Byproduct-to-Host Ratios for Assessing the Accessibility of Mineral Resources.

Mineral resources are essential for reaching net-zero ambitions by 2050. There is a rising diversity of metals in electricity generation and storage technologies, as well as for mobility technologies. However, little is known about the future supply of minor elements historically mined in low volumes such as indium, tellurium, germanium, or tantalum.

Between green hills and green bills: Unveiling the green shades of sustainability and burden shifting through multi-objective optimization in Swiss energy system planning.

The Paris Agreement is the first-ever universally accepted and legally binding agreement on global climate change. It is a bridge between today's and climate-neutrality policies and strategies before the end of the century. Critical to this endeavor is energy system modeling, which, while adept at devising cost-effective carbon-neutral strategies, often overlooks the broader environmental and social implications.

Postpandemic Evaluation of the Eco-Efficiency of Personal Protective Equipment Against COVID-19 in Emergency Departments: Proposal for a Mixed Methods Study.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on emergency department (ED) care in Canada and around the world. To prevent transmission of COVID-19, personal protective equipment (PPE) was required for all ED care providers in contact with suspected cases. With mass vaccination and improvements in several infection prevention components, our hypothesis is that the risks of transmission of COVID-19 will be significantly reduced and that current PPE use will have economic and ecological consequences that exceed its anticipated benefits.

Remarkable Spatial Disparity of Life Cycle Inventory for Coal Production in China.

Coal is the primary energy source in China, and its life cycle inventory (LCI) is widely used as background data for life cycle assessment studies. Previous research indicates that the inventory of coal production varies regionally. However, the development of complete regionalized LCIs for coal production is quite limited.

The impacts of hydropower on freshwater macroinvertebrate richness: A global meta-analysis.

Hydroelectric dams and their reservoirs have been suggested to affect freshwater biodiversity. Nevertheless, studies investigating the consequences of hydroelectric dams and reservoirs on macroinvertebrate richness have reached opposite conclusions. We performed a meta-analysis devised to elucidate the effects of hydropower, dams and reservoirs on macroinvertebrate richness while accounting for the potential role played by moderators such as biomes, impact types, study designs, sampling seasons and gears.

A Commodity Supply Mix for More Regionalized Life Cycle Assessments.

Supply chain information is invaluable to further regionalize product life cycle assessments (LCAs), but detailed information linking production and consumption centers is not always available. We introduce the commodity supply mix (CSM) defined as the trade-volume-weighted average representing the combined geographic areas for the production of a commodity exported to a given market with the goal of (1) enhancing the relevance of inventory and impact regionalization and (2) allocating these impacts to specific markets. We apply the CSM to the Brazilian soybean supply chain mapped by Trase to obtain the mix of ecoregions and river basins linked to domestic consumption and exports to China, EU, France, and the rest of the world, before quantifying damage to biodiversity, and water scarcity footprints.

Temporally-differentiated biogenic carbon accounting of wood building product life cycles.

Unlabelled: Although standards have identified temporary carbon storage as an important element to consider in wood product LCAs, there has been no consensus on a methodology for its accounting. This work aims to improve the accounting of carbon storage and fluxes in long-life wood products in LCA. Biogenic carbon from harvested roundwood logs were tracked using the Carbon Budget Model Framework for Harvested Wood Products (CBMF-HWP).

Integrating Pressure-Driven Membrane Separation Processes to Improve Eco-Efficiency in Cheese Manufacture: A Preliminary Case Study.

Pressure-driven membrane separation processes are commonly used in cheese milk standardization. Using ultrafiltration (UF) or microfiltration (MF), membrane separation processes make it possible to concentrate the milk proteins and increase the yields of cheese vats. However, the contribution of membrane separation processes to the environmental impact and economical profitability of dairy processes is still unclear.

A comprehensive planetary boundary-based method for the nitrogen cycle in life cycle assessment: Development and application to a tomato production case study.

