| 1. |
- Bjorn, A., et al.
(författare)
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Review of life-cycle based methods for absolute environmental sustainability assessment and their applications
- 2020
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Ingår i: Environmental Research Letters. - : IOP Publishing Ltd. - 1748-9326 .- 1748-9318. ; 15:8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In many regions and at the planetary scale, human pressures on the environment exceed levels that natural systems can sustain. These pressures are caused by networks of human activities, which often extend across countries and continents due to global trade. This has led to an increasing requirement for methods that enable absolute environmental sustainability assessment (AESA) of anthropogenic systems and which have a basis in life cycle assessment (LCA). Such methods enable the comparison of environmental impacts of products, companies, nations, etc, with an assigned share of environmental carrying capacity for various impact categories. This study is the first systematic review of LCA-based AESA methods and their applications. After developing a framework for LCA-based AESA methods, we identified 45 relevant studies through an initial survey, database searches and citation analysis. We characterized these studies according to their intended application, impact categories, basis of carrying capacity estimates, spatial differentiation of environmental model and principles for assigning carrying capacity. We then characterized all method applications and synthesized their results. Based on this assessment, we present recommendations to practitioners on the selection and use of existing LCA-based AESA methods, as well as ways to perform assessments and communicate results to decision-makers. Furthermore, we identify future research priorities intended to extend coverage of all components of the proposed method framework, improve modeling and increase the applicability of methods. © 2020 The Author(s).
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| 2. |
- Högstrand, Sofia, et al.
(författare)
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Incorporation of main line impact into life cycle assessment of nutrient recovery from reject water using novel membrane contactor technology
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - 0959-6526. ; 408
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) nutrient recovery has recently gained traction in the search for new pathways for fertilizer production. In particular, concentrated waste streams such as reject water from sludge digestion are suitable. The environmental impact of a novel nutrient recovery technology using a membrane contactor (NPHarvest) was examined with an environmental life cycle assessment (LCA). Impact hotspots were benchmarked against a comparable technology (struvite precipitation and ammonia stripping), and the impacts of the two technologies were found to be similar for most studied environmental impact categories. To allow for the inclusion of effects on other parts of the WWTP while limiting the general system boundaries to the reject water treatment, a novel approach to capture the main line impact was developed. The effects on the main line contributed substantially to the overall results. The overall results indicated clear nutrient recovery benefits related to substituted materials in mineral fertilizer production. Additionally, reject water nutrient recovery provided even greater benefits due to reduced N2O emissions and the reduced use of precipitation chemicals in the WWTP main line. Nonetheless, both nutrient removal and recovery were necessary for the two technologies to reach a net zero climate impact in their current pilot scales. Further development of the NPHarvest technology—such as mitigating NH3 emissions, exploring alternative input chemicals and optimizing energy consumption (especially for crystallizing the ammonium salt solution that is produced)—is recommended before full-scale implementation.
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| 3. |
- Peters, Greg, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental Prospects for Mixed Textile Recycling in Sweden
- 2019
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Ingår i: ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 2168-0485. ; 7:13, s. 11682-11690
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The production of cotton and other fibers causes excessive resource use and environmental impacts, and the deployment of these fibers in “fast fashion” is creating large masses of textile waste. Therefore, various industrial researchers are attempting to develop systems to recycle cellulosic materials. This is a challenging undertaking because of the need to handle mixed waste streams. Alkaline hydrolysis has been suggested as a useful textile recycling process, but its sustainability credentials have not been fully examined via life cycle assessment. The aim of this article is to provide such an examination and to guide process developers by scaling up results from recent laboratory work to a small-scale industrial facility. The results indicate that the recycling process is promising from an environmental point of view. The key issue controlling the relative environmental performance of the recycling system in comparison to a single-use benchmark is how the process for converting recovered cotton into a cellulosic fiber is performed. A fully integrated viscose production system or a system that makes one of the newer cellulosic fibers (e.g., lyocell) from the recovered cotton will improve the performance of the recycling system relative to its alternatives.
