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- Martin, Michael, et al.
(författare)
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Life cycle sustainability evaluations of bio-based value chains: Reviewing the indicators from a Swedish perspective
- 2018
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 10:2
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Policymakers worldwide are promoting the use of bio-based products as part of sustainable development. Nonetheless, there are concerns that the bio-based economy may undermine the sustainability of the transition, e.g., from the overexploitation of biomass resources and indirect impacts of land use. Adequate assessment methods with a broad systems perspective are thus required in order to ensure a transition to a sustainable, bio-based economy. We review the scientifically published life cycle studies of bio-based products in order to investigate the extent to which they include important sustainability indicators. To define which indicators are important, we refer to established frameworks for sustainability assessment, and include an Open Space workshop with academics and industrial experts. The results suggest that there is a discrepancy between the indicators that we found to be important, and the indicators that are frequently included in the studies. This indicates a need for the development and dissemination of improved methods in order to model several important environmental impacts, such as: water depletion, indirect land use change, and impacts on ecosystem quality and biological diversity. The small number of published social life cycle assessments (SLCAs) and life cycle sustainability assessments (LCSAs) indicate that these are still immature tools; as such, there is a need for improved methods and more case studies.
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- Ahmadi Achachlouei, Mohammad, et al.
(författare)
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Climate Change Impact of Electronic Media Solutions: Case Study of the Tablet Edition of a Magazine
- 2013
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Ingår i: ICT4S 2013. - ETH, Zurich.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Shifts from print media to electronic media may be regarded as apossibility for promoting sustainability. However, the benefits ofelectronic media are not unquestioned. Previous studies on theenvironmental impacts of print and electronic media have shownthat there is no easy answer. Contributing to this field of research,the present study sought to assess the climate change impact ofthe tablet edition of a magazine using a life cycle perspective.Results showed that with few readers the emerging tablet versionhad a higher potential climate change impact per reader than themature tablet version, although the latter had a substantiallylonger reading time per copy. The contribution of contentproduction, electronic distribution, reading on tablet and wastetreatment of tablet to the impact was analysed. The sensitivityanalysis of electricity mix indicated that this was an importantfactor that clearly influenced the overall results.
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| 5. |
- Ahmadi Achachlouei, Mohammad
(författare)
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Environmental Impacts of Electronic Media : A Comparison of a Magazine’s Tablet and Print Editions
- 2013
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to assess potential environmental impacts of electronic media distribution and consumption—from a life cycle perspective—as compared to those of print media.The thesis consists of a cover essay and two papers appended at the end of the thesis. The cover essay summarizes the papers and puts them in context. The main objectives of the thesis are twofold: to assess potential environmental impacts of production and consumption of tablet editions of magazines from a life cycle perspective (Paper I), and to compare potential environmental impacts of a magazine’s print edition with that of its tablet edition (Paper II).The thesis examines the following specific research questions: (1) What are the main environmental impacts of print and tablet editions? (2) Which activities are giving rise to the main environmental impacts of the print and tablet editions? (3) What are the key factors influencing these impacts? (4) What are major data gaps and uncertainties?Based on the present assessment, it is clear that for the print magazine, pulp and paper production is the principal cause of most of the potential environmental impacts. For this reason, the use of recycled paper, rather than virgin fiber, in newsprint production may considerably offset environmental impacts.For the tablet edition, the content production dominates the potential environmental impacts when readers are few. This appears to be the case in an emerging state of the magazine, but with distribution of more media products to smaller groups of people, this may persist for “mature” products as well. As the number of tablet readers grows, more of the environmental impact of the is due to manufacturing of the device and electronic distribution. However, content production may still be a major factor, depending on the specific environmental impacts studied.
