6th SETAC-Europe Meeting: LCA — Selected Papers

A study of iudustry's use of I,CA has bcen performed as a special analysis of the Business Enviromnental Barometer (B.E.B.). The B.E.B. is an international questionnaire survey on industry's envi- ronmental management practices (LCA included), repeated every two years. The first round in 1993 included the Nordic countries. The 1997 round will include eight European countries. This analy- sis intends to describe industry's LCA use as such (e.g. active industrial sectors, applications, changes over time) and differences between companies working with I.CA and those not working with LCA. The survey indicates that industry is in the process of internalising LCA knowledge, although most companies are still in the learning phase. LCA companies have more developed environmental management systems than non-LCA companies. A company's LCA use seems to be a competitor-driven activity, judging from LCA distribution among industrial sectors

Environmental assessment of organising: towards a framework for the study of organisational influence on environmental performance

The paper discusses a new perspective on industryÕs environmental performance and presents the concept and field of Environmental Assessment of Organising. EAO builds on the notion that different ways of managing industrial production lead to different environmental performance. To understand how industrial organising influences environmental performance it is necessary to take ordinary physical flow modelling of technical systems, such as life cycle assessment, a step further by embedding these in an organisational context. Such an understanding could provide new knowledge for environmentally ÒsmarterÓ management. The concept of EAO aims towards a theoretical framework that bridges environmental management, organisational theory and environmental systems analysis. Its presentation here is grounded in a literature review on works related to industrial environmental performance. Two studies testing the practical application of EAO are briefly presented and discussed. These have contributed to the presented basic methodology and rudimentary research programme for EAO studies

Publish and perish? The impact of citation indexing on the development of new fields of environmental research

The publishing of research has implications for the evaluation of research careers, research departments and funding for research projects. Researchers' academic evaluation relies heavily on the status of the journal in which a researcher publishes. The inclusion of one's work in Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) is often used as an indicator of academic quality. This is unfortunate for many environmental researchers, as their journals are not represented in the SCI and SSCI. Two investigations were carried out to determine the reasons for this. The first investigation identified 352 existing environmental academic journals, classified into 7 categories (and several subcategories). Of these, 2 categories were not represented in the SCI or SSCI: environmental systems analysis journals, and corporate environmental management journals. The second survey investigated the publishing patterns of interdisciplinary research groups and the characteristics of their journals. In spite of acceptable citation levels, interdisciplinary environmental journals are excluded from the SCI and SSCI. A major reason seems to be that citations of their articles are uncounted by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), the organization producing the SCI and SSCI, because citations mostly take place in a group of journals completely unrepresented in ISI's database

A sociomaterial conceptualization of flows in industrial ecology

A major starting point in industrial ecology (IE) is that reaching ecological sustainability requires understanding relations between human actions and material (tangible) flows. IE studies have enabled assessments of different technical and sociotechnical configurations but only to a limited degree provided concepts that support the design of interventions for industrial ecologies. We contribute by proposing a sociomaterial flow approach, here applied to life cycle thinking. After problematizing some common concepts in IE, the key concepts, a procedure, and some applied variants of the proposed sociomaterial approach are presented. The approach is theoretically grounded in related sociomaterial research. This body of theories underpins our conceptualization of how flows in, for example, a product life cycle can be related to nets of human actions within one rather than several analytical frames. The sociomaterial interaction point (SMIP) is a key concept in our approach for the sociomaterial connection between material flows and actor networks. A SMIP can be described as the interactions where humans come closest to the flows. The conceptualization of the methodology provides a framework for exploring actor and action networks shaping material flows and a basis for a relational analysis of governance, organization, and management of the flows in industrial ecologies. A sociomaterial approach to flow studies can therefore help in designing more concrete sustainability interventions in industrial ecologies

On the introduction of a community resilience framework to Social Life Cycle Assessment

