A Framework for Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Road Salt Used in Winter Maintenance Operations

It is important to assess from a holistic perspective the sustainability of road salt widely used in winter road maintenance (WRM) operations. The importance becomes increasingly apparent in light of competing priorities faced by roadway agencies, the need for collaborative decision-making, and growing concerns over the risks that road salt poses for motor vehicles, transportation infrastructure, and the natural environment. This project introduces the concept of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA), which combines Life Cycle Costing, Environmental Life Cycle Assessment, and Social Life Cycle Assessment. The combination captures the features of three pillars in sustainability: economic development, environmental preservation, and social progress. With this framework, it is possible to enable more informed and balanced decisions by considering the entire life cycle of road salt and accounting for the indirect impacts of applying road salt for snow and ice control. This project proposes a LCSA framework of road salt, which examines the three branches of LCSA, their relationships in the integrated framework, and the complexities and caveats in the LCSA. While this framework is a first step in the right direction, we envision that it will be improved and enriched by continued research and may serve as a template for the LCSA of other WRM products, technologies, and practices

Design for Sustainability through a Life Cycle Assessment Conceptual Framework Integrated within Product Lifecycle Management

The need to include sustainable design principles during product realization poses several challenges in need of research. The demand for greener products has increased while competition has shortened product realization processes. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) provides solutions in accelerating the development process and time to market by managing the information through a full life cycle of a product line. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) provides a way to predict the environmental impacts that should be expected over the complete life cycle of a given product, but LCA methods are not well suited to efficient comparison of product alternatives during early design stages. Customers and other stakeholders demand products that not only comply with regulations and minimize environmental impacts, but also minimize costs and maximize certain performance objectives of a product. Thus, an approach is needed to unify validation of new products compliance with holistic consideration of environmental impacts along with other objectives over a complete life cycle for the selection of the optimal design concept in an efficient manner. This research addresses these matters by proposing the approach of integrating LCA software with a PLM system. A conceptual LCA framework- LCAatPLM (Life Cycle Assessment of assembly tree in PLM) is proposed that allows environmental assessment of assembly tree directly extracted from PLM. Firstly, relevant existing solutions are reviewed and several challenges are identified that prevent integration. By decomposing the structure of both PLM and LCA, a common foundation is identified for the integration. Then, a design methodology is developed to show the use of LCAatPLM within PLM environment. A charcoal grill design case study is detailed to show how evaluations can be made based on achievement of strategic goals, along with verification of compliance and the visibility of LCA and other results. Our findings show that design executions through LCA integrated with PLM reveal environmental criterion at early stages. It can be considered with other design criteria to identify and select optimal alternatives. This research transforms LCA as an evaluation tool used after a design is already completed to one that can guide designs earlier within the PLM environment

Integrated product design and life-cycle assessment

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 1998.Includes bibliographical references (p. 111-114).by Inês Sousa.M.Eng

Data Representation Methods For Environmentally Conscious Product Design

The challenge of holistically integrating environmental sustainability considerations with design decision-making requires novel representations for design and sustainability-related data that allow designers to understand correlations among them. Challenges such as (1) lack of suitable data & information models, (2) methods that simultaneously consider environmental sustainability as well as design constraints, and (3) uncertainty models for characterizing subjectivity in environmental sustainability-based decision making, pose serious impediments towards this goal

Evaluating the Sustainability of Infrastructure Projects During Front-End Planning Phase

Front-End Planning (FEP) for Sustainable Infrastructure (SI) projects is a promising process that can support addressing multiple challenges in infrastructure projects (i.e. cost overruns, schedule delays, and poor sustainability). This study aims to investigate synergies between sustainability and FEP tools for infrastructures through stakeholders’ surveys, multiple case-study analyses, and a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) activity with students. The PBL activity enhanced students’ knowledge on FEP for SI projects, and, together with other analyses, it helped in defining three different frameworks that correlate sustainability and FEP tools for infrastructure projects. The findings of this thesis contribute to the infrastructure, engineering and construction education bodies of knowledge through (1) paving the way for the future workforce to understand the criticality of infrastructure sustainability and the importance of the FEP process in these projects; and (2) supporting stakeholders in better planning, assessing risks and managing sustainable infrastructure projects prior to project initiation

Methodological study on technology integration for sustainable manufacturing in the surface finishing industry

Today, industries explore advanced techniques to enhance their development efforts to meet the goals of sustainability due to various challenges which is caused by industrial globalization, high energy and raw material costs, increased environmental regulations and social pressures, and new technological innovations. In order for an industrial process to become sustainable, it is essential to improve the process inputs efficiency from raw materials and energy while maintaining highest productivity and quality; in addition to, minimizing waste generation and the impact on the environment. Engaging in industrial sustainability requires major efforts from decision makers to implement advanced technologies to satisfy each triple bottom line of sustainability. Due to the complexity of industrial systems and lack of quantifiable mechanisms to assess sustainability triple bottom lines, decision makers are facing a very difficult task to solve. In this research a holistic methodology for sustainability assessment and decision-making is developed, which will assist in improving the sustainability level through implementing and integrating sustainable technologies in manufacturing systems through case studies, particularly on the electroplating industry. The methodology is general but our intent is to apply it to electroplating metal substrate processes. This research is valuable in its methodological contribution for sustainability assessment, decision-making, and technology quantification via known and well established sustainability metrics to assist decision makers to identify desired technologies needed for improving overall industrial sustainability development. This methodology is applicable for any type of industrial system of any complexity, and its efficacy is demonstrated in a case study identifying desired technologies and their implementation for achieving an overall sustainable level enhancement. Moreover, a computer aided computational tool is developed for industry forecasters to assess their current industrial sustainability and determine future sustainability goals in a quantitative manner using an interactive graphical user interface. To the best of our knowledge the introduced concept of technology integrated sustainability enhancement (TISE) holistic approach is the first to be used to effectively enhance the overall industrial system sustainability by evaluating each technology or suite of technologies based on strategically selected indicators and combined benefits methodology assessment. Furthermore, an optimization based approach was introduced for a proficient sustainability assessment of industrial systems via technology integration. Another major contribution in this research is the development of an industrial sustainability assessment program using LabView software and Matlab programming tools to assess the sustainability of various technology options. The assessment results from this program provide different technology integration options and alternatives which can be compared in terms of sustainability triple bottom lines, overall sustainability performance, and the optimum solution can be identified as the one yielding to the highest sustainability value depending on budget cost limitation to implement those technologies

Responding to Agenda 2020: A technology vision and research agenda for America`s forest, wood and paper industry

This document presents project summaries that demonstrate specific capabilities of interest to the forest, wood and paper industry in areas where PNL offers significant depth of experience or unique expertise. Though PNL possesses a wide range of capabilities across many of the technology-related issues identified by the industry, this document focuses on capabilities that meet the specific forest, wood and paper industry needs of the following research areas: forest inventory; human and environmental effects; energy and environmental tradeoffs; reduction of impacts of liquid effluent; solid wastes; removal of non-process elements in pulp and paper operations; life cycle assessment; and process measurement and controls. In addition, PNL can provide the forest, wood and paper industry with support in areas such as strategic and program planning, stakeholder communications and outreach, budget defense and quality metrics. These are services PNL provides directly to several programs within DOE