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- Ahmadi Achachlouei, Mohammad, 1981-
(författare)
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Exploring the Effects of ICT on Environmental Sustainability: From Life Cycle Assessment to Complex Systems Modeling
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The production and consumption of information and communication technology (ICT) products and services continue to grow worldwide. This trend is accompanied by a corresponding increase in electricity use by ICT, as well as direct environmental impacts of the technology. Yet a more complicated picture of ICT’s effects is emerging. Positive indirect effects on environmental sustainability can be seen in substitution and optimization (enabling effects), and negative indirect effects can be seen in additional demand due to efficiency improvements (rebound effects).A variety of methods can be employed to model and assess these direct and indirect effects of ICT on environmental sustainability. This doctoral thesis explores methods of modeling and assessing environmental effects of ICT, including electronic media. In a series of five studies, three methods were at times applied in case studies and at others analyzed theoretically. These methods include life cycle assessment (LCA) and complex systems modeling approaches, including System Dynamics (SD) and agent-based (AB) modeling.The first two studies employ the LCA approach in a case study of an ICT application, namely, the tablet edition of a Swedish design magazine. The use of tablets has skyrocketed in recent years, and this phenomenon has been little studied to date. Potential environmental impacts of the magazine’s tablet edition were assessed and compared with those of the print edition. The tablet edition’s emerging version (which is marked by a low number of readers and low reading time per copy) resulted in higher potential environmental impacts per reader than did the print edition. However, the mature tablet edition (with a higher number of readers and greater reading time per copy) yielded lower impacts per reader in half the ten impact categories assessed.While previous studies of electronic media have reported that the main life-cycle contributor to environmental impacts is the use phase (which includes operational electricity use as well as the manufacture of the electronic device), the present study did not support those findings in all scenarios studied in this thesis. Rather, this study found that the number of readers played an important role in determining which life-cycle phase had the greatest impacts. For the emerging version, with few readers, content production was the leading driver of environmental impacts. For the mature version, with a higher number of readers, electronic storage and distribution were the major contributors to environmental impacts. Only when there were many readers but low overall use of the tablet device was the use phase the main contributor to environmental impacts of the tablet edition of the magazine.The third study goes beyond direct effects at product- and service-level LCAs, revisiting an SD simulation study originally conducted in 2002 to model indirect environmental effects of ICT in 15 European countries for the period 2000-2020. In the current study, three scenarios of the 2002 study were validated in light of new empirical data from the period 2000–2012. A new scenario was developed to revisit the quantitative and qualitative results of the original study. The results showed, inter alia, that ICT has a stimulating influence on total passenger transport, for it makes it more cost- and time-efficient (rebound effects).The modeling mechanism used to represent this rebound effect is further investigated in the fourth study, which discusses the feedback loops used to model two types of rebound effects in passenger transport (direct economic rebound and time rebound). Finally, the role of systems thinking and modeling in conceptualizing and communicating the dynamics of rebound effects is examined.The aim of the fifth study was to explore the power of systems modeling and simulation to represent nonlinearities of the complex and dynamic systems examined elsewhere in this thesis. That study reviews previous studies that have compared the SD and AB approaches and models, summarizing their purpose, methodology, and results, based on certain criteria for choosing between SD and AB approaches. The transformation procedure used to develop an AB model for purposes of comparison with an SD model is also explored.In conclusion, first-order or direct environmental effects of ICT production, use, and disposal can be assessed employing an LCA method. This method can also be used to assess second-order or enabling effects by comparing ICT applications with conventional alternatives. However, the assessment of enabling effects can benefit from systems modeling methods, which are able to formally describe the drivers of change, as well as the dynamics of complex social, technical, and environmental systems associated with ICT applications. Such systems methods can also be used to model third-order or rebound effects of efficiency improvements by ICT.
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| 7. |
- Ahmadi Achachlouei, Mohammad, et al.
(författare)
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Life Cycle Assessment of a Magazine : Part I: Tablet Edition in Emerging and Mature States
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Industrial Ecology. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 1088-1980 .- 1530-9290. ; 19:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Information and communication technology (ICT) is providing new ways to access media content. ICT has environmental benefits and burdens. The overall goal of the present study was to assess the environmental impacts of production and consumption of magazines read on tablets from a life cycle perspective. Important goals were to identify the activities giving rise to the main impacts and the key factors influencing the overall environmental impacts. Data gaps and uncertainties were also addressed. The results are compared against those for the print edition of the magazine in a separate article (part 2). The methodology used in the study was life cycle assessment. The environmental impacts assessed included climate change, cumulative energy/exergy demand, metal depletion, photochemical oxidant formation, particulate matter formation, terrestrial acidification, freshwater/marine eutrophication, fossil depletion, human toxicity, and ecotoxicity. The results indicate that content production can be the major contributor to environmental impacts if readers are few (as for the emerging version of the magazine studied). Assuming more readers (more mature version) or a larger file size for the tablet magazine, electronic storage and distribution may be the major contributor. Thus, in contrast to previous studies on electronic media, which reported a dominant impact of the use phase, this study found a higher impact for content production (emerging version) and electronic storage and distribution (mature version). However, with inefficient, low overall use of the tablet with a mature version of the tablet magazine, the greatest impact was shown to come from the reading activity (i.e., the use phase). In conclusion, the relative impacts of the tablet magazine would decrease considerably with high numbers of readers, their efficient use of the tablet (i.e., for many purposes over a long life of the device), and a smaller magazine file.
