With our Life Cycle Research Highlights we are putting a spotlight on open access papers we feel deserve special attention! Each month, we highlight four papers that we consider innovative, insightful and well written. Support us in identifying great research and submit a paper for consideration by our selection committee here. Subscribe to our dedicated project newsletter and receive our summaries each month directly in your mailbox!


Life cycle engineering of space systems: Preliminary findings


Our Summary:

LCE is commonly applied in areas where sustainability concerns coincide with design and production engineering. Therefore, the authors used the Strathclyde Space Systems Database and applied Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis to quantitatively determine the sustainability impacts of early space missions. The article considered twelve impact categories at midpoint level: air acidification, climate change, social impact, whole life cost, among others. As a result, the scores generated for each of the sustainability dimensions should be used instead of a single sustainability score.

Life‑LCA: case study of the life cycle impacts of an infant


Our Summary:

Life-LCA has advanced as a method of assessing and analyzing the impacts of human product and service consumption behaviour from the prenatal phase through age 49. According to the studies, more than 50% of emissions are attributed to transportation and food across all the impact categories, including climate change, acidification, eutrophication, and photochemical ozone formation. There is a high contribution from clothing consumption during the prenatal and infant phases, while energy and water have a major impact in adulthood phases.

Bioplastic production in terms of life cycle assessment: A state-of-the-art review


Our Summary:

Through a literature review of articles on bioplastics, the study highlights that the recycling of both plastics and bioplastics could potentially lead to an increase in environmental impacts instead of a decrease. The article emphasizes the significance of incorporating multiple impact categories into the LCA when assessing bioplastics as a material to support the circular economy. The authors suggest that more research is necessary to fully comprehend the potential of bioplastics, considering the impacts, harmonization, and methodological enhancements of LCA.

Sizing a hybrid hydrogen production plant including life cycle assessment indicators by combining NSGA-III and principal component analysis (PCA)


Our Summary:

For the design of a hybrid hydrogen production plant, the authors considered the assessment of the environmental performance of each component using an LCA model in Brightway2 (Python). An evolutionary algorithm NSGA-III was used to evaluate the performance of 13 midpoint indicators selected from IMPACT World+. The study found that the following impact categories should be considered to avoid impact transfer: climate change, freshwater ecotoxicity, land acidification, water scarcity, ozone depletion, ionising radiation, and fossil and nuclear energy use.

Life Cycle Gap Analysis for Product Circularity and Sustainability—a Case Study with Three Different Products


Our Summary:

This paper evaluates life cycle gaps of three products, plastic bottles (54%), rechargeable batteries (61%) and t-shirts (98%) and compares the three. It concludes that there is a large potential in improving current life cycle systems of several industries and product groups. Furthermore, a methodological weakness is also identified, i.e. the fact that a life cycle gap analysis assumes the general necessity of a product or service as opposed to evaluating whether circularity can be improved with more disruptive innovations.

Risk and sustainability: trade-offs and synergies for robust decision making


Our Summary:

This research paper proposes a framework for decoupling risk assessment and sustainability to minimize risk-sustainability trade-offs and to maximise optimum synergies. The framework consists of four steps: (1) identifying assessment scope and aligning system boundaries, (2) harmonizing assessment metrics and applied methods, (3) addressing cross-cutting issues and, (4) intermediate results are exchanged.

©2024 Forum for Sustainability through Life Cycle Innovation e.V. | Contact Us | Legal Info

CONTACT US

If you would like to get in touch with us, please feel free to send us a message. Thank you very much in advance.

Sending
DON’T MISS OUT!
Subscribe To Our Newsletter
Join our newsletter and stay up-to-date on everything happening in the life cycle community! We'll send you 3-4 newsletters per year
Subscribe Now!
close-link

Log in with your credentials

or    

Forgot your details?

Create Account