A thematic review of life cycle assessment (LCA) applied to pig production

Commercial livestock production is known to have significant impacts on the environment. Pig production is a complex system which involves the production of animal feed, transportation, animal rearing and waste management. One tool for assessing the environmental performance of such complex systems is life cycle assessment (LCA). LCA has been applied to pig production considerably to date. This paper provides a chronological review of state-of-the-art pig production LCAs under three themes: feed production; entire-system livestock rearing; and waste management. The study considers how LCA applications have addressed technological improvements in animal husbandry, and highlights methodological limitations, particularly related to cross-study comparisons. Recent research demonstrates crude protein reduction in feed and anaerobic treatment of pig excreta resulting in bioenergy production are the key targets for environmental performance improvements related to pig production.     

A model for the sustainable selection of building envelope assemblies

The aim of this article is to define an evaluation model for the environmental impacts of building envelopes to support planners in the early phases of materials selection. The model is intended to estimate environmental impacts for different combinations of building envelope assemblies based on scientifically recognised sustainability indicators. These indicators will increase the amount of information that existing catalogues show to support planners in the selection of building assemblies.To define the model, first the environmental indicators were selected based on the specific aims of the intended sustainability assessment. Then, a simplified LCA methodology was developed to estimate the impacts applicable to three types of dwellings considering different envelope assemblies, building orientations and climate zones. This methodology takes into account the manufacturing, installation, maintenance and use phases of the building. Finally, the model was validated and a matrix in Excel was created as implementation of the model.     

Logistic sequencing for improving environmental performance using ant colony optimization

A significant portion of air pollutions in a city comes from road transport. Shorter travelling distance and less fuel consumption would logically lead to lower emissions of greenhouse gases or particulate matters, thus relieve environmental burdens. In this regard, an appropriate selection of the logistic sequence may contribute significantly to the environment. The logistic sequence for pickup and delivery services are often determined based on decision makers' experience and intuitive judgements. While life cycle assessment (LCA), a well-versed approach, can be used for quantifying the environmental loads, it is often regarded as not suitable for making routine decisions because it takes significant time and resources for data collection as well as expert knowledge for result interpretation. Additionally, the results of LCA studies focus mainly on the environmental perspective and that other decision criteria cannot be taken into account in a single evaluation process. This paper attempts to develop a practical and objective tool, by combining a simplified LCA with the ant colony optimization algorithm, that supports evaluating several decision criteria simultaneously and determining the optimal or near optimal sequence for vehicle routing on pickup and delivery activities. This fit-for-purpose approach enables decision makers to pay attention to environmental impacts during the determination of the travelling sequences. The proposed approach has been successfully performed to identify the optimal solution through benchmarking against other possible sequences, with the aim to reducing environmental impact while balancing other decision criteria.     

Life cycle assessment of a railway tracks substructures: Comparison of ballast and ballastless rail tracks

The increase of train speed and axle load is an essential goal to make the railway transport more and more competitive for passengers and freights. On this basis, the unevenness of the railway track is crucial for the safety of the railway due to the high speed of the vehicle. Although ballasted tracks represent by far the most used railway track substructure, in recent years the modernization process has led the development of the ballastless track substructures.In deciding between the use of ballasted or ballastless track substructure there are many important technical, economical and environmental factors that have to be addressed. Based on the above, the principal objective of this study was to evaluate the environmental impact of different railway track substructures including ballast, cast-in sleeper and embedded track systems on the short, medium and long term. To accomplish this task, a life cycle assessment (LCA) was carried out throughout the entire life cycle of the railway infrastructure by using the ReCiPe (H) method. Although such approach is commonly included in the environmental assessment of building products and buildings, it was rarely applied in the analysis of the environmental impacts of railway track substructure.Thus, the result of these LCA showed that ballasted tracks cause the lowest environmental impact for service lives of up to 75 years. On the other hand, the embedded track beds cause the highest environmental impacts, regardless of their service life. The highest contributor for the environmental impacts of the track beds was the steel production.The results of this study will provide relevant environmental information for engineers and decision makers to select the most adequate railway track substructures for addressing issues related to the pursuit of sustainable development.     