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| 8. |
- Ahmadi Achachlouei, Mohammad, et al.
(författare)
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Life cycle assessment of a magazine : part 2: A comparison of print and tablet editions
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Industrial Ecology. - : Wiley. - 1088-1980 .- 1530-9290. ; 19:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The rapid development of information and communications technology (ICT) is providing new ways to access media content. Electronic media are sometimes more advantageous from an environmental perspective than paper-based media solutions, but ICT-based media can also bring environmental burdens. This study compared the potential environmental impacts in a life cycle perspective of a print edition of a magazine and that of its electronic edition read on a tablet device. Important objectives were to identify activities giving rise to the main environmental impacts for both the print and tablet editions, determine the key factors influencing these impacts, and address data gaps and uncertainties. A detailed assessment of the tablet edition is provided in a previous article (part 1), whereas this article compares it with the print edition. The methodology used was life cycle assessment and the environmental impacts assessed included climate change, cumulative energy/exergy demand, metal depletion, photochemical oxidant formation, particulate matter formation, terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication, marine eutrophication, and fossil depletion. Use of different functional units to compare the print and tablet editions of the magazine resulted in different relative environmental impacts. In addition, emerging (low number of readers and low reading time per copy) and mature (higher number of readers and higher reading time per copy) tablet editions yielded varying results. The emerging tablet edition resulted in higher potential environmental impacts per reader than the print edition, but the mature tablet edition yielded lower impacts per reader in half the impact categories assessed. This illustrates the importance of spreading the environmental impacts over a large number of readers. The electricity mix used in product system processes did not greatly affect the results of tablet/print comparisons, but overall number of readers for the tablet edition, number of readers per copy for the print edition, file size, and degree of use of the tablet device proved crucial for the comparison results.
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| 9. |
- Arushanyan, Yevgeniya, et al.
(författare)
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Challenges in environmental assessment of new media solutions - case studies of Alma Media newspapers
- 2012
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Ingår i: SETAC 18th LCACase Study Symposium.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the media sector, recently new means of distribution, new platforms for accessing media and consequently new media products have been introduced. With new products potential environmental impacts related to activities of media companies are changing. Finnish media publisher Alma Media commissioned an LCA study in order to learn more about environmental impacts related to their mature and emerging products. Based on this, the current paper aims to present potential environmental impacts related to printed and online newspapers, focusing on their differences and challenges in assessing, comparing, communicating and acting on the results. Three newspapers are studied as cases, covering upstream printing house supply chain, printing house activities, delivery to readers and final disposal for print versions; electronic storage and distribution, the relevant share of electronic devices manufacturing and disposal and electricity needed for downloading and reading for online versions; content production for both.Mainly generic data was used for online products assessment, since specific data were not available. The specific data for the more mature print products were detailed but less comprehensive than generic. The implication is increased uncertainty and difficulties in communication of results. Environmental performance of both printed and online newspapers is dependent on various characteristics of the newspaper and its readers, including e.g. format and number of pages for print versions, and type of device used and its total use, size of content download and reading time for online versions. User practices may be changing as emerging products get more mature, which will influence environmental performance.Print and online versions give rise to different types of environmental impacts and the distribution of impacts in the life cycles differ. Printed newspaper impacts largely occur in the printing house supply chain and in delivery to readers, whereas online newspapers impacts are mainly connected to the electronic devices supply chain, and to some extent electricity used for reading and distribution. Impacts of printed newspapers studied occur more locally with paper manufacturing and printing located in Finland. Impacts related to online versions largely occur in other countries. Also, new value chain actors are involved, which are not directly related to the media company. Different actions for improvement may be necessary for emerging media products, as well as new types of collaborations.Comparison of online and print versions is not straightforward as different benefits are provided and reader practices differ. Although emerging media products may be considered substitutes for print counterparts, this is not necessarily the case. The choice of functional unit of assessment proved crucial for the comparison. Different functional units were used (one year, one reader and week, one reading hour). Comparing print and online versions Alma Media online newspapers showed lower environmental impacts than their print versions per year and also per reader and week. However, impacts per reading hour were lower for printed newspapers in some cases. Using different kinds of perspectives, e.g. through different functional units, gives more information and increased knowledge. Complexity in assessing, comparing, communicating and acting on emerging media products was experienced in this study. Further studies and action need to be taken.
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