Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasingly used for decision-making in the design process of buildings and neighbourhoods. Therefore, visualisation of LCA results to support interpretation and ...decision-making becomes more important. The number of building LCA tools and the published literature has increased substantially in recent years. Most of them include some type of visualisation. However, there are currently no clear guidelines and no harmonised way of presenting LCA results. In this paper, we review the current state of the art in visualising LCA results to provide a structured overview. Furthermore, we discuss recent and potential future developments. The review results show a great variety in visualisation options. By matching them with common LCA goals we provide a structured basis for future developments. Case studies combining different kinds of visualisations within the design environment, interactive dashboards, and immersive technologies, such as virtual reality, show a big potential for facilitating the interpretation of LCA results and collaborative design processes. The overview and recommendations presented in this paper provide a basis for future development of intuitive and design-integrated visualisation of LCA results to support decision-making.
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For sustainable design, technology developers need to consider not only technical and economic aspects but also potential environmental impacts while developing new technologies. Techno economic ...analysis (TEA) evaluates the technical performance and economic feasibility of a technology. Life cycle assessment (LCA) evaluates the potential environmental impacts associated with a product system throughout its life cycle from raw material extraction to disposal. Generally, TEA and LCA performed separately for technology assessment. Understanding of the trade-off between economic and environmental performance is crucial for sustainable process design, which is not fully available if TEA and LCA is performed separately. In contrast, integration of TEA and LCA enables systematic analysis of the relationships between technical, economic, and environmental performance and provides more information to technology developers for trade-off analysis. Integrated TEA-LCA tool can also reduce inconsistency between system boundaries, functional units, and assumptions that can arise from using standalone TEA and LCA findings in decision making. There is also growing interest of prospective application of integrated TEA-LCA tool to evaluate emerging technologies at early technology readiness level (TRL). Integration of TEA and LCA is still an evolving area and requires further exploration to develop a consistent methodological guideline. The goal of this study is to review the current state-of-the-art in TEA and LCA to identify the methodological challenges of TEA-LCA integration approaches. This study also identifies major challenges to perform integrated TEA-LCA analysis of emerging technologies at low TRLs. Lack of consistent methodological guidelines and compatible software tools, inconsistent system boundary and functional unit selection, limited data availability and uncertainty are key methodological challenges for integration of LCA and TEA. Future research should focus on developing integrated TEA-LCA tool, formulating approach to incorporate optimization method with integrated TEA-LCA tool, and developing strategy of proper communication of results from integrated LCA-TEA tool to broad range of stakeholders.
•Integration of TEA and LCA is crucial for sustainable process design.•Ex-ante application of integrated TEA-LCA tool can guide development of emerging technologies.•Integrated TEA-LCA tool enables simultaneous economic and environmental evaluation.•Alignment of goal, scope, data, and system elements are key to integrate TEA and LCA.
Reducing the climate impacts of passenger cars has a high priority on the political agenda, especially in the EU. However, there is disagreement on how this can best be achieved – with battery or ...fuel cell electric vehicles, or rather with combustion engine vehicles using electricity-based synthetic liquid fuels. To answer this question and to quantify potential environmental co-benefits and trade-offs, this paper introduces carculator, a Python library to conduct environmental life cycle assessments of current and future passenger vehicles. Because carculator is open-source and equipped with an easy-to-use online graphical user interface, it produces context-specific results, deemed more relevant than results otherwise published in more static formats. carculator supports for several powertrains, vehicle size categories and fuel types, for any year between 2000 and 2050, as well as error propagation from input parameters. We demonstrate carculator with an analysis of the expected evolution of life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of hybrid vehicles powered by fossil or synthetic gasoline and battery electric vehicles between 2020 and 2050, for all European countries and Brazil, China, India, Japan and the United States. Results show that current battery electric vehicles perform better than gasoline-powered vehicles in 26 out of the 35 countries considered. In the future, electricity-based synthetic fuels show the potential to reduce climate impacts due to the expected massive decarbonization of electricity supply. However, due to their comparatively inefficient supply and use, limited renewable resources represent a challenge and should better be used for other purposes.