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| 4. |
- Peters, Greg, et al.
(författare)
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LCA on fast and slow garment prototypes
- 2018
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This report summarises the environmental assessment work done in the Mistra Future Fashion program focussed on the potential to improve the environmental performance of garments and adapt them to a circular economy. The approaches examined in this report include reducing the environmental impacts from fast-fashion trends by making garments from paper-based materials, or by extending garment life cycles.This assessment considers two paper-based garments. One is made primarily from paper pulp but enhanced with a polylactic acid polymer. This garment is worn between two to five times before being recycled as newspaper. The other fast garment is made of paper pulp, polylactic acid and nanocellulose. It has a similar life cycle but is composted after use life. These garments are compared with a standard t-shirt. The report also considers a slow-paced scenario in which a polyester garment passes between several owners and is regularly changed to maintain its appeal. It is updated with a transfer sublimation overprint three times, making the garment darker each time. Later it is joined with an outer shell of new material using laser technology to make a cropped, box-cut jacket.The assessment was performed using environmental life cycle assessment. More particularly, the assessment was based on attributional process analysis with cutoff allocation procedures and comparison with a traditional reference garment life cycle. Key environmental effect categories considered here include climate change (greenhouse gas emissions), freshwater eutrophication, freshwater ecotoxicity and human toxicity (cancer and non-cancer).The results indicate that the environmental outcomes of the paper-based garments can be competitive with the reference garment, particularly when the user is assumed to throw away a fully functional reference garment after five uses. This assumption may be true for some users, but the number of uses is considerably lower than the typical or the potential lifespan of the reference garment. The main factor assisting the paper-based garments is the reduction in the impacts per mass associated with material manufacturing (fibres, spinning, knitting), and also their lighter masses. Avoided impacts in the use phase play a secondary role on account of their location in Sweden with its low-carbon energy mix. The long-life garments are also competitive compared with their reference garments. This is primarily a consequence of how extending garment life avoids the production of new garments. The environmental impacts associated with transfer sublimation dye reprinting and laser processing do not significantly impact the overall environmental performance of the extended longlife garments, though confidentiality of data prevents a full assessment of these.The garments in this report are pilot products and explorative scenarios rather than attempts to model existing business or behavioural patterns. The reader should therefore take care to keep the results in context when interpreting them. Nevertheless, the results suggest the value of pursuing the potential associated with these garment life cycles. We should also bear in mind that while the reference garments in this assessment are based on typical usage patterns, other more sustainable patterns are feasible.
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| 5. |
- Roos, Sandra, et al.
(författare)
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A life cycle assessment (LCA)-based approach to guiding an industry sector towards sustainability : the case of the Swedish apparel sector
- 2016
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-6526 .- 1879-1786. ; 133, s. 691-700
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The environmental challenges associated with consumption of textiles have generally been investigated on product level in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies. For social sustainability aspects, social hotspot analysis has instead been applied on the textile sector level. The aim with the industry sector approach developed by the authors was to enable assessment of different interventions in terms of how they contribute to reaching targets for environmental and social sustainability, on the sector level. The approach was tested in a case study on the Swedish apparel sector. The industry sector approach consists of three steps that address three different questions: 1) What is the current sustainability performance of the sector? 2) What is an acceptable sustainability performance for the sector? 3) Are proposed interventions enough to reach an acceptable sustainability performance? By answering these questions, it is possible to measure performance in relation to sector level targets and learn which types of interventions (technical improvements, behavioral changes, new business models, etc.), and which actors (manufacturers, retailers, consumers, authorities, etc.) that can potentially provide the greatest improvements. By applying the approach in the case study, conclusions could be drawn on whether specific interventions appear to be sufficient or not in relation to the set environmental targets. The influence of the interventions in relation to reaching targets for social sustainability was found to be the most difficult to measure due to lack of data. To spur the industry sector's stakeholders to actualize the full potential of the most effective environmental interventions, a scheme for structured evaluation of LCA results directed towards these prospective actors was developed. Based on the results from the study, actor-oriented advice could be provided.
