| 11. |
- Clancy, Gunilla, 1968, et al.
(författare)
-
Approach to establish relevant sustainability assessment parameters in product development
- 2011
-
Ingår i: Poster presentation at the Second Symposium on Industrial Ecology for Young Professionals, 11 June 2011, Berkeley, California.
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since companies need to develop more sustainable products to stay in business in the long term, there is a demand for ways to assess and compare product sustainability already in product development. This is studied through action research performed within the “wood based diaper” material development project (WooDi) aiming to develop a wood based material to replace a petroleum based while ensuring a more sustainable product. Methods used so far evaluating environmental product development to a large extend is based on optimization of the present system (improving or replacing parts giving large impacts) or to some extent taking the future into account e.g. by consequential LCA studies. Such approaches will result in marginal improvements of the present situation, but don’t fully take advantage of truly innovative processes or the fact that a more sustainable future society might put very different demands on products compared to the strictest requirements of today. Based on what was found in relevant literature, most often lists of predetermined parameters are being used without critical reflection on their importance in light of the specific situation. There is a specific lack of parameters describing the sustainability impacts of a shift from fossil to biomass resources in a life cycle perspective, e.g. related to competition for resources. As a result, an approach for establishing relevant product sustainability parameters is presented, emphasising the need to bringing in the diverse knowledge and experiences of the product development team members as vital for a successful result. The parameters are intended to guide product development as well as to be a base for a sustainability comparison of a new product with a current product.
|
|
| 12. |
- Clancy, Gunilla, 1968, et al.
(författare)
-
Approach to establish relevant sustainability assessment parameters in product development
- 2011
-
Ingår i: Poster presentation at the 6th International Conference on Industrial Ecology 'Science, Systems and Sustainablity' 7-10 June 2011, Berkeley, California.
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since companies need to develop more sustainable products to stay in business in the long term, there is a demand for ways to assess and compare product sustainability already in product development. This is attended to in the WooDi research project which aims at developing a wood based material to replace a petroleum based one in an incontinence diaper while ensuring a more sustainable product. Acknowledging the vast number of choices made in product development and their potentially large effect on the sustainability impact of the resulting product leads to the conclusion that assessment of product sustainability should be made throughout the process and be used to guide development. To gain a deeper understanding of the requirements and barriers in assessing product sustainability and guiding product development towards a more sustainable product, several workshops and seminars were carried out in the WooDi project, in parallel to literature surveys. Based on what was found in relevant literature, most often lists of predetermined parameters are being used without critical reflection on their importance in light of the specific situation. Additionally there is a lack of parameters describing the sustainability impacts of a shift from fossil to biomass resources in a life cycle perspective, e.g. related to competition for resources. As a result, an approach was developed for establishing relevant product sustainability parameters, where the parameters are intended to guide product development as well as to be a base for a sustainability comparison of a new product with a current product. It starts with defining what ‘sustainable product’ is in the specific case.This approach emphasises the need of bringing in the product development team members’ diverse knowledge and experiences as vital for a successful result. Practical experience of using the proposed framework throughout a project is still needed for evaluating it and identifying its limits.The presentation reports on the developed approach and on efforts to define what should be meant by ‘sustainable product’ in the specific case.
|
|
| 13. |
- Clancy, Gunilla, 1968, et al.
(författare)
-
Changing from petroleum to wood-based materials: critical review of how product sustainability characteristics can be assessed and compared
- 2013
-
Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-6526 .- 1879-1786. ; 39, s. 372-385
-
Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper reports on a literature survey on available approaches for the assessment of product sustainability, with a specific focus on assessing the replacement of non-renewable petroleum-based materials with renewable wood-based materials in absorbent hygiene products. The results are contrasted to needs in a specific material development project. A diverse number of methods exist that can help in assessing different product sustainability characteristics for parts of or whole product lifecycles. None of the assessment methods found include guidelines for how to make a case-specific interpretation of sustainability and there is a general lack of assessment parameters that can describe considerations in the comparison between the use of wood or petroleum as main raw material. One reason for this is lack of knowledge and/or consensus on how to describe and assess impacts of land and water use, e.g. on ecosystem services, different types of resource depletion and social impacts.
|
|
| 14. |
- Clancy, Gunilla, 1968, et al.
