Weighting with Life Cycle Assessment and Cradle to Cradle: a methodology for global sustainability design

Sustainable product design uses methodologies focused on eco-effectiveness and eco-efficiency for the proposal of innovative technological solutions and for the control of environmental impacts during the product life cycle. One of the main drawbacks of such techniques is their qualitative nature, associated with a decision-making process that is sometimes arbitrary, or with unverifiable data; this means that several complementary tools are currently being used to reduce the error in the results obtained. This situation makes the unification of procedures necessary. In this context, this research develops a methodology for the sustainable design of industrial products that integrates life cycle assessment (in its environmental, economic and social application) and cradle-to-cradle techniques. For this purpose, a new assessment process is proposed, based on damage, developing LCA+C2C endpoint indicators. The methodology is subsequently verified in a case study of products for sustainable mobility (city trike electric). The results show that an integrated LCA+C2C assessment can help to propose more balanced sustainable strategies and would be a suitable method to measure tradeoffs between economic, social and environmental results, for practical purposes and future redesigns. The unified method provides a procedure to design a solution with a trade-off between eco-efficient and eco-effective criteria; it also simplifies the design phases, facilitates the interpretation of the results and provides a quantitative scope to the cradle-to-cradle framework

The boomerang returns? Accounting for the impact of uncertainties on the dynamics of remanufacturing systems

Recent years have witnessed companies abandon traditional open-loop supply chain structures in favour of closed-loop variants, in a bid to mitigate environmental impacts and exploit economic opportunities. Central to the closed-loop paradigm is remanufacturing: the restoration of used products to useful life. While this operational model has huge potential to extend product life-cycles, the collection and recovery processes diminish the effectiveness of existing control mechanisms for open-loop systems. We systematically review the literature in the field of closed-loop supply chain dynamics, which explores the time-varying interactions of material and information flows in the different elements of remanufacturing supply chains. We supplement this with further reviews of what we call the three ‘pillars’ of such systems, i.e. forecasting, collection, and inventory and production control. This provides us with an interdisciplinary lens to investigate how a ‘boomerang’ effect (i.e. sale, consumption, and return processes) impacts on the behaviour of the closed-loop system and to understand how it can be controlled. To facilitate this, we contrast closed-loop supply chain dynamics research to the well-developed research in each pillar; explore how different disciplines have accommodated the supply, process, demand, and control uncertainties; and provide insights for future research on the dynamics of remanufacturing systems

Model Of A Disassembly System Design: A Theoretical Framework

Transforming the current linear producing industry into a circular economy would have both economic and environmental impacts. Disassembly, as the link between the life cycles of subassemblies, parts and materials, is considered as one of the bottlenecks in the transformation. Repair, Refurbish, Remanufacture, Repurpose, and Recycle – disassembling End-of-Life (EoL) products are a key challenge for these circular economy strategies. At present, the potential of the EoL product disassembly is not being fully realised due to a lack of a systematic approach. This paper presents a theoretical model for developing a concept of a disassembly system. The model visualises the correlation between the influencing factors and the disturbing variables of a disassembly system from an external perspective and indicates the target values. According to system theory, the factors and variables are related to how the system is coupled to the environment. This facilitates the design of disassembly systems in order to exploit existing sustainability potential

Comprehensive examination of automotive product impact. A look ahead in light of sustainable development challenges: the Magneti Marelli S.p.a business case.

Sustainable development imperatives drive industrial selection in the field of product development. Indeed, automotive productiveness plays a key-role in the worldwide trend for the transition towards a more environmentally friendly, economically affordable and socially sustainable balance. In the last few years automotive industry has been rapidly changed due to the increasingly concerned about resource depletion and GHG emissions generation. In this framework, actions addressed to reduce automotive impact has increased. To meet environmental improvement expectation a new design mind-set formula is necessary to integrate environmental attribution to component characteristic: the life cycle thinking approach. In this way, the selection of design for environment strategy is based on a balance between technological, manufacturing and sustainability aspect without shifting environmental consequences beyond company area. Magneti Marelli© Spa as a part of automotive sector has started to be committed on sustainability programs in order to reduce the impact caused by its product on the environment. The Company adopted a methodology, modeled on proposals made by scientific institutes, for the creation of its own system, devoted to obtain results, which could be measurable, understandable and implementable to their strategic plan. The well-recognized Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment methodology, was used and adapted to the company’s context for R&D applications and purposes. This effort was accomplished with the collaboration of company members at different levels (R&D, purchase, logistics, innovation) and with the stakeholders’ collaboration (suppliers of materials and semi-products, EoL management companies and vehicle users) and resulted in over fourteen projects which introduced a wide array of innovative materials, processes and technological applications. The outcome of these projects have enriched the company’s knowledge and have become the basis for more conscious and strategic choices for achieving goals relating to a reduction in product impact, thus helping to protect the planet while guaranteeing company development and progress

