| 1. |
- Laurenti, Rafael, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Measuring the Environmental Footprint of Leather Processing Technologies
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Industrial Ecology. - : Blackwell Publishing. - 1088-1980 .- 1530-9290. ; 21:5, s. 1180-1187
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The selection of materials and manufacturing processes often determines most of the environmental impact that a product will have during its life cycle. In directing consumption toward products with the least impact on the environment, measuring and comparing material alternatives with site-specific data is a fundamental prerequisite. Within the apparel and footwear industry, some famous brands have recently been basing their advertising on the claim that vegetable-tanned leather is more environmentally friendly than chromiumtanned leather. However, there is a lack of scientific research assessing and comparing vegetable-and chromium-tanned leather in a wider context than the toxicity of chromium. To fill this gap, this study measured and compared the carbon, water, and energy footprint of vegetable and chromium leather processing technology and intermediate processing stages in 12 selected tanneries in seven different countries worldwide. Each tannery proved to be very individual, and therefore attempting to perform this type of analysis without simply producing meaningless generalities is a challenge for companies, researchers, and regulators. The variability in results demonstrates that secondary data for the tanning phase should be utilized with caution in a decision-making context. The use of primary data would be advisable for life cycle assessment studies of leather goods. No significant differences were found in the footprint of vegetable and chromium leather processes, but these are only indicative findings and need confirmation in further studies. An important area needing investigation is then how a fair comparison can be made between renewable natural materials and nonrenewable materials used in both leather-processing technologies.
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| 2. |
- Lavers Westin, Alexandra, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Combining material flow analysis with life cycle assessment to identify environmental hotspots of urban consumption
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier. - 0959-6526 .- 1879-1786. ; 226, s. 526-539
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Understanding the global environmental impacts of local consumption is an area of growing interest among policymakers and consumers. By knowing what products comprise urban consumption “hotspots,” municipalities and consumers alike could take deliberate actions to target and discourage consumption of high-impact products. In this paper, a new method for identifying environmental hotspots of consumption is presented. The main methodological advances are the following: i) material flow analysis of urban areas and life cycle assessment are combined; ii) a 16-year time-series of urban consumption data is used for selection of the most suitable representative products and for trend analysis; iii) representative products are selected systematically from consumption data of 1000 product types; iv) representative products are scaled up to represent consumption of the product groups; v) hotspots are identified by simultaneously evaluating six environmental impacts - acidification, climate change, eutrophication (marine and freshwater), photochemical ozone formation, and resource use; vi) for the case study, hotspots are connected to the city's profiles. The method was applied to the Swedish cities Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo and to Sweden in total. Electronics is a hotspot for all the studied areas and all the studied impacts and should be a prioritized product group for action. Fuel is a hotspot shared by all the areas while vehicles is a hotspot in Gothenburg. Meat is a nationwide hotspot, but not for the cities investigated. Gothenburg and Stockholm could collaborate to find effective measures for their common hotspot machinery. Thus, the method can be used to identify hotspots and find which product types could be part of national versus local programs.
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| 3. |
- Hysa, Eglantina, et al.
(författare)
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Circular Economy Innovation and Environmental Sustainability Impact on Economic Growth : An Integrated Model for Sustainable Development
- 2020
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 12:12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study examines the link between selected indicators of a circular economy, including essential components of environmental and economic growth. Developed economies are continuously innovating to promote growth and giving governmental support to the producers to move from linear economies to circular ones. Hence, waste materials in industrial systems are recycled or re-used, improving the efficiency of using finite resources with the no-waste approach. The aim of this paper is the following: (1) to identify the main components of a circular economy, which are also supportive of sustainability and development; (2) to check the impact of these variables in the economic growth of European Union countries; (3) to find out if the three components of sustainable development adopted to circular economy (CE) indicators (environmental-social-economic) are significant to economic growth. We used a fixed effect panel data analysis to identify the circular economy's impact on the economic growth of European countries. Additionally, to support the results of the regression analysis, we employed a second method-generalized methods of moments-computing the Arellano-Bond dynamic panel data estimation method. The model included five independent variables, such as environmental tax rate, a recycling rate of waste, private investment and jobs in a circular economy, patents related to recycling, and trade of recyclable raw materials. The identification of each variable was made based on a deep search through literature. The results of both econometric models showed a strong and positive correlation between a circular economy to economic growth, highlighting the crucial role of sustainability, innovation, and investment in no-waste initiatives to promote wealth.
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| 4. |
- Laurenti, Rafael, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Calculating the pre-consumer waste footprint : a screening study of 10 selected products
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Knowledge aboutthe total waste generated by the production of consumer goods canhelpraise awareness among policy-makers, producers and consumers of thebenefits of closing loops in a future circular economy and avoiding unnecessary production and production steps and associated generation of large amounts of waste.In strict life cycle assessment (LCA) practice, information on waste outputs fromintermediate industrial processes of material and energy transformation is only translatedinto and declared aspotential environmental impacts, whichare oftennot even shown in the final results. In this study, a procedure to extract available intermediate data and perform a systematic pre-consumer waste footprint analysiswas developed. The pre-consumer waste footprint concept was tested to analyse 10 generic products, whichprovided some interesting results for the different product categories and identifieda number of challenges that need to be resolvedin development of the waste footprint concept. These challenges include standardiseddata declaration on waste in LCA,with a separationintowaste categories illustratingthe implicit environmental and scale of significance of waste types and quantities(e.g. hazardous waste,inertwaste, waste for recycling/incineration)and establishment ofa common definitionof waste throughoutsectors and nations.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Laurenti, Rafael, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
-
Measuring the environmental footprint of leather processing technologies
-
Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The selection of materials and manufacturing processes determines most of the environmental impact that a product will have during its life cycle. In directing consumption towards products with the least impact on the environment, measuring and comparing material alternatives with site-specific data is a fundamental prerequisite. Within the apparel and footwear industry, some famous brands have recently been basing their advertising on the claim that vegetable-tanned leather is more environmentally friendlythan chromium-tanned leather. However, there is a lack of scientific research assessing and comparing vegetable-and chromium-tanned leather in a wider context than the toxicity of chromium. To fill this gap, this study measured and compared the carbon, water and energy footprint of vegetable and chromium leather processing technology and intermediate processing stages in 12 selected tanneries in seven different countries world-wide. Each tannery proved to be very individual and therefore attempting to perform this type of analysis without simply producing meaningless generalities is a challenge for companies, researchers and regulators. The variability in results demonstrates that secondary data for the tanning phase should be utilizedwith caution in a decision-making context. The use of primary data would be advisable for life cycle assessment(LCA) studies of leather goods. No significant differences were found in the footprint of vegetable and chromium leather processes, but these are only indicative findings and need confirmation in further studies. An important area needing investigation is then how a fair comparison can be made between renewable natural materials and non-renewable materials used in both leather processing technologies.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Laurenti, Rafael, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Some pervasive challenges to sustainability by design of electronic products : a conceptual discussion
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier. - 0959-6526 .- 1879-1786. ; 108, Part A, s. 281-288
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sustainability should encompass responsibility for unintended environmental consequences of modern developments. This study examined some pervasive challenges to sustainability by design of electronic products, namely: (i) product and consumption redundancies; (i) embodied environmental and social impacts occurring distant in time and space from the point of consumption; and (iii) production and consumption dynamics. This analysis identified essential developments in certain areas that can assist design practice in preventing unintended environmental consequences. These were: (1) complementing life cycle assessment studies with analyses of unintended environmental consequences; and (2) exploiting the vital role of product design in fostering a circular economy. Indicators that provide information about (a) the increasing spatial and decreasing temporal separation of production, consumption and waste management, (b) constraints in raw materials supply and (c) marginal changes in money and time spent should be available to product designers and consumers. Furthermore, information technology, namely computer-aided design (CAD) tools, should be refined to assist product designers in designing for effective circularity and end-of-waste and limiting hibernation of resources in the use phase.
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| 10. |
- Laurenti, Rafael, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Towards a framework to work within broader systems boundaries in the process of product design
- 2012
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Most of the environmental impacts of which a product will potentially have during its life cycle are determined during the design phase by choices such as type of materials and manufacturing processes. These definitions, in addition, strongly influence the rate of material or energy input per unit of the service offered by the product. Consequently, on the one hand, potential achievements in lowering energy or materials per-unit of service may be translated into lower consumer costs, encouraging increasing consumption. On the other hand, the way products are designed and offered can have large impact in resources use reduction and also influence user behaviour towards more sustainable practices. We believe that by working within broader systems boundaries, undesirable feedback loops arising in this large system could be addressed. This paper describes a novel conceptual framework named Sustainability Driven Systems-Oriented Design to identify the effects of which micro-level gains (e.g. increased material and energy efficiency) have on macro-level loss (e.g. over consumption). Moreover, a first version of an inference diagram of the industrial system is presented. The diagram graphically illustrates how chosen variables influence one another and interacts by means of feedback loops. The aim of using the conceptual framework and the inference diagram in the design process is to shift the traditional linear cause-effect thinking to feedback-loop thinking.
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