Existing methods that apply the planetary boundary for the nitrogen cycle in life cycle assessment are spatially generic and use an indicator with limited environmental relevance. Here, we develop a spatially resolved method that can quantify the impact of nitrogen emissions to air, soil, freshwater or coastal water on "safe operating space" (SOS) for natural soil, freshwater and coastal water. The method can be used to identify potential "planetary boundary hotspots" in the life cycle of products and to inform appropriate interventions.

Defining freshwater as a natural resource: A framework linking water use to the area of protection natural resources.

Purpose: While many examples have shown unsustainable use of freshwater resources, existing LCIA methods for water use do not comprehensively address impacts to natural resources for future generations. This framework aims to (1) define freshwater resource as an item to protect within the Area of Protection (AoP) natural resources, (2) identify relevant impact pathways affecting freshwater resources, and (3) outline methodological choices for impact characterization model development.

Method: Considering the current scope of the AoP natural resources, the complex nature of freshwater resources and its important dimensions to safeguard safe future supply, a definition of freshwater resource is proposed, including water quality aspects.

Effect of Ultrafiltration of Milk Prior to Fermentation on Mass Balance and Process Efficiency in Greek-Style Yogurt Manufacture.

Ultrafiltration (UF) can be used to concentrate yogurt to produce Greek-style yogurt (GSY) (UF-YOG), but this generates acid whey permeate, which is an environmental issue. However, when UF is applied before fermentation (UF-MILK), a nonacidified whey permeate is generated. For this study, two model GSYs (UF-YOG and UF-MILK) were produced to compare the composition, UF performance, and energy consumption of the two processes.

A Multimedia Hydrological Fate Modeling Framework To Assess Water Consumption Impacts in Life Cycle Assessment.

Many new methods have recently been developed to address environmental consequences of water consumption in life cycle assessment (LCA). However, such methods can only partially be compared and combined, because their modeling structure and metrics are inconsistent. Moreover, they focus on specific water sources (e.

Occupational Health Impacts Due to Exposure to Organic Chemicals over an Entire Product Life Cycle.

This article presents an innovative approach to include occupational exposures to organic chemicals in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) by building on the characterization factors set out in Kijko et al. (2015) to calculate the potential impact of occupational exposure over the entire supply chain of product or service. Based on an economic input-output model and labor and economic data, the total impacts per dollar of production are provided for 430 commodity categories and range from 0.

Indoor Air Pollutant Exposure for Life Cycle Assessment: Regional Health Impact Factors for Households.

Human exposure to indoor pollutant concentrations is receiving increasing interest in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). We address this issue by incorporating an indoor compartment into the USEtox model, as well as by providing recommended parameter values for households in four different regions of the world differing geographically, economically, and socially. With these parameter values, intake fractions and comparative toxicity potentials for indoor emissions of dwellings for different air tightness levels were calculated.

Impact of Occupational Exposure to Chemicals in Life Cycle Assessment: A Novel Characterization Model Based on Measured Concentrations and Labor Hours.

According to Lim et al., based on World Health Organization (WHO) data, hazardous chemicals in the workplace are responsible for over 370,000 premature deaths annually. Despite these high figures, life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) does not yet include a fully operational method to consider occupational impacts in its scope over the entire supply chain.

Characterization factors for terrestrial acidification at the global scale: a systematic analysis of spatial variability and uncertainty.

Characterization factors (CFs) are used in life cycle assessment (LCA) to quantify the potential impact per unit of emission. CFs are obtained from a characterization model which assess the environmental mechanisms along the cause-effect chain linking an emission to its potential damage on a given area of protection, such as loss in ecosystem quality. Up to now, CFs for acidifying emissions did not cover the global scale and were only representative of their characterization model geographical scope.

Spatial analysis of toxic emissions in LCA: a sub-continental nested USEtox model with freshwater archetypes.