(författare)
-
Comparing the sustainability of using a non-renewable oil based material in an absorbent hygiene product with that of using a renewable wood based material
- 2009
-
Ingår i: Poster presentation at the Eforwood conference 'Shape your sustainability tools - and let your tools shape you', 23-24 September 2009, Uppsala, Sweden. ; , s. 2-3
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The WooDi project – the Wood based Diaper, is a research collaboration between industry and university. The goal of the project is to make a new diaper that is more sustainable than today’s product, by replacing non-renewable North Sea oil based materials in the diaper with a renewable material based on wood from the Nordic countries. This calls for a way to compare the sustainability associated with using the different raw materials.Comparisons of the implications of using crude oil and biomass resources have so far mainly been made for fuels used in transportation. The available literature assessing the use of fossil fuels versus bio-fuels focuses primarily on greenhouse gas emissions, often referred to as the carbon footprint [1]. It does not include, e.g., effects on ecosystem quality, employment, economy, etc. The increased use of bio-fuels for transportation is discussed in relation to food and feed grain prices, as well as negative environmental impacts arising from deforestation and land conversion, as food and fuel compete for scarce land resources [2, 3].Some life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) weighting methods include resource use, but are generally based on only one or a few parameters. One example is the monetary values used by the environmental priority strategies (EPS) method [4], which involves a weighting for renewable and non-renewable resources based on the cost of producing an equivalent from renewable resources.For forestry there are several voluntary sustainable forest management (SFM) systems, e.g., Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) scheme. Requirements within such systems include a broader set of aspects than greenhouse gas emissions or available LCIA weighting methods. The SFM laboratory [5] suggests eight different sustainability criteria such as the maintenance of ecosystem health and vitality; cultural, social and spiritual needs and values and maintenance of the forests’ contribution to global carbon cycles. No comparable sustainable management criteria have been found for fossil oil extraction and use, other than an initiative with recommendations on how to include biodiversity into strategies for oil and gas development [6].Consequently, there exists no readily available method for comparing the sustainability of using North Sea oil and Nordic wood as raw materials. The methods mentioned above can be a starting point but need to be developed further. The method development work carried out in the WooDi project should also be useful for other sustainability assessments comparing forest and fossil resources.References1. Johnson, E. Biofuel vs petrofuel carbon footprints: it’s about the land, in SETAC Europe 14th LCA Case Study Symposium. 2007. Göteborg.2. Early, J. and A. McKeown, Smart Choices for Biofuels. 2009, Sierra Club, Worldwatch Institute, Washington.3. Banse, M., P. Nowicki, and H.v. Meijl, Why are current world food prices so high? 2008, LEI Wageningen UR, Wageningen, The Netherlands.4. Steen, B., A systematic approach to environmental priority strategies in product development (EPS). Version 2000 - General System Characteristics, 1999.5. Sustainable forest management - indicator knowledge base. [cited 6th April 2009]. Available from: www.sfmindicators.org.6. Integrating Biodiversity Conservation into Oil & Gas Development, 2003.Acknowledgements Financial support from Vinnova, SCA Hygiene Products AB and Södra Cell AB is greatly appreciated.
|
|
| 15. |
- Clancy, Gunilla, 1968, et al.
(författare)
-
Consequences for wood resource use for incontinence diapers in Europe 2010 to 2050
- 2011
-
Ingår i: Annual Poster Exhibition at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, April 12th 2011, Göteborg, Sweden, A7.
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Increasing life expectancy results in an ageing society in parts of the world. The old of tomorrow are also expected to have higher comfort demands. One likely consequence is an increase in the need of such products as disposable incontinence diapers, which are today partly based on cellulose from forestry. A calculation of the potential increase for heavy incontinence care (assuming the use of disposable incontinence diapers) was made based on the demographic trends for Europe and on the yield from forestry performed under Nordic conditions. The calculation is using a parameterisation known from literature: I = i * m * u * P. It expresses the impact (I, in our case, forest area in ha) as a product of four factors that humans have the ability to change, in our case, i = ha Nordic forest area / kg material, m = kg material / service, u = service / population in Europe, and P = population in Europe. The 'service' is to keep a customer with heavy incontinence dry for a year, assuming that the same fraction of the population above 50 years as today will need heavy incontinence protection. Under these assumptions, the forest area needed for heavy incontinence care in Europe will increase with about 75% until 2050. According to the current work in the WooDi research project, aiming at producing a wood-based diaper, if the petroleum-based material in the absorbent core in the diapers were to be replaced by wood-based, this would increase the needed forest area to about 136%, assuming a 1:1 replacement ratio by weight which seems to be a low estimate. This is still a small share of the total European forest area (0.2%). However, such an increase in wood demand for only one product is not without problems, since forests to a large extent are already utilised, e.g. for timber and pulp and paper production, and since there is an expected increase in demand for bio-based fuels and materials for replacement of fossil-based products, thus competing for either the yield from the forests or for the land area. At the same time, there are rising concerns regarding biodiversity and other ecosystem services in connection to forestry.
