Optimal Planning of Sustainable Buildings: Integration of Life Cycle Assessment and Optimization in a Decision Support System (DSS)

An Analysis of Research Trends in the Sustainability of Production Planning

Sustainability has become of great interest in many fields, especially in production systems due to the continual increase in the scarcity of raw materials and environmental awareness. Recent literature has given significant attention to considering the three sustainability pillars (i.e., environmental, economic, and social sustainability) in solving production planning problems. Therefore, the present study conducts a review of the literature on sustainable production planning to analyze the relationships among different production planning problems (e.g., scheduling, lot sizing, aggregate planning, etc.) and the three sustainability pillars. In addition, we analyze the identified studies based on the indicators that define each pillar. The results show that the literature most frequently addresses production scheduling problems while it lacks studies on aggregate production planning problems that consider the sustainability pillars. In addition, there is a growing trend towards obtaining integrated solutions of different planning problems, e.g., combining production planning problems with maintenance planning or energy planning. Additionally, around 45% of the identified studies considered the integration of the economic and the environmental pillars in different production planning problems. In addition, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are the most frequent sustainability indicators considered in the literature, while less attention has been given to social indicators. Another issue is the low number of studies that have considered all three sustainability pillars simultaneously. The finidings highlight the need for more future research towards holistic sustainable production planning approaches.

Key Performance Indicators for an Energy Community Based on Sustainable Technologies

As reported in the “Clean energy for all Europeans package” set by the EU, a sustainable transition from fossil fuels towards cleaner energy is necessary to improve the quality of life of citizens and the livability in cities. The exploitation of renewable sources, the improvement of energy performance in buildings and the need for cutting-edge national energy and climate plans represent important and urgent topics to be faced in order to implement the sustainability concept in urban areas. In addition, the spread of polygeneration microgrids and the recent development of energy communities enable a massive installation of renewable power plants, high-performance small-size cogeneration units, and electrical storage systems; moreover, properly designed local energy production systems make it possible to optimize the exploitation of green energy sources and reduce both energy supply costs and emissions. In the present paper, a set of key performance indicators is introduced in order to evaluate and compare different energy communities both from a technical and environmental point of view. The proposed methodology was used in order to assess and compare two sites characterized by the presence of sustainable energy infrastructures: the Savona Campus of the University of Genoa in Italy, where a polygeneration microgrid has been in operation since 2014 and new technologies will be installed in the near future, and the SPEED2030 District, an urban area near the Campus where renewable energy power plants (solar and wind), cogeneration units fed by hydrogen and storage systems are planned to be installed.

Environmental Sustainability of Building Retrofit through Vertical Greening Systems: A Life-Cycle Approach

Urban greening provides a wide range of ecosystem services to address the main challenges of urban areas, e.g., carbon sequestration, evapotranspiration and shade, thermal insulation, and pollution control. This study evaluates the environmental sustainability of a vertical greening system (VGS) built in 2014 in Italy, for which extensive monitoring activities were implemented. The life-cycle assessment methodology was applied to quantify the water–energy–climate nexus of the VGS for 1 m2 of the building’s wall surface. Six different scenarios were modelled according to three different end-of-life scenarios and two different useful lifetime scenarios (10 and 25 years). The environmental impact of global-warming potential and generated energy consumption during the use phase in the VGS scenarios were reduced by 56% in relation to the baseline scenario (wall without VGS), and showed improved environmental performance throughout the complete life cycle. However, the water-scarcity index (WSI) of the VGS scenarios increased by 42%. This study confirms that the installation of VGSs offers a relevant environmental benefit in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions and energy consumption; however, increased water consumption in the use phase may limit the large-scale application of VGSs.

Use of EPD System for Designing New Building Materials: The Case Study of a Bio-Based Thermal Insulation Panel from the Pineapple Industry By-Product

This study shows the benefits of using the environmental product declarations (EPDs), based on ISO 14025:2013, for the configuration and conceptualization of new building materials. Using a quantitative evaluation on these phases of design, it allows one to create materials with lower impacts, in comparison with the existing ones. In this paper, it is proposed to evaluate the potentiality of this tool in the development of a panel from pineapple by-products from agroindustry, used as a thermal insulator. The issue of environmental sustainability was pursued, employing the assessment of the environmental impacts according to characterization methods defined by the International EPD® System. By comparing the possible compositions of the materials under development, with certified environmental declarations of commercial materials, it is possible to identify and select optimal compositions decreasing up to 98.28% of impacts in acidification potential or up to 99.38% for photochemical oxidation—with respect to traditional materials—already at the design stage, where the changes on the composition or the facilities decision have fewer complications.

Managing the Uncertainty and Accuracy of Life Cycle Assessment Results for the Process of Beverage Bottle Moulding

Using environmentally friendly materials in the technological process of bottle production fits perfectly into the idea of sustainable development. The use of natural raw materials as well as conscious energy consumption are strategic aspects that should be considered in order to improve the effectiveness of the bottle moulding process. This paper presents a new and structured approach to the analysis of uncertainty and sensitivity in life cycle assessment, one developed in order to support the design process of environmentally friendly food packaging materials. With regard to this "probabilistic" approach to life cycle assessment, results are expressed as ranges of environmental impacts, and alternative solutions are developed while offering the concept of input uncertainty and the effect thereof on the final result. This approach includes: (1) the evaluation of the quality of inputs (represented by the origin matrix); (2) the reliability of results and (3) the uncertainty of results (the Monte Carlo method). The use of the methodology is illustrated based on an experiment conducted with real data from the technological process of bottle production. The results provide insight into the uncertainty of life cycle assessment indicators regarding global warming, acidification and the use of arable fields and farmland.