SLCA according to the UNEP/SETAC guidelines attempt to measure the social impacts of a product or policy with human well-being as endpoint indicator. However, the methodological sheets do not provide clear and unambiguous definition of what human well-being is and are lacking with regard to a weak capacity to identify reliable indicators to include in both Type I and Type 2 impact assessment. The aim of this article is to explore the chance to introduce ‘community resilience’ (e.g. Magis 2013) as new topic for assessment in the SLCA, compared to human well-being (Soltanpour et al., 2019). The concept of community resilience is investigated via literature to understand how it can be related to ‘human well-being’ expressed in the guidelines and how it can be operationalized for impact assessment. Results will show the possibility of community resilience assessment in SLCA for both Type I and Type 2 assessment

Individual adaptation of industry LCA practice: Results from two case studies in the Swedish forest products industry

Goal, Scope and Background: The mere existence of life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology and general acceptance of the life cycle philosophy is not enough to make their use widespread in industry. To gain a better understanding of factors shaping LCA studies and life cycle related practice, field studies of the development of LCA practice in two companies were carried out. Methods: In order to obtain a deeper understanding of LCA practice, the number of ‘variables’ was minimized and two similar companies were chosen for study: Stora Enso and SCA. Both companies are part of the Swedish forest products industry, are large multinational enterprises and have been working with LCA since the early 1990s. Both interviews and document studies were used to collect data regarding LCA work from its introduction until 2003. Results and Discussion: We found fundamental differences in LCA practice between two similar companies in regard to LCA studies per se (the number of studies undertaken and methodological preferences) and also in regard to the organisation of and approach to LCA work. By testing various theoretical explanations of these divergent LCA practices, we identified the actions of individuals and their understanding of the situation as important factors shaping LCA practice. Conclusions: Although sector-wide recommendations on LCA practice are common in the LCA community, this study indicates that companies use LCA differently despite similar structural conditions such as company size or sector affiliation. Recommendations and Perspectives: Since the understanding and actions of individuals are important in shaping LCA practice, people working with LCA in industry probably have greater scope for action than they recognise and than sector recommendations may imply when it comes to organising and carrying out their work. Thus, those working with life cycle issues, even in different sectors, can learn much from each other about ways of organising and benefiting from LCA work

Bring on the ‘soft’ sciences: Exploring implications of grounding life cycle methods in three socio-material philosophies

By not separating product flows from management, we target the little studied problem of how different management practices actually influence the environment. We test the socio-material philosophies actor-network theory, object-oriented ontology and agential realism on the life cycle assessment (LCA) cases bread and cement, through three examples. We conclude that socio-materiality point out that managers could benefit from an increased contextual understanding of the material and energy flows that their decisions influence. For LCA analysts, it highlights that including actual practices and action networks of people handling the flows could be useful for reaching effective use of LCA flow model results

Plastic litter cleanup operations: learnings from 4 LCAs

GOAL: Marine debris, especially plastic litter has become a matter of serious concern. While many efforts rightly focus on prevention of plastic littering, the amount of plastics already in the environment is such that it also requires consideration. Even if plastic pollution were to be prevented now, marine plasticlitter washing up on shorelines will remain a problem for years. These circumstances warrant an examination of different set-ups for plastic litter cleanup.METHOD: LCA has beed used to evaluate different types of cleanup operations, both with regard to the environmental impacts associated with the cleanup itself and the recovery options for the collected plastics. Here, four LCA studies are presented and evaluated: 1/ arctic shoreline cleanup with volunteers (Lachmann 2016); 2/ shoreline cleanup with volunteers (Ca\uf1ete Vela 2017); 3/ riverine cleanup with traps (B\uf6rling & Hein 2017); 4/ a sewerage-integrated collection with traps (B\uf6rling & Hein 2017). The explored options for plastics recovery include waste-to-energy, mechanical recycling and chemical recycling when landfilling can be avoided. The LCA studies were conducted as student projects under my supervision; the comparative evaluation is my own. Furthermore, personal experience of beach cleaning has provided a frame of reference against which LCA methodology applied to cleanup operations can be evaluated. The findings are discussed further in relation to other known cleanup operations around the world.RESULTS: The assessments identify both negative and positive environmental impacts. Negative impacts are associated with the operative side of cleanup and collection, while positive impacts are associated with habitat improvement after cleanup or recovery of plastic material. Conventional LC impact assessment methodology was found lacking for describing the positive ecological impacts of cleanups. A combination of qualitative and quantitative site-sensitive assessment was deployed.Based on the comparative evaluation, aspects important for planning plastic litter cleanups were identified. First, the site for a cleanup matters for what positive environmental impacts are achieved. Shoreline cleanup mainly provide habitat restoration. In contrast, riverine and sewerage-integrated traps provide the clearest possibilities for recovery of plastic material. The ecological benefits of shoreline cleanups are associated with coastal zones being feeding and breeding zones for many animals. While gyres have become known as accumulation zones of marine plastic litter, they are relatively ‘unpopulated’ as marine life isconcentrated to the coastal zones where upwelling of nutrients happens. Second, the collection technique matters for what negativeenvironmental impacts arise. Volunteer transportation to site of beach cleanup represent a significant proportion of CO2 emissions. Working with local volunteers isimportant for keeping CO2 emissions down. In comparison, riverine and sewerage-integrated collection can be carried out with well-placed passive traps. As these sit passively in a water stream, emissions related to collection can be kept to a minimum. Third, the material qualities of the collected litter determine recovery possibilities. Beach litter is generally too dirty, salty, degraded and stringy for any useful recovery — landfilling is common. Saltiness is avoided with riverine and sewer-traps. These also have the advantage of collecting more recent and less degraded litter, thereby facilitating various recovery options