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| 6. |
- Roos, Sandra, et al.
(författare)
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Is Unbleached Cotton Better Than Bleached? Exploring the Limits of Life-Cycle Assessment in the Textile Sector
- 2015
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Ingår i: Clothing & Textiles Research Journal. - : Sage Publications. - 0887-302X .- 1940-2473. ; 33:4, s. 231-247
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The applicability of life-cycle assessment (LCA) for the textile industry is discussed with a special focus on environmental impact from chemicals. Together with issues of water depletion and energy use, the use of chemicals and their emissions are important environmental considerations for textile products. However, accounting for chemicals is a weak point in LCA methodology and practice. Two research questions were investigated in a case study of hospital garments: 1) whether LCA adds value to assessments of the chemical performance of textile products, and 2) whether inclusion of toxicity issues in LCA affects environmental performance rankings for textile products. It is concluded that the quantitative and holistic tool LCA is useful for environmental decision makers in the textile industry, and becomes more effective when chemical impacts are included. A flexible way forward is demonstrated to meet the challenge of accounting for chemicals in LCAs of textile products.
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| 7. |
- Sandin, Gustav A, 1983, et al.
(författare)
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Life cycle assessment of construction materials: the influence of assumptions in end-of-life modelling
- 2014
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Ingår i: International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1614-7502 .- 0948-3349. ; 19:4, s. 723-731
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- PurposeThe nature of end-of-life (EoL) processes is highly uncertain for constructions built today. This uncertainty is often neglected in life cycle assessments (LCAs) of construction materials. This paper tests how EoL assumptions influence LCA comparisons of two alternative roof construction elements: glue-laminated wooden beams and steel frames. The assumptions tested include the type of technology and the use of attributional or consequential modelling approaches.MethodsThe study covers impact categories often considered in the construction industry: total and non-renewable primary energy demand, water depletion, global warming, eutrophication and photo-chemical oxidant creation. The following elements of the EoL processes are tested: energy source used in demolition, fuel type used for transportation to the disposal site, means of disposal and method for handling allocation problems of the EoL modelling. Two assumptions regarding technology development are tested: no development from today’s technologies and that today’s low-impact technologies have become representative for the average future technologies. For allocating environmental impacts of the waste handling to by-products (heat or recycled material), an attributional cut-off approach is compared with a consequential substitution approach. A scenario excluding all EoL processes is also considered.Results and discussionIn all comparable scenarios, glulam beams have clear environmental benefits compared to steel frames, except for in a scenario in which steel frames are recycled and today’s average steel production is substituted, in which impacts are similar. The choice of methodological approach (attributional, consequential or fully disregarding EoL processes) does not seem to influence the relative performance of the compared construction elements. In absolute terms, four factors are shown to be critical for the results: whether EoL phases are considered at all, whether recycling or incineration is assumed in the disposal of glulam beams, whether a consequential or attributional approach is used in modelling the disposal processes and whether today’s average technology or a low-impact technology is assumed for the substituted technology.ConclusionsThe results suggest that EoL assumptions can be highly important for LCA comparisons of construction materials, particularly in absolute terms. Therefore, we recommend that EoL uncertainties are taken into consideration in any LCA of long-lived products. For the studied product type, LCA practitioners should particularly consider EoL assumptions regarding the means of disposal, the expected technology development of disposal processes and any substituted technology and the choice between attributional and consequential approaches.
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| 8. |
- Sandin, Gustav A, 1983, et al.
