SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

1. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING MDS 2203 Dr. Norazli Othman/Dr. Samira Kamaruddin/PM Dr. Shreeshivadasan

2. LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT (PRODUCTION STAGE)

3. Did You Know… Producing one ton of recycled steel saves the energy equivalent of 3.6 barrels of oil and 1.5 tons of iron ore, compared to the production of new steel? • Producing paper using a chlorine-free process uses between 20 and 25 percent less water than conventional chlorine-based paper production processes?

4. Assessment Tools have to be Life-Cycle Based Systems approach needed in order to: • Recognize and avoid trade-offs • No shifting of problems into the future! • Life cycle thinking is a good starting point, but not enough for decisions • Quantitative methods are needed • Global system boundaries

5. Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) • Beginning around 1970 in USA (Franklin) • Promoted by SETAC (since 1990) • Standardized by ISO (since 1993) • Globalized by UNEP/SETAC (since 2002) • Key feature: Analysis of environmental impacts „from cradle to grave“ SETAC: Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry

6. What is LCA? LCA is a tool to systematically measure the environmental impacts associated with each stage of a product’s life-cycle

7. Process to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with a product, process or activity. Identifies energy and material uses and releases to the environment. • Includes entire life cycle of the product, process or activity, (i.e., extraction and process of materials; manufacturing, transportation and distribution; use, reuse, maintenance; recycling and final disposal). • Addresses only environmental impacts. *Consoli et al. Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC), 1993 What is LCA?

8. What is LCA? • Global warming (greenhouse gases) • Acidification • Smog • Ozone layer depletion • Eutrophication • Eco-toxicological and human toxicological pollutants • Habitat destruction • Desertification & land use • Depletion of minerals and fossil fuels. Common categories of assessed impacts are:

9. What is LCA? Assessment of relative impacts across life-cycle – 3 issues are included

10. Main aims are to reduce a product’s resource use and emissions to the environment and to improve its socio-economic performance throughout its life cycle. Alternative products with similar functions can be compared. ‘Hotspots’ in the life cycle are identified to point out immediate and significant options for substitution and re-engineering of processes What is LCA? What is LCA?

11. What is LCA? • Two attributes make LCA distinct and useful as an analytical tool: • whole system consideration of the total product life-cycle • presentation of tradeoffs among multiple environmental issues • LCA is quantitative

12. Why LCA? • The identification of hot spots can lead to re-engineering of processes, eco-design of the product, and specific requirements to suppliers. • In marketing its product, the company can adopt LCA tools to achieve compliance with criteria of eco-labels in key markets. It can also issue product declarations and publish detailed environmental accounts. • At the level of regional or national industrial planning, life cycle assessments can be applied in the planning of industrial ecology clustering of industries integrating material and energy flows to form closed loops.

13. Why LCA? • At the level of national policies, various regulation based upon LCA can be adopted: Soft regulation: Influencing the market • eco-labelling • environmental product declarations • green public purchase • green taxation Subsidies to industries • financial support to pioneers • examples, methods and data Hard regulation: • EC Directive on the Eco-design of Energy-using Products (EuP) • Extended Producer Responsibility • EC Integrated Product Policy (IPP), promoted especially in the electronics and electrical industries

14. How to do LCA • Determine scope and system boundaries • functional unit • life-cycle stages • define “unit processes” • Data collection – Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) • Analysis of inputs and outputs • Assessment of numerous environmental issues – Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) • Interpretation • LCA principles and framework are standardized by the Organization for International Standardization’s 14040 series of standards (ISO14040)

15. How to do LCA

16. Wastes and emissions (Output) Energy (Input) Ancillary materials (input) Typical Product Life Cycle Raw material acquisition Materials recycle Material Manufacture Transport Product remanufacture Product Manufacture Product reuse Transport Use Transport Disposal Transport

17. 1. Life-cycle: Identify the Boundaries Paper

18. 2. Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) The LCI is developed according to the goal and scope definition. It involves an incomplete mass and energy balance for the system, which incomplete because only environmentally relevant flows are included, first of all use of scarce resources and emissions of harmful substances. The specific activities of the LCI are as follows: Development of a flow chart model displaying the activities and the flows between these activities, according the system boundaries of the system as defined in the goal and scope definition; Collection of data on raw materials, including energy carriers, on products, and on solid waste and emissions to air and water; Calculation of the amount of resource use and pollution emissions of the product system in relation to the functional unit.

