Opinion paper about organic trace pollutants in wastewater: Toxicity assessment in a European perspective

This opinion paper focuses on the role of eco- toxicological tools in the assessment of possible impacts of emerging contaminants on the aquatic ecosystem, hence, on human health. Indeed, organic trace pollutants present in raw and treated wastewater are the pivot targets: a multidisciplinary approach allows defining the basic principles for managing this issue, from setting a proper monitoring campaign up to evaluating the optimal process treatment. Giving hints on trace pollutants fate and behavior, attention is focused on the choice of the bioassay( s), by analyzing the meaning of possible biological answers. Data interpretation and exploitation are detailed with the final goal of providing criteria in order to be able to select the best-targeted treatment options. The manuscript deals with conventional and innovative analytical approaches for assessing toxicity, by reviewing laboratory and field assays ; illustrative real scale and laboratory applications integrate and exemplify the proposed approach

Principles for the application of life cycle sustainability assessment

Purpose and context This paper aims to establish principles for the increased application and use of life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA). Sustainable development (SD) encompassing resilient economies and social stability of the global system is growingly important for decision-makers from business and governments. The "17 SDGs" emerge as a high-level shared blueprint for peace, abundance, and prosperity for people and the planet, and "sustainability" for supporting improvements of products and organizations. A "sustainability" interpretation-successful in aligning stakeholders' understanding-subdivides the impacts according to a triple bottom line or three pillars: economic, social, and environmental impacts. These context and urgent needs inspired the LCSA framework. This entails a sustainability assessment of products and organizations in accordance with the three pillars, while adopting a life cycle perspective. Methods The Life Cycle Initiative promotes since 2011 a pragmatic LCSA framework based on the three techniques: LCSA = environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) + life cycle costing (LCC) + social life cycle assessment (S-LCA). This is the focus of the paper, while acknowledging previous developments. Identified and reviewed literature shows challenges of addressing the three pillars in the LCSA framework implementation like considering only two pillars; not being fully aligned with ISO 14040; lacking interconnectedness among the three pillars; not having clear criteria for results' weighting nor clear results' interpretation; and not following cause-effect chains and mechanisms leading to an endpoint. Agreement building among LCSA experts and reviewing processes strengthened the consensus on this paper. Broad support and outreach are ensured by publishing this as position paper. Results For harmonizing practical LCSA applications, easing interpretation, and increasing usefulness, consensed ten LCSA principles (10P) are established: understanding the areas of protection, alignment with ISO 14040, completeness, stakeholders' and product utility considerations, materiality of system boundaries, transparency, consistency, explicit trade-offs' communication, and caution when compensating impacts. Examples were provided based on a fictional plastic water bottle Conclusions In spite of increasing needs for and interest in SD and sustainability supporting tools, LCSA is at an early application stage of application. The 10P aim to promote more and better LCSA applications by ensuring alignment with ISO 14040, completeness and clear interpretation of integrated results, among others. For consolidating its use, however, more consensus-building is needed (e.g., on value-laden ethical aspects of LCSA, interdependencies and interconnectedness among the three dimensions, and harmonization and integration of the three techniques) and technical and policy recommendations for application.Industrial Ecolog

Application of selected life cycle occupational safety methods to the case of electricity production from pyro-oil

Life cycle thinking is a necessary component in preventing the shifting of burden along the life cycle and from one impact category to another. For this reason, many have focused on integrating life cycle thinking into occupational risk assessment. The resultant methods have different properties in terms of scope and outcomes. Literature has been reviewed for life cycle occupational risk assessment methodologies, and 3 methods (life cycle inherent toxicity (LCIT) method, work environment characterization factors (WE-CFs) method, and life cycle risk assessment (LCRA) method) have been selected and applied in a case study of electricity production from pyro-oil to identify suitability and research gaps in the existing literature. The results of the LCIT method were highly heterogenous over life cycle of electricity production. For the current case, the major cancer and non-cancer impacts originated from the same life cycles. The results from WE-CFs method were highly heterogenous over the life cycle of electricity production as well. Agriculture contributed the most to the occupational risks. In the LCRA method, averaging caused the information about the frequency of the risks over life cycle to be lost. The method showed the well-known bargaining between accuracy and simplicity when complex systems are considered. Results from this method were quite homogenous among life cycles, due to the averaging effect. Detailed reporting and follow-up of the worker health issues can enable a more accurate application of the WE-CFs method. The overall results showed that it was possible to apply these 3 methodologies for the EU-28 region

