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

Sustainability in the product design: A review of recent development based on LCA

In order to achieve sustainable product design process, aspects such of environmental, economic and social should be balanced. This paper discussed on sustainability of product design, conceptual basis of life cycle assessment (LCA), review of LCA at several product design, methodology of proposed framework and discussion on strengths and limitations of LCA. This paper proposed to develop a framework for improving the product design process based on LCA tool. The aims is to calculate potential impact of environment, eco-nomic and social aspects during product design process. For environmental aspects, LCA tool will be used. For economic and social considerations, life cycle costing (LCC) and social life cycle assessment will be applied respectively. At the end, proposed framework are able to help designers to improve product design by considering all sustainability aspects

Incorporating LCA Method into Asset and Facility Life Cycle Management

With the increasing awareness of sustainable development, incorporation of potential environmental impact into the consideration of asset and facility life cycle management is attracting increasing attention. On the one hand, businesses now widely recognize the needs to actively engage in the sustainability arena. On the other hand, companies are now also increasingly accountable for their impacts on the society, environment and economy. This paper presents an initial framework that takes account of sustainability consequences of the products into asset and facility life cycle management. It is shown that major physical assets and facilities in different areas/sectors may have quite different behaviour, thus requiring the uses of different high-level criteria/factors. The evaluation process to incorporate the environmental LCA concept into asset life cycle management is also developed and discussed

Towards life cycle sustainability assessment

Sustainability is nowadays accepted by all stakeholders as a guiding principle for both public policy making and corporate strategies. However, the biggest challenge for most organizations remains in the real and substantial implementation of the sustainability concept. The core of the implementation challenge is the question, how sustainability performance can be measured, especially for products and processes. This paper explores the current status of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) for products and processes. For the environmental dimension well established tools like Life Cycle Assessment are available. For the economic and social dimension, there is still need for consistent and robust indicators and methods. In addition to measuring the individual sustainability dimensions, another challenge is a comprehensive, yet understandable presentation of the results. The “Life Cycle Sustainability Dashboard” and the “Life Cycle Sustainability Triangle” are presented as examples for communication tools for both experts and non expert stakeholders

Data for life cycle assessment of legume biorefining for alcohol

Benchmarking the environmental sustainability of alcohol produced from legume starch against alcohol produced from cereal grains requires considering of crop production, nutrient cycling and use of protein-rich co-products via life cycle assessment. This article describes the mass balance flows behind the life cycle inventories for gin produced from wheat and peas (Pisum sativum L.) in an associated article summarising the environmental footprints of wheat- and pea-gin [1], and also presents detailed supplementary results. Activity data were collected from interviews with actors along the entire gin value chain including a distillery manager and ingredient and packaging suppliers. Important fertiliserand animal-feed substitution effects of co-product use were derived using detailed information and models on nutrient flows and animal feed composition, along with linear optimisation modelling. Secondary data on environmental burdens of specific materials and processes were obtained from the Ecoinvent v3.4 life cycle assessment database. This article provides a basis for further quantitative evaluation of the environmental sustainability of legume-alcohol value chains

Life cycle management of concrete structures based on sustainability indicators

A concrete structure should be sufficiently planned, designed, executed and maintained to ensure its requirements during the life cycle. However, structures suffering from serious deterioration in structural members and sometimes subsequent loss in sustainability have been often found due to various reasons. One of the reasons is lack of total management for the structure. To meet these facts, it is extremely important to pursue coordination of engineering work in the design, execution and maintenance stages. The life cycle management is an organized system to support engineers decision to realize sufficient sustainability of the structure in the design, execution, maintenance, and all related work during its life cycle. The life cycle management is implemented based according to the life cycle management scenario in which balance of several sustainability indicators should be considered with ensuring overall sustainability. The sustainability indicators will be determined from the social, environmental and economic points of view. The scenario should be regularly reviewed based on the PDCA cycle and be updated if necessary. This paper deals with the concept and framework of the life cycle management of concrete structures to ensure sustainability during the structural life

Sustainability of Food Products Applying Integrated Life Cycle Tools

The agri-food industry is a significant resource for the European economy. However, the competitiveness of this industry seems to be at risk due to its many structural problems (i.e. extreme fragmentation, energy-related and service issues, low R&D investment levels). In order to boost the sector, European policy-makers have planned a number of actions aimed at promoting a research for a greater sustainability. One of the most significant actions is the use of Life Cycle Thinking tools, which allow for a quantification of the environmental and social impact, and cost of food production. To ensure the adoption of these tools, their application should be simplified, an integrated framework should be created for the measurement of social, economic and environmental impacts, and a vast dissemination of results should be developed. For this purpose, the Ecolabel mark use has also been extended, with the last revision (EC Reg. no. 66/2010), to food products.Food industry, Life Cycle Thinking, SLCA, LCA, integrated framework

Supply chain implications of sustainable design strategies for electronics products

Increasing legislative and consumer pressures on manufacturers to improve sustainability necessitates that manufacturers consider the overall life cycle and not be scope restricted in creating products. Product strategies to improve sustainability have design implications as many of the decisions made during the design stage will then determine the environmental performance of the final product. Coordination across the supply chain is potentially beneficial as products with improved energy efficiency can be better realised. This paper examines traditional product provision and proposes a sustainable product design process using life cycle assessment (LCA) at key points, as these decision points can provide opportunities for environmental improvements of products. Case studies of consumer and industry products in the electronics sector are examined in terms of improving sustainability by reviewing product architecture and technology solutions. This paper proposes methods and analytical models to better understand sustainable design strategies for manufacturing firms and thus aid manufacturers during the earliest stages of product planning to consider alternative product development approaches which are more sustainable