|
|
| 16. |
- Clancy, Gunilla, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
-
Environmental challenges when developing renewable materials to replace non-renewable materials - receiving guidance from LCA studies
- 2010
-
Ingår i: 9th International Conference on EcoBalance 2010 'Towards & Beyond 2020' 9-12 November,Tokyo, Japan. - Tokyo.
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since the demand for more sustainable products is growing, the pressure on material developers to improve the sustainability performance of the products that they are developing is increasing. As a consequence, the need to move away from a narrow understanding of “product” and “environment” is becoming more apparent. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach has been used to find rough estimates of how much process energy, raw materials etc. are used in the process of transforming a biomass feedstock into a new material. A reference product with a fossil based material intended to be replaced is used as a benchmark for the new product. The new product must perform at least as well as this benchmark and preferably better. We illustrate this LCA based methodology using the example of replacing petroleum-based polymeric material with wood-based material in a disposable consumer product.
|
|
| 17. |
|
|
| 18. |
- Clancy, Gunilla, 1968, et al.
(författare)
-
Insights from guiding material development towards more sustainable products
- 2013
-
Ingår i: International Journal of Sustainable Design. - 1743-8284. ; 2:2, s. 149-166
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Faced with current challenges in society, many companies will needto develop more sustainable products in order to continue operations in the longterm. Therefore, ways of identifying important sustainability considerationsalready in the early stages of material or product development are ofimportance. The article is based on action research in a material developmentproject. The article provides a description of activities that were performed inthe project in order to guide the material development process to enable moresustainable final products, reflections on the lessons learned from this project,and suggestions to similar projects in the form of an overall process based onteam learning with the aim of guiding material development towards moresustainable products. The suggested process emphasises the material orproduct development team’s need to understand which surrounding world andfuture-oriented considerations will have significant impacts on the specificproduct’s sustainability performance.
|
|
| 19. |
- Clancy, Gunilla, 1968, et al.
(författare)
-
Replacement of non-renewable materials by renewable materials in a diaper - how to assess the change in sustainability performance
- 2010
-
Ingår i: Annual Poster Exhibition at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Mars 18th 2010, Göteborg, Sweden. ; :32, s. 44-
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The WooDi project – the Wood based Diaper, is a research collaboration between industry and university. The goal of the project is to make a new diaper that is more sustainable than today’s product, by replacing non-renewable oil based materials in the diaper with a renewable material based on wood. This calls for a way to compare the sustainability associated with using the different raw materials. A literature survey showed that comparisons of the implications of using crude oil and biomass resources have so far mainly been made for fuels used in transportation. The available literature assessing the use of fossil fuels versus bio-fuels focuses primarily on greenhouse gas emissions, often referred to as the carbon footprint. It does not include, e.g., effects on ecosystem quality, employment, economy, etc. The increased use of bio-fuels for transportation is discussed in relation to food and feed grain prices, as well as negative environmental impacts arising from deforestation and land conversion, as food and fuel compete for scarce land resources.A diverse number of tools exist that can assess different product sustainability attributes for parts of or whole product life cycles, but none that can directly assess the sustainability of product with renewable versus non-renewable material resource. A reason for that no such method exists is a lack of indicators that describe the competition of resources and how they interact with biodiversity, human health, soil protection, and energy, food, and material production. In addition, this is due to the complexity to define and value social interactions and impacts on ecosystem services. Consequently, there exists no readily available method for comparing the sustainability of using non-renewable oil and renewable wood as raw materials. Acknowledgements – Financial support from Vinnova, SCA Hygiene Products AB and Södra Cell AB is greatly appreciated.
|
|
| 20. |
|
|
