The role of life cycle thinking-based methodologies in the development of waste management plans

The aim of this article is to examine how Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) contributes to the development of Waste Management Plans (WMPs). The case of Italy has been deeply investigated. The article first analyses whether and how the LCT methodologies were applied to the 21 regional WMPs; then, it draws indications for using LCT in the preparation of a WMP. Moreover, it outlines why the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology could be used as a powerful tool for regional planning in the waste field, analysing the indications for preparing a WMP that already exist at the European level and in the Italian National WM Programme. Results reveal that only four of the 21 regional WMPs include comprehensive and site-specific LCA studies. Building on these case study results, insights into the opportunities and benefits associated with incorporating LCT methodologies into WMP development and implementation are provided. This study underscores the critical importance of LCT and LCA in promoting sustainable waste management practices, ensuring compliance with European directives, and offering a foundation for more informed regional planning strategies

Improving sustainability in communities: Linking the local scale to the concept of sustainable development

Sustainability challenges can be faced at local, urban and national scale leading to diverse initiatives constrained mainly by economic and cultural limits. Of these three levels, the local has the advantage of being the closest to people and therefore encouraging active collaboration. The aim of this research is to realize a path towards community sustainability based on maturity assessment. Our intent is to explore how to link the local scale to the concept of sustainable development and how to achieve a dynamic evaluation and management of sustainability. We obtain a maturity-based sustainability assessment through a framework based on territorial context analysis (scoping phase), maturity assessment (design phase) and case study application (evaluation phase). A small community located in Italy was selected for our case study. This research proposes a sustainability maturity assessment that embraces all the plans, programmes and initiatives needed to define improvement goals and strategies covering all aspects of sustainability. It enables the dynamic management of sustainability at the local level and allows communities to define sustainability strategies in which maturity assessment plays a key role by linking the existing situation with improved future situations

Investigating the integration between life cycle thinking, green chemistry principles and sustainability policies

Green chemistry and life cycle assessment are two methodologies used in environmental studies, both theoretically and practically. The purpose of this analysis was to assess whether and how green chemistry principles could be integrated into the life cycle assessment methodology and to local and international industrial policies to achieve sustainability goals at the territorial level. First, some contributions that life-cycle thinking gives to green chemistry and vice versa are proposed, based on existing research. Data are provided using tables to summarise contents and graphs to outline interconnections, also considering the four steps of life cycle assessment, showing some available references of previous studies. Secondly, some possible points of integration between the 12 principles of green chemistry and environmental policies are listed. For each principle of green chemistry, a possible integration with international and local strategies is proposed. A list of references that might be useful to investigate possible patterns of study for territorial and industrial uses, is provided too. The results show that life cycle thinking and green chemistry can be integrated into theoretical and practical case studies, since many interconnections exist. These interconnections permit one to use the best characteristics of each method to improve the reliability of the other method and, finally, to solve environmental, industrial, and engineering problems with a more comprehensive approach. In addition, green chemistry principles can be easily associated with main environmental policies at the international, national, regional, and local levels. This allows one to use results, knowledge, and expertise of the green chemistry framework and apply them to industries, territories, and communities. The similarities highlighted in this analysis need further investigation in future studies since they can help decision making process in sustainability policies

IL LIFE CYCLE THINKING COME STRUMENTO PER LA VALUTAZIONE CRITICA DELLE POLITICHE DI ECONOMIA CIRCOLARE

La definizione di indicatori condivisi per la misurazione delle prestazioni di sostenibilit\ue0 ambientale e dei miglioramenti ottenibili con l\u2019economia circolare \ue8 oggetto di dibattito internazionale. Tra gli strumenti tecnici di analisi delle strategie ambientali, la valutazione del ciclo di vita risulta tra le pi\uf9 promettenti in quanto consente di stimare gli impatti ambientali ma anche gli aspetti sociali ed economici, indagando la sostenibilit\ue0 nel suo complesso. Il primo obiettivo di questo lavoro \ue8 illustrare la recente letteratura su questi tre temi interconnessi \u2013 sostenibilit\ue0 ambientale, economia circolare e valutazione del ciclo di vita \u2013 indagando se la circolarit\ue0 sia sempre positiva dal punto di vista ambientale e se il life cycle thinking possa essere utile per valutare la sostenibilit\ue0 ambientale e complessiva delle politiche di economia circolare, tramite un breve caso studio relativo al piano nazionale di ripresa e resilienza italiano. Il secondo obiettivo \ue8 illustrare come le tecniche di comunicazione possano influenzare sensibilmente le scelte strategiche di interlocutori non esperti. I risultati dello studio evidenziano che riflettere su questi aspetti \ue8 rilevante per analizzare criticamente le politiche ambientali. Alcuni studi di life cycle thinking suggeriscono infatti che, se determinate condizioni non vengono garantite, lo spostamento degli impatti, gli effetti boomerang in campo ambientale e sociale e alcune azioni trasversali possono annullare i vantaggi delle strategie circolari in termini di sostenibilit\ue0 complessiva. In questo contesto, l\u2019uso di un unico indicatore di circolarit\ue0 potrebbe non essere appropriato per mostrare la complessit\ue0 degli aspetti coinvolti in differenti scenari di gestione. Alcuni sviluppi futuri per la ricerca teorica e applicata per diversi stakeholders sono dunque propost

Chapter 7 Life cycle assessment: methods, limitations, and illustrations.

The second half of the twentieth century was characterized by a greater awareness on the importance of the protection of the environment and of the possible impacts associated with products and processes. Several organizations increased their interest in the application of methodologies aimed at a better understanding of the interactions that their products or activities had with the environment (Bjørn et al., 2018b). In the last years, LCA became one of the most important tools for environmental management. Probably it is not the best technique for every situation, but it has a fundamental characteristic: it is based on the life cycle thinking approach. According to this, every product, process, or activity must be seen from the perspective of its life cycle. This means that if there is the necessity of evaluating the environmental impacts of a product, its manufacturing is not enough, but its entire life cycle must be considered, from the extraction of the raw materials to its disposal or recycling

Chapter 9 Life cycle sustainability dashboard and communication strategies of scientific data for sustainable development.

This chapter aims to provide some general highlights of communication strategies and to describe and comment the multifaceted tool of Life Cycle Sustainability Dashboard. The overall purpose is to give a contribution to the comprehensibility of the decision-making process in sustainable development policie

Circular Bioeconomy metrics and Life Cycle Assessment. Answers from literature review.

Resource scarcity and the problem of waste management are two of the key issues in contemporary society that encourages the reflection on the benefits of transitioning to a Circular Economy (CE) model. Bioeconomy, the socio-economic system that encompasses and interconnects economic activities that use renewable bio-resources of the soil and sea (also called bio-based resources) to produce food, materials and energy, represents a fundamental variation of the CE. In the analyzed context, where it is necessary moving towards CE and reducing the environmental impacts, a systematic literature review was conducted using different keywords combinations. Results show that Material Circularity Indicator (MCI) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) could be two reliable metrics by which measure Circular Bioeconomy and environmental impacts, respectively