This paper develops continent-specific factors for the USEtox model and analyses the accuracy of different model architectures, spatial scales and archetypes in evaluating toxic impacts, with a focus on freshwater pathways. Inter-continental variation is analysed by comparing chemical fate and intake fractions between sub-continental zones of two life cycle impact assessment models: (1) the nested USEtox model parameterized with sub-continental zones and (2) the spatially differentiated IMPACTWorld model with 17 interconnected sub-continental regions. Substance residence time in water varies by up to two orders of magnitude among the 17 zones assessed with IMPACTWorld and USEtox, and intake fraction varies by up to three orders of magnitude.

Life cycle impact assessment of terrestrial acidification: modeling spatially explicit soil sensitivity at the global scale.

This paper presents a novel life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) approach to derive spatially explicit soil sensitivity indicators for terrestrial acidification. This global approach is compatible with a subsequent damage assessment, making it possible to consistently link the developed midpoint indicators with a later endpoint assessment along the cause-effect chain-a prerequisite in LCIA. Four different soil chemical indicators were preselected to evaluate sensitivity factors (SFs) for regional receiving environments at the global scale, namely the base cations to aluminum ratio, aluminum to calcium ratio, pH, and aluminum concentration.

Evaluating the relevance of seasonal differentiation of human health intake fractions in life cycle assessment.

The intake fraction (iF) is the fraction of an emitted mass of chemical that is ultimately taken in by an entire population, and it is used as an indicator of human health potential impacts related to environmental chemical persistence and bioaccumulation in the food chain. In chemical screening applications, the iF can be predicted using multimedia and multipathway fate and exposure models. One of the sources of iF uncertainty is the natural seasonal variability of the input parameters used in the models, i.

Regional characterization of freshwater Use in LCA: modeling direct impacts on human health.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology that quantifies potential environmental impacts for comparative purposes in a decision-making context. While potential environmental impacts from pollutant emissions into water are characterized in LCA, impacts from water unavailability are not yet fully quantified. Water use can make the resource unavailable to other users by displacement or quality degradation.

Environmental impacts of remediation of a trichloroethene-contaminated site: life cycle assessment of remediation alternatives.

The environmental impacts of remediation of a chloroethene-contaminated site were evaluated using life cycle assessment (LCA). The compared remediation options are (i) in situ bioremediation by enhanced reductive dechlorination (ERD), (ii) in situ thermal desorption (ISTD), and (iii) excavation of the contaminated soil followed by off-site treatment and disposal. The results showed that choosing the ERD option will reduce the life-cycle impacts of remediation remarkably compared to choosing either ISTD or excavation, which are more energy-demanding.

Development of normalization factors for Canada and the United States and comparison with European factors.

In Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), normalization calculates the magnitude of an impact (midpoint or endpoint) relative to the total effect of a given reference. The goal of this work is to calculate normalization factors for Canada and the US and to compare them with existing European normalization factors. The differences between geographical areas were highlighted by identifying and comparing the main contributors to a given impact category in Canada, the US and Europe.

Spatial variability of intake fractions for Canadian emission scenarios: a comparison between three resolution scales.

Spatially differentiated intake fractions (iFs) linked to Canadian emissions of toxic organic chemicals were developed using the multimedia and multipathways fate and exposure model IMPACT 2002. The fate and exposure of chemicals released to the Canadian environment were modeled with a single regional mass-balance model and three models that provided multiple mass-balance regions within Canada. These three models were based on the Canadian subwatersheds (172 zones), ecozones (15 zones), and provinces (13 zones).

Considering time in LCA: dynamic LCA and its application to global warming impact assessments.

The lack of temporal information is an important limitation of life cycle assessment (LCA). A dynamic LCA approach is proposed to improve the accuracy of LCA by addressing the inconsistency of temporal assessment. This approach consists of first computing a dynamic life cycle inventory (LCI), considering the temporal profile of emissions.