affect? • constraints • physical, economic, technological, political... ASP Course Global change and sustainability G Dotelli & P Melià: Life Cycle Assessment