Accounting for the environmental benefits of remanufactured products: Method and application

Design and Repair Strategies Based on Product–Service System and Remanufacturing for Value Preservation

Remanufacturing is a production practice that requires the work of producers, consumers, and the government. There are benefits associated with this production model, such as improving the environment, opportunities for cost savings, and others. However, it is essential to identify the factors that affect the possibility of acceptance of this production model. This research proposes a model based on different analysis methodologies and techniques of SEM (Structural Equations Modeling) and the method of PLS (Partial Least Squares). A total of 403 responses to the survey were collected from 1 November 2021 to 15 January 2022. For the data treatment, SPSS, Excel, and WarpPLS software were used to identify the variables, factors, and their direct and indirect effects among the latent variables, referring to a scheme focused on consumer perception based on the acquisition remanufactured products. This created model served as a reference to create and develop a design and repair strategy for White goods or similar products in handling, logistics, and repair. This design strategy was transformed into a business model based on a circular economy, particularly on a Product–Service System with social, economic, and environmental benefits for producers and consumers.

Comparative life cycle assessment of LFP and NCM batteries including the secondary use and different recycling technologies

Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries and lithium nickel cobalt manganese oxide (NCM) batteries are the most widely used power lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in electric vehicles (EVs) currently. The future trend is to reuse LIBs retired from EVs for other applications, such as energy storage systems (ESS). However, the environmental performance of LIBs during the entire life cycle, from the cradle to the grave, has not been extensively discussed. In this study, life cycle assessment (LCA) was used to quantify and compare the environmental impacts of LFP and NCM batteries. Apart from the phases of production, the first use in EVs, and recycling, the repurposing of retired LIBs and their secondary use in the ESS were also included in the system boundary. Also, the environmental impacts of various recycling processes were evaluated. The LCA results suggested that the NCM battery had better comprehensive environmental performance than the LFP one but shorter service life over the whole life cycle. In China, the first and secondary use phases contributed most to the environmental impacts with electricity mostly generated from fossil fuels. The LIB production phase was relevant to all assessed impact categories and contributed more than 50% to Abiotic Depletion Potential (ADP elements) particularly. The environmental loads could be mitigated through the recovery of metals and other materials. And, hydrometallurgy was recommended for recycling waste LIBs by better environmental advantages than pyrometallurgy and direct physical recycling. Sensitivity analysis revealed that by optimizing the charge-discharge efficiency of LIBs, particularly LFP batteries, all environmental burdens could be considerably decreased. Therefore, improving the electrochemical performance of LIBs and increasing the use proportion of clean energy were crucial to reduce the environmental impacts over their entire life cycle.

Assessing China's potential for reducing primary copper demand and associated environmental impacts in the context of energy transition and "Zero waste" policies

To conserve resources and enhance the environmental performance, China has launched the "Zero waste" concept, focused on reutilization of solid waste and recovery of materials, including copper. Although several studies have assessed the copper demand and recycling, there is a lack of understanding on how different waste management options would potentially reduce primary copper demand and associated environmental impacts in China in the context of energy transition. This study addresses this gap in view of a transition to low-carbon energy system and the optimization of copper waste management combining MFA and LCA approaches. Six types of waste streams (C&DW, ELV, WEEE, IEW, MSW, ICW) are investigated in relation to various "Zero waste" strategies including reduction, reuse (repair, remanufacturing or refurbishment), recycling and transition from informal to formal waste management. Under present Chinese policies, reuse and recycling of copper containing products will lead to a somewhat lower dependency on primary copper in 2100 (11187Gg), as well as lower total GHG emissions (64869 Gg CO2-eq.) and cumulative energy demand (1.18x10^12 MJ). Maximizing such "Zero waste" options may lead to a further reduction, resulting in 65% potential reduction of primary copper demand, around 55% potential reduction of total GHG emissions and total cumulative energy demand in 2100. Several policy actions are proposed to provide insights into future waste management in China as well as some of the challenges involved.

A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Remanufacturing Research

The advancements in human lifestyle result in growth in daily demands of products, and accordingly, an increased rate of manufacturing. However, the resources on the planet Earth are limited, thus depleting day-by-day. More goods also contribute to more end-of-life (EOL) dumping or even before EOL in some cases. Therefore, an interest in remanufacturing has appeared, and it offers a solution that can solve or perhaps mitigate the risks of consuming more resources and increasing waste. Remanufacturing is a procedure of bringing used products to “like-new” functional status with a matching warranty. However, due to its relative novelty in terms of research field and industry, remanufacturing is poorly understood. People often mix it with other terms such as recycling, reconditioning, or repair. Therefore, in this research, the focus is on the remanufacturing systems’ definition, relevance, main phases, case studies, and solution methods proposed by various researchers. The word ‘remanufacturing’ is clearly described in this paper by differentiating it from alternative green manufacturing initiatives. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis of literature are performed. The quantitative analysis is conducted using a bibliometric method. For quantitative analysis, a systematic approach is utilized for research papers’ selection. The qualitative analysis has been carried out by discussing different aspects of remanufacturing and how the researchers are working on its different domains and phases. The review showed that researchers focused on some phases more as compared with others. Moreover, it is also revealed from the literature that the common solutions methods applied in this domain are optimization techniques. Future research directions are also identified and presented.