•Transparent life cycle assessment for current and future passenger vehicles.•Time-adjusted foreground and background inventories, from 2000 to 2050.•Battery electric vehicles already cause less GHG emissions than gasoline-fueled vehicles in most EU countries.•Climate impacts of cars using synthetic gasoline crucially depends on electricity supply.•Synthetic fuel production poses a huge challenge in terms of renewable resource use.
This paper presents a novel developed Sprayed Ultra-High-Performance Cementitious Sandwich Panel (SUHPC-SP) for structural applications. The SUHPC-SP features sprayed UHPC outer layers making it ...suited for structural load bearing applications, and a foamed concrete core layer offering high thermal properties. With the development of enhanced material properties and novel production methods, the established SUHPC-SP can achieve optimal mechanical performance while minimising the volumes of material required. As such, this study assesses SUHPC-SP potential to increase sustainable outputs over reference Brick and Block (B&B) construction; by quantifying and comparing the whole life cycle environmental and economic impacts of the two methods. A comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) of these types of construction products is presented for the first time in this paper. The study found that integrating SUHPC-SP over typical B&B construction can reduce environmental impacts by as much as 500% and costs by up to 180%. This informs sustainable construction decisions, offering an effective alternative to conventional inefficient building methods and materials.
•The study assesses the LCA of sprayed Ultra High-Performance Cementitious Sandwich Panels (SUHPC-SP).•A comparative LCA between SUHPC-SP and brick & block construction was assessed.•Sandwich panels have the potential to reduce costs and environmental impacts.•Using SUHPC-SP over typical brick & block reduces costs by up to 180%.•Using SUHPC-SP over typical brick & block reduces environmental impacts by up to 500%.
The transparency, heterogeneity and hypotheses considered in the calculation of the environmental impacts of roads are still barriers to the identification of low-carbon solutions. To overcome this ...problem, this study presents an analysis of 94 papers obtained in a systematic literature review of the Scopus, Science Direct, Mendeley, Springer Link, and Web of Science databases. From a total of 417 road case studies, only 18% were found to be fully transparent, reproducible, and likely to present reliable results. The road design parameters of the speed limit were provided in 11% of the cases, and the average annual daily traffic data were provided in 42%. Limited data were found for the dimensions of road elements such as the number (77%) and width of lanes (33%), shoulders (15%), footpaths (5%), berms (1%) and foreslope (4%). The source of the life cycle inventory was presented in 57% of the case studies, impact assessment method was indicated in 22%, and the software utilized was listed in 50%. A lack of information was noted in the description of the types of materials employed in road projects. In addition, the large heterogeneity in the definitions of the functional unit, system boundary and in the reference study period of repair, replacement, rehabilitation or end-of-life for both flexible and rigid pavement does not support the identification of the most environmentally friendly solutions. Based on the results of the analysis, several recommendations for design parameters and life cycle assessment aspects are proposed to support a harmonized calculation of the environmental impacts of road projects.
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•Systematic literature review on 417 road case studies•Analyse of road design parameters and LCA features•More than 90% of studies lack the information on road design parameters.•More than 82% of studies are not transparent and results are not reproductible.•Provide recommendation for a harmonized application of LCA
The Activity Browser is an open source software for advanced Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The Activity Browser provides a graphical user interface (GUI) to the brightway LCA framework and makes ...common tasks such as managing projects and databases, modeling life cycle inventories, and analyzing LCA results easier and more intuitive. In addition, it provides advanced features for LCA modeling and data analyses and thus facilitates state-of-the-art LCA research. It can be extended to implement novel LCA modeling approaches and analyses as needed.
•The Activity Browser is an open source software for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).•It builds upon and constitutes a productivity tool for the brightway framework.•It permits LCA parametrization, scenario modeling, graph exploration, and other advanced features.•It is an extendable software tool that can be tailored to the specific needs of LCA practitioners or research projects.