Towards a green and fast production system: Integrating life cycle assessment and value stream mapping for decision making

Integrating environmental commitment to manufacturing concerns seems unavoidable towards a more sustainable conduct. In the contemporary scenario, Value Stream Mapping (VSM) has been bringing new perspectives into companies' economics, improving production performance, whereas Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been the most complete tool for environmental assessment. Therefore, the present study aims to propose a model based on the integration of LCA and VSM to improve environmental and manufacturing aspects of organizations, the LCA-VSM model. Possible spots for integration, overlaps between LCA and VSM and potential gains were identified. The LCA-VSM model provides a simple tool for prioritizing action measures to improve the environmental-economic performance, and unlike many existing methods, it encourages continuous improvement instead of a one-off approach. The company where a case study was conducted to test the LCA-VSM model is a manufacturer of tools and painting materials for the civil construction sector. The use of the proposed model guided actions that decreased from 5% to 15% of environmental impacts (across nine impact categories), and reduced both non-value adding (lead time went from 103.26 to 24.01 days) and value adding (cycle time went from 35.7 s to 33.75 s) time. The main contribution of this paper is providing a structured approach to a practical integration of LCA and VSM towards decision making, prioritizing action measures based on the following criteria: environmental preference, economic feasibility, and ease of implementation, aiding more eco-efficient practices.     

Environmental impact of electricity relocation: A quasi-natural experiment from interregional electricity transmission

Pollutants such as sulfur would concentrate in the source regions and thus the localized impacts are more obvious. Local balance of electricity by transporting coal has resulted in dense concentration of coal-fired power plants in load centers and caused severe environmental problems. Electricity relocation through interregional transmission is another choice for energy transportation to achieve electricity balance across regions and pollution mitigation. Using interregional electricity transmission (IRET) lines in China as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper assesses the environmental impact of electricity relocation. In the assessment, the grid organization of “province as executor” in China is considered because it affects the sphere of IRET's influence on pollution mitigation. Here we show the environmental benefits of electricity relocation. We find that, electricity relocation through interregional transmission leads to the growth rate of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emission decreasing 7% in landing areas and Sichuan province benefits most from electricity relocation. It is interesting that there is no significant increase of SO₂ emission growth rate in sending areas compared to counterfactuals if there had no IRET due to more integration of clean energy and improved emission efficiency in sending areas. Placebo study and robustness check show that the results are quite convincing. Therefore, IRET provides an appealing choice for China's environmental control in eastern region, and it is not necessarily at the cost of pollution in western region. The methodology can be applied to assess the environmental impacts of other program or policy elsewhere.     

Life cycle assessment of traditional and alternative bricks: A review

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a solid tool to assess the potential environmental impacts in construction industry, an important material in this industry is the brick, along time several traditional and alternative bricks were developed and assessed environmentally by LCA. The purpose of this article is to review the literature related to LCA of bricks, responding important topics to characterize and guide future studies. Out of Traditional Bricks (TB), there are Alternative Bricks with Organic (ABO) and Inorganic (ABI) additives, that use wastes from several industries and differ of TB in the omission of firing for a stabilization process, however, to omit firing is hard and stabilization still needs further improvements. The principal system boundaries and tools for LCA were also reviewed. Regarding the most present impact categories, they were: Climate change (CC), Human Toxicity (HT) and Freshwater Ecotoxicity (FE), in every category, production is the stage of highest impact, and in the productive process, drying and burning processes have the highest potential impacts. Future searches could continue to study on new materials (wastes) for development of new ABO and ABI, to quantify the benefits of reusing wastes, and to study, either the replacement of firing with stabilizing processes, or the use of biomass as fuel source in firing, and to develop studies in different countries to create national datasets that will make future studies more representative.     

A Global Model Tracking Water, Nitrogen, and Land Inputs and Virtual Transfers from Industrialized Meat Production and Trade

Rising populations and incomes throughout the world have boosted meat demand by over 75% in the last 20years, intensifying pressures on production systems and the natural resources to which they are linked. As a growing proportion of global meat production is traded, the environmental impacts of production become increasingly separated from where the meat is consumed. In this paper, we quantify the use of three important resources associated with industrial livestock production and trade—water, land, and nitrogen—using a country-specific model that combines trade, agronomic, biogeochemical, and hydrological data. Our model focuses on pigs and chickens, as these animals are raised predominantly in intensive systems using concentrated, compound feeds. The results describe the geographical patterns of environmental resource use due to meat production, trade, and consumption. We show that US feed, animal, and meat destined for export require almost as much nitrogen and land, and 20% more water, than products destined for domestic consumption. Model results also demonstrate that among various production factors, improvements in crop yields and animal feed conversion efficiencies result in the most significant reductions in environmental harm. By explicitly tracking the externalities of meat production, we hope to bolster suppliers’ accountability and provide better information to meat consumers.