Strategies for sustainable socio-economic development and mechanisms their implementation in the global dimension

The authors of the book have come to the conclusion that it is necessary to effectively use modern approaches to developing and implementation strategies of sustainable socio-economic development in order to increase efficiency and competitiveness of economic entities. Basic research focuses on economic diagnostics of socio-economic potential and financial results of economic entities, transition period in the economy of individual countries and ensuring their competitiveness, assessment of educational processes and knowledge management. The research results have been implemented in the different models and strategies of supply and logistics management, development of non-profit organizations, competitiveness of tourism and transport, financing strategies for small and medium-sized enterprises, cross-border cooperation. The results of the study can be used in decision-making at the level the economic entities in different areas of activity and organizational-legal forms of ownership, ministries and departments that promote of development the economic entities on the basis of models and strategies for sustainable socio-economic development. The results can also be used by students and young scientists in modern concepts and mechanisms for management of sustainable socio-economic development of economic entities in the condition of global economic transformations and challenges

Assessment of environmental impacts and circularity of lithium-ion batteries

Lithium-ion batteries are complex products with numerous materials, and their life cycle is associated with various environmental impacts. There is a wide range of information available on the environmental impacts of the lithium-ion battery lifecycle from different LCA studies. However, the complexity of the lithium-ion battery value chain and a wide variation in the composition and design, as well as lack of primary data for industrial scale, amongst other, has caused a wide variety in the reported values for carbon footprint and other impacts. Nonetheless, there seems to be a consensus on where the most significant impacts arise: production of the cathode active materials and manufacturing of the battery cells. Also, various hotspots have been recognized related to specific materials and production pathways. While methods and tools are available for carrying out battery LCA studies, there is still a need for better and up-to-date primary data on an industrial scale.For different environmental impacts, most attention has focused on GHG emissions, although in many studies, wider range of impact categories is included. To understand the sustainability of batteries in a more holistic way, it would be beneficial to include a wider set of indicators and not focus only on one indicator. PEF methodology for rechargeable batteries recommends a set of 15 different impact categories to be used in a calculation of the PEF profile, the most important ones being climate change, resource use (energy carriers, and minerals and metals) and respiratory inorganics. Currently, most battery LCA studies are focused on the impacts from manufacturing of battery materials and cells (i.e., cradle-to-gate studies). Less studies are available in which use and end-of-life stages are included. Adding use stage and end-of-life in the analysis adds another layer of complexity due to the difficulty of modelling battery behaviour and the lack of data from real-world applications and recycling. At the same time, excluding the use phase dismisses the effect of varying lifetime and performance on the lifetime environmental impacts.LCA is an established methodology for evaluating wide range of environmental impacts of the products through its life cycle. However, alone it is not enough to assess all the necessary aspects for circular economy of batteries. For example, LCA do not provide information how materials stay in circulation for multiple cycles or their lifetime performance or required production assets, and therefore other CE indicators will be needed. Circularity assessment on the other hand is not as established as environmental impact assessment by LCA. However, ISO 59000 standard series for circular economy is currently under development which aims to give a framework to measure and assess circularity, amongst other. Numerous other indicators have been developed for evaluating circularity, which aim to recognize aspects related to e.g., durability, repairability and usage intensity, however currently there is very little information on their application to the battery value chain. The scope and purpose of different circularity indicators varies, therefore relevant indicators need to be chosen case by case, and for the specific purpose. In this report, three different circularity indicator tools (MCI, Circulytics and CTI) are presented shortly based on their capability to support or complement environmental impact assessment, with a focus on the data requirements for carrying out the assessment. Depending on the case, the results from the circularity assessment may be used to evaluate and compare circular strategies as well as to support sustainable design and decision making, therefore circularity indicators may be also suitable for increasing sustainability in the design phase rather than assessing circularity state of the art

Export and Import Price Indices

Export and import price indices are essential for assessing the impact of international trade on the domestic economy. Among their most important uses are analyzing developments in the trade balance, measuring foreign prices' contribution to domestic inflation, and deflating nominal values of exports and imports for estimating the volume of gross domestic product. This paper discusses economic concepts for trade price indices at some length. We note the need for reasonably frequent chaining in view of the fluctuation in the conditioning variables of trade price indices. We characterize the effect of the residency orientation of the index on the substitution biases of the commonly used Laspeyres and Paasche formulas, and superlative formulas, which greatly attenuate these biases. Finally, we consider the data sources and methods used to compile them. Copyright 2004, International Monetary Fund