Growing consciousness regarding the environmental impacts of additive manufacturing (AM) processes has led to research focusing on quantifying their environmental impacts using Life Cycle Assessment ...(LCA) methodology. The main objective of this paper is to review the state of the art of the existing LCA studies of AM processes. In this paper, a systematic literature review is carried out where a total of 77 papers focusing on LCA, including social-Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA), are analyzed. Accordingly, the application of LCA methodology to different AM technologies was studied and different research themes such as the goal and scope of LCA studies, life cycle inventory data for different AM technologies, AM part quality and mechanical properties, the environmental, economic, and social performances of various AM technologies, and factors affecting AM´s sustainability potential were analyzed. Based on the critical analysis of the existing research, five major shortcomings of the existing research are realized: (i) some AM technologies are under studied; (ii) more focus only on the environmental sustainability dimension of AM, neglecting its economic and social dimensions; (iii) exclusion of AM pat quality and its mechanical performance from the sustainability assessment; (iv) not enough focus on the life cycle stages after product manufacture by AM; (v) effect of different product variables on AM´s sustainability not studied extensively. Lastly, based on these shortcomings realized, the following research directions for future works are suggested: (i) inclusion of new AM materials and technologies; (ii) transition to a triple-bottom-line sustainability assessment considering environmental, economic, and social dimensions of AM; (iii) extending the scope of LCA studies to post-manufacture stages of AM products; (iv) development of predictive environmental impact and cost models; (v) integration of quality and mechanical characterization with sustainability assessment of AM technologies.
•Presents state-of-the-art research in the Life Cycle Assessment of AM technologies.•Reviews life cycle inventories across the different stages of AM products´ life cycles.•Compares the environmental, economic, and social impacts of AM and conventional manufacturing (CM) technologies.•Discusses the different factors affecting the sustainability of AM and CM technologies.•Determines the shortcomings of the existing research and provides guidelines for future research.
•CH4 production from Power to Gas and upgrading technologies have been assessed.•Both environmental and economic assessments of have been done.•We perform sensitivity analyses to identify key ...parameters.
To decrease the use of fossil fuels and face the energetic demand, the integration of renewable energy is a necessary step. Part of this renewable energy can be supplied by the production of electricity from photovoltaic panels and windfarms. The massive use of these intermittent energies will lead to overproduction periods, and there is consequently a need to convert this surplus of electricity into a storable form of energy. Power-to-gas (PtG) technology consists in using electricity to convert water into hydrogen by electrolysis, and then to synthetize methane from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Techno-economic and Life Cycle Assessment of methane production via the combination of anaerobic digestion and PtG technology have been applied to sewage sludge valorization. Process studies and equipment design have been addressed considering already available technologies. Sensitivity analyses have been done on biogas upgrading technologies, electricity prices, annual operation time and composition of the electricity mix with also a comparison between PtG and direct injection. It appears that the more the electricity is expensive, the longer the operation time of the methanation process must be to be competitive with injection of methane from biogas. Reduction of electricity consumption of the electrolysis step decreases production costs. Even if the current context does not feature adapted conditions to ensure an economically viable chain, the evolution of the energetic context in the next few years as well as the expected technological improvements will contribute to overall cost reduction. From an environmental point of view, continuous PtG generates more greenhouse gases than direct injection, but intermittent operation with use of renewable electricity can significantly reduce GHG emissions. From an endpoint impacts perspective, impact from continuous PtG are higher than biogas upgrading, but much lower than fossil energy. Future development of low electricity consumption of the electrolysis process, and integration of renewable credits from CO2 valorization can increase the competitiveness of this technology.
Increasing environmental pressure from production and consumption of products and services is starting to affect Earth System stability. Thus, the Planetary Boundaries framework introduced a set of ...absolute boundaries for keeping the Earth System stable and delimiting a safe operating space for humanity. The sum of environmental pressures associated with human activities should not exceed the safe operating space. This includes utility companies whose activities relate to supply of water and treatment of waste‐ and stormwater. This study conducted an absolute environmental sustainability assessment (AESA) of a Danish utility company to evaluate if it could be considered absolutely sustainable relative to an assigned share of the safe operating space (SoSOS). The AESA evaluated the company's impacts relative to an assigned share of the Planetary Boundaries and relative to specific local boundaries for nitrogen and phosphorous emissions. Results showed that the assigned SoSOS was exceeded for 10 of 18 impact categories, for example, climate related boundaries were exceeded by up to a factor 7.8 while local nitrogen and phosphorus boundaries were exceeded by ca. a factor 16. The AESA can indicate to which degree the company exceeds its assigned SoSOS for certain impact categories and the processes and life‐cycle stages to focus on to become absolutely sustainable. This information is crucial for deriving specific impact reduction targets as part of environmental strategies for companies to become sustainable in an absolute sense.
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