Wisdom-of-the-crowd effect's application in environmental impact assessment

The wisdom-of-the-crowd effect is a counter-intuitive phenomenon that results in the reduction of errors under some strict conditions. Those conditions are related to randomness and large enough sample size. Many research fields examine the potential use of this effect in error reduction and in overcoming limitations such as the limited number of experts in a given field. Selected environmental/human health impact assessments have been qualitatively examined for the potential existence of this phenomenon. In addition, a quantitative evaluation has been performed for four case studies of simplified life-cycle assessment. The quantitative results indicate that for end-point damage categories, the geometric mean leads to more accurate results than the arithmetic mean. Results suggest that it might be possible to reduce errors or expand the application of these assessments by using assessors with less expertise. The wisdom-of-the-crowd effect also can be used to fill in data gaps in life-cycle inventory databases. However, further research is required in this area to explore the practical uses of this phenomenon. The proposed method can be applied to any entity to examine possible improvements in any area of environmental/human health research

Environmental impact assessment model for substitution of hazardous substances by using life cycle approach

Regulations that are indirectly driving the substitution of hazardous chemicals, such as the EU REACH regulation, necessitate improvements in chemical alternatives assessment frameworks. In those frameworks, life cycle thinking lacks some important aspects such as systematic and quantitative occupational safety methods and risks from intermediate chemicals that are not released to the environment under normal operating conditions. Concerns of companies about regulatory drivers regarding substances of very high concern often lead to inadequate evaluation of the baseline situation; an issue also overlooked by the frameworks. Moreover, life cycle assessment is optional for assessors with limited resources, such as small and medium enterprises. However, the success of substitution should not be evaluated without life cycle concerns. An environmental impact assessment model has been suggested to overcome these shortcomings of the chemical alternatives assessment frameworks. The model was applied to a case study of primed metal sheet production, where the company was driven to substitute reprotoxic 2-methoxypropanol used in their formulations. The results show that the proposed model is promising for solving the mentioned shortcomings, informing the assessor about substances of very high concern along the life cycle, and it has the potential to be further improved with the help of supporting software and databases. Particularly, in the occupational safety area that concerns risks of accidents at work, improvements to the EU occupational health database can drastically increase the accuracy of the assessments. Besides, the development of methodologies for the quantification of the impacts of reprotoxic, bioaccumulative and endocrine disruptor substances is necessary

HARMONIZED INTERNET SYSTEM FOR LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT: EXPERT SYSTEMS APPROACH

The extent of the application of life cycle assessment (LCA) is not sufficient for the alternatives assessments performed in the industry in general and for the ecolabelling of the products/services. Given that the LCA is a widely-accepted methodology, the driving question behind this study was: "Is it possible to ecolabel each existing product/service in a case specific manner by using LCA results, so that the consumers would be able to know the extensive environmental impact of their decisions?". The literature has been searched for listing the main problems preventing the widespread application of LCA in ecolabelling and alternatives assessment. A system has been developed within the constraints (e.g. human resources, etc.) encountered in the literature. The resulting system is a form of an expert system, with a harmonized inter-company scope, that can perform a full LCA to be used in alternatives assessment decisions and in ecolabelling. Proposed system reduces the work load per case, establishes a well-defined scope, prioritizes case specific data, circumvents the issue of 'company secret' and enables wider application of LCA for environmental impact optimization. Another novelty is that the system considers the changes in the downstream of the supply chain due to a decision in the upstream. To establish this, the concept of 'combined total functional demand' has been introduced, which can also help in improving allocation and multifunctional product issues for end products

Engaged communities for low carbon development process

Starting from stakeholderâ\u80\u99s involvement methodology, the paper will present example of community/stakeholders engagement process in concrete actions and Energy efficiency programs. The selected case study will be assessed according to common criteria oriented to identify the citizens role and the degree of partnership in delivering innovations and investments

Local strategies for competitive, effective and secure energy uses: the RENERGY transfer tools and methods

n/

A Place-Based Approach for the SECAP of Potenza Municipality: The Case of Green Spaces System

Action Plans for Energy and Sustainable Climate (SECAP) represent an operational dimension of urban planning that organizes investments and urban transformation processes outside the traditional urban planning instruments. In this work, a methodological approach for SECAP development is discussed in order to reinforce the links between energy and climate objectives and actions of the SECAP with the territorial dimension assessed through systems and targets from the very beginning of the planning process. This methodology takes into account an analytical/cognitive approach of the application context based on energy-consumption data, morpho-climatic parameters, and environmental data generally available for all municipalities. It produces Systemic interpretation useful to support the decision-making process and the monitoring of SECAP implementation enhancement of a territorial approach in SECAP development leads to the clear identification of the intervention targets and the selection of site-specific actions accompanied by an adequate system of indicators. This represents an innovation proposal in the framework of the NewCOM approach. The application to case study of Potenza Municipality is a component of a wider process of developing the SECAP. It shows how methodological approach suggested, can be considered as a tool to support decisions making and monitoring of actions to be included in the plan