Developing an automated BIM-based life cycle assessment approach for modularly designed high-rise buildings

Modular construction has attracted increasing attention due to its energy and environmental benefits. Digital technologies such as building information modelling (BIM) have also been explored to generate and manage data through the lifecycle of buildings. Although research has been performed in the area of integrating BIM and modular construction, BIM-based automated lifecycle assessment (LCA) of prefabricated buildings remains unexplored. This study therefore aims to develop a BIM-based LCA method for prefabricated buildings incorporating different assessment levels with unique system boundaries and functional units. The developed approach can support automated assessments through all lifecycle phases of a prefabricated building. It is achieved through an automated process of creating parameters to merge LCA data into the building model, systematic zoning, model setup and impact estimation. This approach is applied to evaluate the energy and environmental performances of a case building in Hong Kong. The case study validated the efficiency of the developed BIM-based LCA method in providing a systematic and detailed assessment of modularly designed buildings. This study extends the knowledge in automated BIM-based LCA by addressing specific characteristics of prefabrication and promotes the incorporation of comprehensive and detailed LCA data into BIM models for improved design robustness and holistic performances of buildings. This validated approach will enhance the willingness of designers to apply LCA during the design stages for minimizing the energy and environmental impacts of both new and renovated buildings with prefabrication.     

Life cycle assessment of two sustainable and old neighbourhoods affected by climate change in one city in Belgium: A review

Aware of the strong population growth expected in the coming years in cities, it is imperative to evaluate the impact of this new concentration on the environment, health and power consumption. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the most appropriate method to quantify these different impacts. The aim of this study is to carry out the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) in two sustainable and old neighbourhoods located in Belgium, while comparing different environmental impacts; but also, to determine the most important source of environmental change at the neighbourhood scale. This study begins with a strong review on LCA in residence buildings and neighbourhoods since 1996 up to 2018.Then followed by the assessment and comparison of the climate variation in six different periods (past, current, 2020,2050,2080 and 2100).In the same line, three scenarios (A2, B1 and A1B)were associated to several models of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We have combined three simulation tools, such as ALCYONE, COMFIE-PLEIADES and nova-EQUER. The main results showed the twelve environmental impacts studied in this research that does not always evolve in the same way. Indeed, it was noticed that the CO2 emissions were up to 36.6% higher in an old neighbourhood than in a sustainable one; while the energy demand was estimated at 62.6% and 37.4% in an old and a sustainable one, respectively. Good planning of the public space will play an important role to reduce in average up to 15% the eutrophication in both neighbourhoods. Globally, the renovation of residential buildings is very important, indeed, it allows mitigate in average up to 30% of environment impacts in both neighbourhoods.     

An integrated environmental and health performance quantification model for pre-occupancy phase of buildings in China

To comprehensively pre-evaluate the damages to both the environment and human health due to construction activities in China, this paper presents an integrated building environmental and health performance (EHP) assessment model based on the Building Environmental Performance Analysis System (BEPAS) and the Building Health Impact Analysis System (BHIAS) models and offers a new inventory data estimation method. The new model follows the life cycle assessment (LCA) framework and the inventory analysis step involves bill of quantity (BOQ) data collection, consumption data formation, and environmental profile transformation. The consumption data are derived from engineering drawings and quotas to conduct the assessment before construction for pre-evaluation. The new model classifies building impacts into three safeguard areas: ecosystems, natural resources and human health. Thus, this model considers environmental impacts as well as damage to human wellbeing. The monetization approach, distance-to-target method and panel method are considered as optional weighting approaches. Finally, nine residential buildings of different structural types are taken as case studies to test the operability of the integrated model through application. The results indicate that the new model can effectively pre-evaluate building EHP and the structure type significantly affects the performance of residential buildings.     

Environmental management zoning for coal mining in mainland China based on ecological and resources conditions

The purpose of this research is to establish an environmental management zoning for coal mining industry which is served as a basis for making environmental management policies. Based on the specific impacts of coal mining and regional characteristics of environment and resources, the ecological impact, water resources impact, and arable land impact are chose as the zoning indexes to construct the index system. The ecological sensitivity is graded into three levels of low, medium, and high according to analytical hierarchy processes and gray fixed weight clustering analysis, and the water resources sensitivity is divided into five levels of lower, low, medium, high, and higher according to the weighted sum of sub-indexes, while only the arable land sensitive zone was extracted on the basis of the ratio of arable land to the county or city. By combining the ecological sensitivity zoning and the water resources sensitive zoning and then overlapping the arable-sensitive areas, the mainland China is classified into six types of environmental management zones for coal mining except to the forbidden exploitation areas.     