Remanufacturability evaluation of end-of-life products considering technology, economy and environment: A review

Remanufacturing has been regarded as an environmentally friendly way to dispose of End-of-Life (EOL) products to like-new condition, which can effectively save resources, energy and greatly prolong the service life of products. After entering the remanufacturing system, EOL products are disassembled into individual parts that may have different failure types and degrees, thus not all of them are suitable for remanufacturing. Remanufacturability needs to be conducted to determine the feasibility of remanufacturing. Due to the products' structural complexity and customer demand uncertainty, many factors need to be considered when evaluating the remanufacturing feasibility of waste products. In this article, we take three pillars of sustainable development as decision factors and make a comprehensive literature review on the technical performance indicator (TPI), economic cost indicator (ECI) and environmental benefits indicator (EBI) of remanufacturability to emphasize the importance of remanufacturability. The purpose of this literature review is to conduct critical review on the current literature and establish a contemporary understanding of the status of remanufacturability study by assessing the advantages and disadvantages of existing methods in this field. The research results demonstrated that there was relatively a lack of research on technical feasibility assessment, more on economic and environmental assessments. Most of remanufacturability assessment approaches are comprehensive, considering multiple factors. This article summarizes the limitations of previous evaluation methods, proposes the challenges and future development trends. It is concluded that design for remanufacturing, finding it will be one of the hot topics in the future remanufacturing research, which will provide valuable insights for academia and industry.

Regional waste footprint and waste treatments analysis

This paper provides a detailed analysis of the waste footprint and waste treatments at subnational level, for Brussels, Flanders, and Wallonia. The paper details the waste footprint components into direct waste from households (disposed in bins), indirect waste generated upstream in the supply chains and induced by household consumption and waste materials from the degradation of in-use stocks. For each component, we analysed the contribution of waste types, products consumed and location where the waste was generated, as well as the associated treatments. The results show that Flanders had the highest total waste footprint in absolute terms; Brussels the highest direct waste in capita terms and Wallonia the highest indirect waste and stock depletion in capita terms. In each region, almost 78 ± 2% of the regional waste footprints were attributed to the consumption of food products, manufactured products and restaurants and accommodation services. For each region, around 45 ± 4% of the indirect waste was generated within its boundaries, 16 ± 9% in other regions and 39 ± 5% out of Belgium. Incineration was the predominant waste treatment type of the regional waste footprint, followed by recycling. Landfill was the second widely applied treatment for indirect waste. Results constitute key information relevant to enhance the waste data monitoring practices at regional level with effects at national level. We unveiled the waste footprint and associated treatments inherent to the interregional and international linkages. Results are also useful resources to substantiate waste management and circular economy policies, enacting on waste prevention and reduction, ecodesign and product lifetime extension.

Advances towards circular economy policies in the EU: The new Ecodesign regulation of enterprise servers

The concept of a circular economy has been widely accepted by governments and industries. In Europe, the European Commission adopted the Circular Economy package in 2015. The Ecodesign Directive has been identified as one of the most suitable legislative tools for achieving some of the objectives in the package because it has the potential to translate the circular economy principles into specific product material efficiency requirements. This paper applies the Ecodesign policy process to "enterprise servers" to illustrate how circular economy strategies can be implemented by European product policies. Indeed, the paper introduces a potential novel approach to "operationalize" circular economy principles in product policies. The evolution of the material efficiency requirements for a more circular economy is described up to their final formulation, which is the one in the published Ecodesign regulation. This legal act includes requirements on design for disassembly, firmware availability, data deletion, and presence of critical raw materials. The process for enterprise servers has been successful as the early discussions between stakeholders, policymakers and experts, supported by appropriate metrics along an iterative debate, comes to the publications of material efficiency requirements in a regulation. This study represents a 'first-of-a-kind' experience, and sets precedents for the development of similar requirements for other product groups.

Is It Possible to Manage the Product Recovery Processes in an ERP? Analysis of Functional Needs

In today’s business environment, different factors make product return and product recovery increasingly more important in order to recover value and increase the company’s profitability. In such an environment, where sustainability concerns and awareness of environmental responsibility in industrial production has considerably grown, reverse logistics (RL) becomes more relevant and, thus, its correct management using suitable information systems (IS) is fundamental. Nevertheless, today’s IS in general, and in Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) in particular, are developed based on conventional logistic processes that do not contemplate the specific characteristics of RL. The main objective of this work is to analyze the functional requirements of an IS to manage product recovery processes that serve as a guide to develop a suitable ERP for RL. The research methodology has been conducted with a qualitative approach, through which the main specific requirements that an IS must meet to manage RL have been stablished, and a data model for the development of solutions to the requirements identified in an ERP system has been proposed. For the development in the ERP it is recommended to start with the requirement of RBOM (Reverse Bill Of Materials) management, since it is the most complex development and has a greater relationship with the rest.