(författare)
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Making the most of LCA in technical inter-organisational R&D projects
- 2014
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-6526 .- 1879-1786. ; 70, s. 97-104
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In technical Research and Development (R&D) projects, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the technology under development is sometimes carried out. Particularly in inter-organisational R&D projects, the roles of LCAs tend to be unclear and arbitrary, and as a consequence, LCA work is not adequately designed for the needs of the project. There is a need for research on how to choose an appropriate role for LCA in such projects and how to plan LCA work accordingly.We have identified some possible roles of LCA in inter-organisational R&D projects and used experiences from LCA work in different such projects to identify four project characteristics that are decisive for what roles the LCA can have. The project characteristics are: (i) the project's potential influence on environmental impacts, (ii) the degrees of freedom available for the technical direction of the project, (iii) the project's potential to provide required input to the LCA, and (iv) access to relevant audiences for the LCA results. We discuss how evaluation of these project characteristics can help project commissioners, project managers and LCA practitioners to deliberately choose appropriate roles of LCA in inter-organisational R&D projects and plan projects for efficient use of LCA.
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| 9. |
- Sandin, Gustav, et al.
(författare)
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Allocation in LCAs of biorefinery products : implications for results and decision-making
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-6526 .- 1879-1786. ; 93, s. 213-221
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) of biorefinery products, a common challenge is the choice of method for allocating environmental burdens of multifunctional processes (feedstock cultivation and biorefinery processes), a choice which can substantially influence LCA results and hence decision-making. The aim of this paper is to explore how this choice influences results and in which decision contexts the choice is particularly important. To do this, we tested six allocation methods in a case study of a biorefinery using pulpwood as feedstock. Tested methods included: main product bears all burden, substitution, traditional partitioning methods (based on economic value and exergy), a hybrid method combining elements of substitution and partitioning, and an alternative hybrid method developed by us, which allocates less environmental burden to co-products with a high potential to mitigate environmental burdens. The methods were tested in relation to decision contexts and LCA questions of relevance for biorefineries.The results indicate that the choice of allocation method deserves careful attention, particularly in consequential studies and in studies focussed on co-products representing relatively small flows. Furthermore, the alternative hybrid allocation method is based on a logical rationale – favouring products with higher substitution potential – and has some other potential benefits. However, in cases where the scales of co-product flows are of different orders of magnitude, the method yields extreme results that could be difficult to interpret. Results also show that it can be important with consistent allocation for both cultivation and biorefinery processes, particularly when substitution is applied.
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| 10. |
- Sandin, Gustav, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental impact of textile reuse and recycling – A review
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier. - 0959-6526 .- 1879-1786. ; 184, s. 353-365
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper reviews studies of the environmental impact of textile reuse and recycling, to provide a summary of the current knowledge and point out areas for further research. Forty-one studies were reviewed, whereof 85% deal with recycling and 41% with reuse (27% cover both reuse and recycling). Fibre recycling is the most studied recycling type (57%), followed by polymer/oligomer recycling (37%), monomer recycling (29%), and fabric recycling (14%). Cotton (76%) and polyester (63%) are the most studied materials.The reviewed publications provide strong support for claims that textile reuse and recycling in general reduce environmental impact compared to incineration and landfilling, and that reuse is more beneficial than recycling. The studies do, however, expose scenarios under which reuse and recycling are not beneficial for certain environmental impacts. For example, as benefits mainly arise due to the avoided production of new products, benefits may not occur in cases with low replacement rates or if the avoided production processes are relatively clean. Also, for reuse, induced customer transport may cause environmental impact that exceeds the benefits of avoided production, unless the use phase is sufficiently extended.In terms of critical methodological assumptions, authors most often assume that textiles sent to recycling are wastes free of environmental burden, and that reused products and products made from recycled materials replace products made from virgin fibres. Examples of other content mapped in the review are: trends of publications over time, common aims and geographical scopes, commonly included and omitted impact categories, available sources of primary inventory data, knowledge gaps and future research needs. The latter include the need to study cascade systems, to explore the potential of combining various reuse and recycling routes.
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