The environmental significance of management practices: Exploring the eco-efficiency of 6 cases

The starting point for this paper is the importance of understanding how humans interact with material and energy flows. Technical systems are vital to model for improving eco-efficiency, but they are always managed by humans. Daily maintenance of machinery and the process of planning a new warehouse are examples of these ordinary human actions, and such actions are seldom simple cause-effect chains. The purpose of this study is to continue investigating these human actions, through our research on Environmental Assessment of Organising (EAO). A qualitative screening of environmental impacts through life cycles assessments (LCA) and the human practices influencing these impacts is carried out for six products and services: activities offered at bowling halls, bread production, bus travel services, cement production, properties management and road maintenance. Within each of these studies, at least three product or service chains are compared. LCA is combined with observation studies and interviews. For each of the six cases, descriptions are presented of situations, where management practices are indicated to be significant for the environmental impacts. The environmental impacts are qualitatively assessed, and further studies are needed for fully describing the cause-effect chains and the size of the differences in environmental significance. For road maintenance, difficulties of determining a useful functional unit, makes comparison of different operators less feasible. Concluding, many studies of technology, not least innovations, would benefit from including ordinary human actions. Such detailed and realistic socio-material understandings can be used for fruitful theorising and subsequent environmental improvements. As an example, innovation studies might become more efficient by including thorough investigations of the ‗ordinary‘ periods in between innovations

Ways to get work done: a review and systematisation of simplification practices in the LCA literature

PurposeWithin the field of life cycle assessment (LCA), simplifications are a response to the practical restrictions in the context of a study. In the 1990s, simplifications were part of a debate on streamlining within LCA. Since then, many studies have been published on simplifying LCA but with little attention to systematise the approaches available. Also, despite being pervasive during the making of LCA studies, simplifications remain often invisible in the final results. This paper therefore reviews the literature on simplification in LCA in order to systematise the approaches found today.MethodsA review of the LCA simplification literature was conducted. The systematic search and selection process led to a sample of 166 publications. During the review phase, the conceptual contributions to the simplification discourse were evaluated. A dataset of 163 entries was created, listing the conceptual contributions to the simplification debate. An empirically grounded analysis led to the generative development of a systematisation of simplifications according to their underlying simplifying logic.Results and discussionFive simplifying logics were identified: exclusion, inventory data substitution, qualitative expert judgment, standardisation and automation. Together, these simplifying logics inform 13 simplification strategies. The identified logics represent approaches to handle the complexities of product systems and expectations of the users of LCA results with the resources available to the analyst. Each simplification strategy is discussed with regard to its main applications and challenges.ConclusionsThis paper provides a first systematisation of the different simplification logics frequently applied in LCA since the original streamlining discussion. The presented terminology can help making communication about simplification more explicit and transparent, thus important for the credibility of LCA. Despite the pervasiveness of simplification in LCA, there is a relative lack of research on simplification per se, making further research describing simplification as a practice and analysing simplifications methodologically desirable