An evidential reasoning-based AHP approach for the selection of environmentally-friendly designs

Due to the stringent environmental regulatory requirements being imposed by cross-national bodies in recent years, manufacturers have to minimize the environmental impact of their products. Among those environmental impact evaluation tools available, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is often employed to quantify the product's environmental impact throughout its entire life cycle. However, owing to the requirements of expert knowledge in environmental science and vast effort for data collection in carrying out LCA, as well as the common absence of complete product information during product development processes, there is a need to develop a more suitable tool for product designers. An evidential reasoning-based approach, which aims at providing a fast-track method to perform design alternative evaluations for non-LCA experts, is therefore introduced as a new initiative to deal with the incomplete or uncertain information. The proposed approach also enables decision makers to quantitatively assess the life cycle phases and design alternatives by comparing their potential environmental impacts, thus effectively and efficiently facilitates the identification of greener designs. A case application is carried out to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach.     

畜禽养殖场污染状况监测与评价

对河南省三个有代表性的规模化养殖场污染物排放及其对周围环境的影响进行了调查、监测及评价,结果表明,畜禽养殖污染已成为农业面源污染的重要来源,对其周围地表水和地下水产生较大影响。     

Assessment and monitoring of nutrient loading in the sediments of tidal creeks receiving shrimp farm effluent in Quang Ninh, Vietnam

Coastal shrimp farming may lead to the contamination of sediments of surrounding estuarine and marine ecosystems as shrimp farm effluent often contains high levels of pollutants including a range of organic compounds (from uneaten feed, shrimp feces, and living and dead organisms) which can accumulate in the sediments of receiving waterways. The assessment and monitoring of sediment quality in tidal creeks receiving shrimp farm effluent can support environmental protection and decision making for sustainable development in coastal areas since sediment quality often shows essential information on long-term aquatic ecosystem health. Within this context, this paper investigates nutrient loadings in the sediments of tidal creeks receiving shrimp farm effluent in Quang Ninh, Vietnam, which now have a high concentration of intensive and semi-intensive shrimp farms. Sediment samples taken from inside creek sections directly receiving effluent from concentrated shrimp farms (IEC), from main creeks adjacent to points of effluent discharge outside concentrated shrimp farms (OEC), and few kilometers away from shrimp farms (ASF) as reference sites were collected and analyzed before and after shrimp crops to investigate spatial and temporal variation. The results showed that there were statistically significant differences in the concentrations of total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and total organic carbon among IEC, OEC, and ASF sites while the seasonal variation being limited over study times. A sediment nutrient index (SNI) computed from coefficient scores of the factor analysis efficiently summarizes sediment nutrient loads, which are high, albeit quite variable, in canals directly receiving effluents from farms but then decline sharply with distance from shrimp farms. The visualization and monitoring of sediment quality data including SNI on maps can strongly support managers to manage eutrophication at concentrated shrimp farming areas, contributing to sustainable development and management at coastal zones.     

Life cycle assessment of solar photo-Fenton and solar photoelectro-Fenton processes used for the degradation of aqueous α-methylphenylglycine

A comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of solar photo-Fenton and solar photoelectro-Fenton, two solar-driven advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) devoted to the removal of non-biodegradable pollutants in water, is performed. The study is based on the removal, at laboratory scale, of the amino acid α-methylphenylglycine, a good example of soluble and non-biodegradable target pollutant. The system under study includes chemicals, electricity, transport of all raw materials to the plant site, and the generation of emissions, but it does not take into account the impact of the infrastructure needed to build a hypothetical solar plant. Nine environmental impact categories are included in the LCA: global warming potential, ozone depletion potential, aquatic eutrophication potential, acidification potential, human toxicity potential, photochemical ozone formation potential, fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity potential, marine aquatic ecotoxicity potential, and terrestrial ecotoxicity potential and abiotic resource depletion potential. Although previous experimental results show that both AOPs are able to efficiently degrade the pollutant, the LCA indicates that solar-driven photo-Fenton is the most environmentally friendly alternative, mainly because the use of electricity in solar photoelectro-Fenton experiments involves high environmental impacts.     