19. 3. Life-Cycle Stages (Analysis) • Products can be evaluated through each stage of their life-cycle: • Extraction or acquisition of raw materials • Manufacturing and processing • Distribution and transportation • Use and reuse • Recycling • Disposal • For each stage, identify inputs of materials and energy received; outputs of useful product and waste emissions • Find optimal points for improvement – eco-efficiency

20. A Life-Cycle Approach • Ensures companies identify the multiple environmental and resource issues across the entire life-cycle of the product • Knowledge of these issues informs business activities: • planning, procurement, design, marketing & sales • Rather than just looking at the amount of waste that ends up in a landfill or an incinerator, a life-cycle approach identifies energy use, material inputs and waste generated from the time raw materials are obtained to the final disposal of the product * * Product Life-Cycle Analysis: Environmental activities for the classroom, Waste Management and Research Center, Champaign, IL, 1999

21. A Life-Cycle Approach • With a life-cycle approach, companies employ the tools they need to: • Reduce impacts across the life-cycle • Capitalize on opportunities for their business • Tools range from simple mapping of life-cycle stages to comprehensive quantitative assessments

22. Identifying Issues: Life-Cycle Stage Estimated amount of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides it takes to produce the cotton for a conventional pair of jeans. Source: “The Organic Cotton Site: Ten good reasons”

23. LCA Application

24. When used by manufacturers: • Product development • Product improvement • Product comparison: Package material A vs. Package material B When used by public policymakers: Ecolabeling Nordic countries (white swan), Japan (ecomark), US (green seal), Canada (environmental choice), etc. LCA Applications

25. Pesticides Finishing chemicals Worldwatch Institute, Worldwatch Paper 166: Purchasing Power: Harnessing Institutional Procurement for People and the Planet, July 2003, www.worldwatch.org

26. LCA of Materials and Chemicals • LCA is most frequently used for the comparative assessment and optimization of final productsincluding services • Materials and chemicals are difficult to analyse from cradle-to-grave, since they are used in many (often innumerable) product systems which would have to be analysed in detail to give a full LCA INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS

27. Solution 1 • There is one dominantfinal product or a group of similar final products: • In this case, full LCAs can be done for a material or substance (chemical) which are representative • Comparison on the basis of a functional unit appropriate for the final product INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS

28. Solution 2 • Chemical is part of many final products, no clearly dominant one: • Cradle-to-(factory) gate LCI • Leaving out the production of the final products, their use phases and the end-of-live (waste disposal and/or recycling) • LCI data can be used for full LCAs of final products (e.g. surfactants-detergents) INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS

29. Solution 3 • Different production routes for identical materials or substances (chemicals) • Comparison possible on the basis of cradle-to-grave LCI/LCA • downstream phases may be treated as „black box“ (in general allowed practice) • not allowed if the use pattern depends on production route (e.g. ethanol). INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS

30. Example: Two Functionally Equivalent Surfactants (Solution 1) Vs • Linear Alkyl benzene Sulphonate (LAS) • Fossile resource • Fairly biodegradable • Surfactant efficiency excellent • Used as main anionic surfactant in detergent • Functional unit: 1 kg • Fatty Alcohol Sulphate (FAS) • Renewable resource • Excellently degradable • Surfactant efficiency equal to LAS (per mass unit) • used as LAS (equal use phase) INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS

31. Qualitative Results (+ pro FAS) • Criterium Assessment • Energy demand (CED) + • Emissions/solid waste +/- • Biodegradability + • Ecotoxicity (aquatic) + • Consumption of resources + (*) • CO2-Balance/Greenhouse effect + • Local environment (Plantages) critical if further growth • * without clearing of virgin rain forests

32. Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA)

33. Compound-specific waste and emission inventory data Information on environmental fate and potency of specific compounds Impact Assessment + = 4. LC Impact Assessment (LCIA)

34. LC Impact Assessment (LCIA) Many schemes for assessing the impacts: • SETAC • Other methods: • ICI Environmental burden approach • Dutch impact scores • Minnesota toxicity index

35. LCIA Critical Aspects 1. Choices and scenario related • Functional unit (especially critical when comparing products). Not always straightforward. • Allocation of inputs and outputs (especially in processes that generate more than one product)

36. LCI of material 1 + LCI of material 2 + … + LCI of material 3 = LCI of product LCIA Critical Aspects • “Negligible” energy consumption and emissions. State rationale. System boundaries. • For products produced from many materials, LCI becomes very complex:

37. LCIA Critical Aspects 2. Data (or parameter) related • Use regional or global data?. • Quality? • Availability? • Age?

38. LCIA Critical Aspects 3. Model related • Non-linear processes • Spatial or temporal effects on emissions • Synergy of pollutants • Steady state assumption

39. Where do we stand in Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) ?

40. Historical Perspective (ca.1970-90) • The Proto-LCAs consisted of inventories and an aggregation to sum parameters, as • Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) • Sum of solid waste • Resource depletion • Rudimentary ecological impact assessment (critical volume, air and water)

41. Impact Assessment as a Component of its own • Impact analysis (SETAC 1990) • Method of environmental themes or categories (CML 1991, 1992) • Impact assessment (Code of Practice, SETAC 1993) • Impact assessment (ISO 1997, 2000)

42. Life cycle assessment framework Goal and scope definition Direct applications: Inventory analysis Interpretation Impact Assessment

43. ISO 14042 (2000) • Gives a framework how to perform the component impact assessment (mandatory and optional elements) • determines how to define an impact category, an indicator etc. • does not prescribe a specific set of categories, nor the indicators to be used

44. Proposed Structure of Impact Categories • A Use of Resources • B (Effects due to) Chemical Emissions • C (Effects due to) Physical Emissions • D (Effects due to) Biological Emissions • E Further Proposed Categories INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS

45. Impact Categories A-Use of Resources • A1: Extraction of abiotic resources* • A2: Extraction of biotic resources • A3: Land use (with sub-categories) • * special case: (fresh) Water as a renewable, abiotic resource with high regional differences INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS

46. Impact categories B-Effects due to chemical emissions • B1: Climate change • B2: Stratospheric ozone depletion • B3: Photo-oxidant formation • B4: Acidification • B5: Nutrification (Eutrophication) • B6: Human toxicity • B7: Eco-toxicity • B8: Odour INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS

47. Impact categories C-Effects due to physical emissions • C1: Noise • C2: (ionizing) Radiation • C3: Waste heat INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS

48. Impact categories D-Effects due to biological emissions • D1: Effects on eco-systems, change of biodiversity by organisms, e.g. „invasive species“ or „genetically modified organisms“ (GMO) • D2: Effects on humans (e.g. by pathogenic organisms) INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS

49. Impact categories E-Further proposed categories • E1: Casualties (mostly technosphere) • E2: Health effects at the working place (technosphere; candidate for social pillar) • E3: Dessication, erosion, salination of soils (see also A3) • E4: Destruction of landscapes (see A3) • E5: Impairment of eco-systems and biodiversity (see also A3, B7 and D1) INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS

50. Issues • Only the categories A and B are relevant, well developed (comparative studies needed) • More work needed for the „physical emissions“ (C) • How to deal with „biological emissions“? Separate categories (D) or subcategories? • How to include the precautionary principle (not fully understood effects and risks)? INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS