Life Cycle Engineering for Absolute Environmental Sustainability

1. Introduction
Challenges of society (meeting the material needs in a sustainable way)
What is sustainable? o 1.2.1 History, sustainability definitions, relative sustainability, triple bottom line, weak and strong sustainability
Revising the triple bottom line model -> the nested model, Planetary boundaries
Life cycle thinking and eco-efficiency (definition value/impact)
Need to complement the relative perspective of eco-efficiency with an absolute perspective
Rebound effects
The current fulfilment of the material standard of living drives the crossing of biophysical limits of the earth (differences between countries, rich/poor people, …)
Eco-effectiveness and sufficiency are two sustainability strategies that are less simple to implement (higher invest, higher risk, interdependencies, …), but with higher leverage to meet material needs in as sustainable way
Where do we get the absolute perspective for environmental sustainability?
Brundtland Commission’s definition, challenges in a bottom-up approach
Needs and wants, decent standard of living, problems about prescriptive approaches to define what people should have
Top-down approaches based on what is environmentally sustainable (not compromising the ability Planetary boundaries, space allocation, IPAT
What about social sustainability (the Donut model), needs and wants, dependence of social limits on wealth of society, the “spiral of envy”
History of LCE, definitions
New LCE framework


2. A structured approach for LCE
Abstract
Introduction
A structured approach for Life Cycle Engineering
Target setting for products
Techno-environmental evaluation (Pb-LCA)
The importance to compute/handle variability (temporal, geographical, inter-individual, technological) as well as uncertainty
Environmental focusing
Mitigation strategies – Product, background, foreground
Combined techno-economic and environmental evaluation (LCC, TCO, …..)
Evaluation of target fulfilment


3. Environmental Target setting for Products
Introduction
Inputs and outputs required by the subsection and the fundamental knowledge required (e.g., output is how much environmental space needs to be allocated wrt bio-physical limits)
Planetary, other bio-physical boundaries and safe operating space
Planetary boundaries, introduction (staying in the Holocene), control and response variables, thresholds and boundaries, …, determining the remaining space, core boundaries, are they planetary or regional and how do we aggregate?
Carrying capacity
Safe operating space
Evolution over time (as the space changes size and the population grows)
Sharing the safe operating space
Via per capita or directly to entities/products/organisations (figure from Hjalsted et al., 2019 and direct allocation version)
Allocation principles (table overview from Bjørn et al.), use 3-5 lines to explain each of them
Criteria for a good allocation principle (represent the desired justice, feasible in terms of data availability)
SBT’s allocation principles (sectorial, grand fathering, …)
Examples of societal, sectoral, organisational, and product allocation principles used in practice
Setting the target in the targeted LCE
Allocation to the company and to the product
Volume increase, rebound effect and temporal growth
Influence depends on the chosen allocation principle at the sub sectorial level (e.g. with GVA the SoSOS follows the product’s market share)


4. Foundations of Techno-environmental Evaluation~
Introduction
Inputs and outputs required by the subsection and the fundamental knowledge required
Techniques for techno-environmental assessments: There are many with different purposes (table: Name, acronym, focus in terms of subject/system and impacts, use(s)) -> in life cycle engineering, the relevant tool is LCA
ISO standards for LCAs and applications
Main characteristics of LCA
Functional unit and reference flow
Purpose (comparative studies)
Main considerations in the definition (duration, extent, positioning and obligatory properties…)
Broad coverage of impact categories
Types of LCA (attributional, comparative, consequential, prospective, organisational, hybrid (I/O) LCA, use typology from the ILCD guideline)
Uses of LCA (focusing on eco-design, product documentation in EPDs, carbon footprints, ecolabels, higher level applications…)
LCA phases
Introduce the overall structure from ISO 14040 and the iterative nature of LCA


5. Advanced Techniques and Impact Assessment in LCA~
G&S
Inventory modelling
For the different types of LCA introduced previously (bottom-up or top-down, marginal or average, prospective modelling – when is it relevant?)
Introduction of scopes 1-3 from GHG protocol
Unit processes and unit process databases, representing a full cycle for the process
Foreground and background system
Primary versus secondary data
LCIA
Purpose of the LCIA, steps of the LCIA
Impact categories (1/3-1/2p each; impact pathway, indicator, metrics, characterisation factors, main contributing elementary flows, main contributing activities – compile in table?)
Carbon footprint, water footprint, ecological footprint
Mid- and endpoint, overall impact pathway framework
Normalisation and weighting versus damage modelling (?)
Examples of LCIA methods
Interpretation
Sensitivity and uncertainty analysis
Consistency for comparative studies
The iterative nature of LCA (spiral figure)
Software tools and databases
Modelling software
Databases (ecoinvent, premise, …)


6. Evaluation of target fulfilment and Environmental Focusing
Abstract
Introduction
Inputs and outputs required for the step and subsequent steps
Potential targets in each environmental impact category
Distance to target and target fulfilment and sustainability ratio
Identification of further hotpots along the product life cycles towards driving new mitigation options
Absolute Environmental Sustainability Assessment (AESA)
LCA plus the target setting at FU level (from Chapter 3) and comparison of impacts and SoSOS
Impact indicators in LCA vs AESA (Building on LCA or building on Planetary boundaries -> EF carrying capacities or PbLCA


7. LCE Mitigation strategies – Product, background, foreground
Abstract
Introduction
Inputs and outputs required for the section
Background for the section (life cycle engineering extends the engineering perspective from foreground system only to a holistic understanding of the foreground and background systems
Disaggregated IPAT equation
Update of waste hierarchy and mitigation options
Update mitigation tables wrt IPAT equation and choice of examples
Mitigation strategies and their environmental impact reduction potential
Theoretical background and some practical examples for each to contextualise them.
Why and how we need to do it, synergies and conflicts between individual mitigations options
Examples in product, foreground background systems, their fundamentals and enabling tools and techniques
Energy and resource efficiency in manufacturing
Green supply chain and procurement
Environmentally conscious product development, DFX tools for product system etc
Circular economy strategies – Reduce, reuse, remanufacturing, recycling


8. Techno-economic and environmental evaluation
Abstract
Introduction
Inputs and outputs required by the subsection and the fundamental knowledge required
Techno-economic assessment - Enabling tools and techniques
Life Cycle Costing (LCC)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Material Flow Cost Accounting
Ranking of mitigation options wrt EI/$ (marginal abatement cost curves, …)


9. Case studies
Introduction
Potential case studies across several industry sectors
Manufacturing
Biotech/Pharmaceutical/Chemical -> I have to check if I can contribute here with a concrete case study – in the case we need input here, Laundry washing
Electromechanical - Batteries
Food
Packaging
Textiles etc
Construction
Mining and mineral processing


10. Life Cycle Engineering: Organisation and Implementation
Introduction
Absolute Environmental Sustainability as normative principle in organisations
Relevance of business ethics and professional ethics
Organisational structure and implementation
Requirements to be a life cycle engineer
Organisational key performance indicators