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- Arushanyan, Yevgeniya, 1984-
(författare)
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LCA of ICT solutions: environmental impacts and challenges of assessment
- 2013
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Information and communication technology (ICT) is playing an important role in modern society, contributing to economic growth and affecting society and people’s lifestyles. There are high expectations on ICT to contribute to sustainable development, e.g. through greenhouse gas emissions reductions. ICT solutions (ICT products and services) are often perceived as having low or no environmental impacts compared with conventional alternatives. In order to determine the potential of ICT to reduce environmental impacts, environmental assessments of ICT solutions compared with other alternatives are needed. A number of studies have already assessed the environmental impacts of individual ICT solutions and the ICT sector. However, more research is needed, covering different types of impacts (primary, secondary, rebound, etc.) in a variety of impact categories (e.g. climate change, ozone depletion, eutrophication, human and ecotoxicity, etc.). The findings then need to be systematised in order to identify hot-spots and draw generic conclusions. As the area is rather new and fast-developing, assessment methods need to be critically appraised in order to identify challenges and developments necessary for high quality assessments.This thesis aims to contribute to the knowledge on the direct life cycle environmental impacts of ICT solutions and to investigate and analyse the challenges of applying Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a tool for environmental assessment of ICT solutions. Two research questions: “What life cycle environmental impacts and their causes can be identified for ICT solutions?” and “What are the methodological challenges of assessing the ICT solutions using LCA?” were analysed by reviewing published LCAs on ICT solutions and conducting a case study of online and printed newspapers. The literature review helped identify hotspots in the life cycle of ICT solutions, draw generic conclusions concerning environmental impacts and their causes, and identify major challenges to LCA application. The case study assessed the environmental impacts of traditional and new media solutions and provided information on methodological challenges.The results show that impacts other than climate change potential and energy use are not well-studied in the ICT sector, creating a risk of possible sub-optimisation and problem shifting. Manufacturing and the use phase are concluded to be the most environmentally intense life cycle stages of ICT products in many studies. However, transportation and end-of-life treatment should not be omitted in the assessments, although their impacts appear lower, as uncertainty and lack of data might be a reason for underestimations.As ICT is under constant and rapid development, environmental assessment of ICT solutions faces challenges regarding e.g. data quality and availability; choice of data type; methodological choices (e.g. choice of functional unit, scope definition and allocation); and assumptions on user behaviour. These affect the final results and thus need to be carefully considered by LCA practitioners.The outcomes of this thesis can benefit practitioners and decision-makers, improving knowledge on the environmental impacts of ICT solutions and challenges in applying LCA for assessment of ICT solutions, and providing improved grounds for more informed decision-making. Areas for further research regarding methodology development and filling knowledge gaps are also identified.
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| 2. |
- Miliutenko, Sofiia, 1984-
(författare)
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Life Cycle Impacts of Road Infrastructure : Assessment of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions
- 2012
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Road infrastructure is essential in the development of human society, but has both negative and positive impacts. Large amounts of money and natural resources are spent each year on its construction, operation and maintenance. Obviously, there is potentially significantenvironmental impact associated with these activities. Thus the need for integration of life cycle environmental impacts of road infrastructure into transport planning is currently being widely recognised on international and national level. However certain issues, such as energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the construction, maintenance and operation of road infrastructure, are rarely considered during the current transport planning process in Sweden and most other countries.This thesis examined energy use and GHG emissions for the whole life cycle (construction, operation, maintenance and end-of-life) of road infrastructure, with the aim of improving transport planning on both strategic and project level. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was applied to two selected case studies: LCA of a road tunnel and LCA of three methods for asphalt recycling and reuse: hot in-plant, hot in-place and reuse as unbound material. The impact categories selected for analysis were Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) and Global Warming Potential (GWP). Other methods used in the research included interviews and a literature review.The results of the first case study indicated that the operational phase of the tunnel contributed the highest share of CED and GWP throughout the tunnel’s life cycle. Construction of concrete tunnels had much higher CED and GWP per lane-metre than construction of rocktunnels. The results of the second case study showed that hot in-place recycling of asphalt gave slightly more net savings of GWP and CED than hot in-plant recycling. Asphalt reuse was less environmentally beneficial than either of these alternatives, resulting in no net savings of GWP and minor net savings of CED. Main sources of data uncertainty identified in the two case-studies included prediction of future electricity mix and inventory data for asphalt concrete.This thesis contributes to methodological development which will be useful to future infrastructure LCAs in terms of inventory data collection. It presents estimated amounts of energy use and GHG emissions associated with road infrastructure, on the example of roadtunnel and asphalt recycling. Operation of road infrastructure and production of construction materials are identified as the main priorities for decreasing GHG emissions and energy use during the life cycle of road infrastructure. It was concluded that the potential exists for significant decreases in GHG emissions and energy use associated with the road transport system if the entire life cycle of road infrastructure is taken into consideration from the very start of the policy-making process.
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| 3. |
- Poulikidou, Sofia
(författare)
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Integration of Design for Environment in the vehicle manufacturing industry in Sweden : Focus on practices and tools
- 2013
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Design for Environment (DfE) promotes the systematic consideration of environmental aspects during product design and development. Despite the maturity of concepts and tools in literature, efficient implementation in industries is reported to be low. A need to bridge this gap is identified with studies that look on DfE practices as well as the use and potential of DfE tools.This thesis is part of a research project that investigates DfE practices and the use of tools during vehicle design and development. The aim is to investigate the ways that environmental constraints can be efficiently integrated into product development processes thus assist in improving the environmental performance of products from a life cycle perspective. The scope of the study includes four vehicle manufacturing companies in Sweden. The development and utilization of tools has been also investigated aiming to increase the opportunities for effective use within this product category. Case study methodology, research interviews and literature reviews constitute the research strategy followed in this work.The empirical results presented in this thesis indicated that vehicle manufacturing companies in Sweden are continually working to improve the environmental performance of their products and meet legal and costumer demands. Despite similarities regarding the type of environmental requirements considered, the companies studied have adopted different ways to identify and integrate environmental requirements into their product development process and use DfE tools to different extents. Such variations reflect differences in the success and maturity levels of the DfE practices adopted.A need for increased and more systematic use of tools is identified for all studied companies and especially for analytical tools. Results from the literature review showed that a variety of tools are available that have the potential to support vehicle design processes. However, only a few cover a broad set of aspects identified to be relevant from a vehicle design perspective. For DfE tools to become effective and be used during product development, they need to cover aspects that are relevant for the company and product designers. A need towards the development of tools that assist vehicle or product designers in general, to make informed and comprehensive choices based on a variety of requirements associated to the product, is identified.
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