A simple method to identify areas of environmental risk due to manure application

The management of swine manure is becoming an important environmental issue in Chile. One option for the final disposal of manure is to use it as a biofertilizer, but this practice could impact the surrounding environment. To assess the potential environmental impacts of the use of swine manure as a biofertilizer, we propose a method to identify zones of environmental risk through indices. The method considers two processes: nutrient runoff and solute leaching, and uses available information about soils, crops and management practices (irrigation, fertilization, and rotation). We applied the method to qualitatively assess the environmental risk associated with the use of swine manure as a biofertilizer in an 8,000-pig farm located in Central Chile. Results showed that the farm has a moderate environmental risk, but some specific locations have high environmental risks, especially those associated with impacts on areas surrounding water resources. This information could assist the definition of better farm-level management practices, as well as the preservation of riparian vegetation acting as buffer strips. The main advantage of our approach is that it combines qualitative and quantitative information, including particular situations or field features based on expert knowledge. The method is flexible, simple, and can be easily extended or adapted to other processes.     

银厂沟风景区旅游环境质量评价

为正确评估风景区的旅游资源，确定其深度开发的意义，保持生态环境、从旅游环境容量、旅游区级别、旅游资源的综合价值3方面对银厂沟风景区的旅游环境质量进行了评价。结果表明，银厂沟风景区属于省级旅游地，具有一定的潜在开发意义。指出，在旅游高峰期，该风景区的环境容量超标，产生了游客食宿不便、景区观赏点不足、设施损坏、环境负荷加重等问题，应引起旅游管理部门的重视。     

Circular economy application for a Green Stadium construction towards sustainable FIFA world cup Qatar 2022™

The construction industry is responsible for a significant amount of raw material consumption and environmental footprints. Therefore, sustainable construction became a hot topic, which strives to reduce material consumption, limit constructional waste disposal, and decrease contribution to climate change. In line with Qatar's commitment to organizing a sustainable FIFA World Cup in 2022, this study aims to conduct an environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) for the construction of the Education City Stadium. The work presented here provides the first empirical LCA for analyzing the environmental and economic impacts of circular economy application in a World Cup stadium. In this research, the cyclopean concrete (CYC) methodology was utilized, which incorporate the site excavated boulders with the concrete mix to cast the under-raft foundation of the stadium. This approach was compared to the conventional concrete (CC) casting approach to assess the extent to which the newly developed methodology can reduce the environmental and economic burdens. The obtained results have shown a 32% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions when adapting the CYC approach. Thus, the CYC holds a strong promise to achieve the required structural behavior with a low-cost alternative material from existing waste products in Qatar and a lower environmental impact than the CC.     

Including biodiversity in life cycle assessment – State of the art,gaps and research needs

PurposeFor over 20 years the feasibility of including man-made impacts on biodiversity in the context of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been explored. However, a comprehensive biodiversity impact assessment has so far not been performed. The aim of this study is to analyse how biodiversity is currently viewed in LCA, to highlight limitations and gaps and to provide recommendations for further research.MethodFirstly, biodiversity indicators are examined according to the level of biodiversity they assess (genetic, species, ecosystem) and to their usefulness for LCA. Secondly, relevant pressures on biodiversity that should be included in LCA are identified and available models (in and outside of an LCA context) for their assessment are discussed. Thirdly, existing impact assessment models are analysed in order to determine whether and how well pressures are already integrated into LCA. Finally, suggestions on how to include relevant pressures and impacts on biodiversity in LCA are provided and the necessary changes in each LCA phase that must follow are discussed.ResultsThe analysis of 119 indicators shows that 4% of indicators represent genetic diversity, 40% species diversity and 35% ecosystem diversity. 21% of the indicators consider further biodiversity-related topics. Out of the indicator sample, 42 indicators are deemed useful as impact indicators in LCA. Even though some identified pressures are already included in LCA with regard to their impacts on biodiversity (e.g. land use, carbon dioxide emissions etc.), other proven pressures on biodiversity have not yet been considered (e.g. noise, artificial light).ConclusionFurther research is required to devise new options (e.g. impact assessment models) for integrating biodiversity into LCA. The final goal is to cover all levels of biodiversity and include all missing pressures in LCA. Tentative approaches to achieve this goal are outlined.