Review of Sustainability Assessment Approaches Based on Life Cycles

Sustainable services planning. Methods supporting the design of cultural exhibitions

The sustainable design of product systems has been addressed in numerous research works. However, studies regarding the sustainability of services are fewer and they are focused mostly on the study of environmental aspects during the service provision stage. Regarding cultural services, the application of sustainability principles in their design process is increasingly required due to reasons such as environmental awareness, social responsibility, visitors' preferences and innovation strategies. Although up to date a limited number of initiatives have been promoted. The objectives of this work are the description of a specific sustainable design method based on the development of systematic tasks and supported on three complementary approaches, and the application of this method to the design of two different types of cultural exhibitions. The design of an itinerary exhibition, which is developed in a sheltered indoor space, and an exhibition, which is developed in the streets of a big city, are, respectively, carried out. The sustainability performance of different design alternatives are valued in each case by analyzing the incidence of those systems, activities, and stakeholders involved along the entire service development and using not only environmental but also socio-economic indicators. Thus, this research work aims at providing the appropriate methodological support to designers of cultural services and managers of cultural institutions, to carry out more sustainable projects.

Methodological Framework to Select Evaluation Criteria for Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis of Road Transportation Fuels and Vehicles

Studies applying Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) to evaluate Road Transportation Fuels and Vehicles (RTFV) rely on a wide variety of evaluation criteria and appear to lack a structured and consistent way of criteria selection. This leads to non-transparent and not easily comparable evaluation results. To address this issue, a methodological framework is developed to systematically identify and select relevant MCDA-evaluation criteria for the assessment of RTFV. The methodological framework is based on Life Cycle Sustainability Analysis (LCSA) and considers environmental, economic, and social criteria that are complemented with a technical pillar. The scope of the analysis is further enlarged by considering positive and negative externalities. The first part of the framework follows the LCSA approach and requires the analyst to clearly define the context of the analysis. The second part is to decompose the problem by developing criteria categories along the relevant life cycle for each of the evaluation dimensions. This decomposition process helps decision makers to easily identify and select relevant criteria with clear added value within the context of the analysis. In an exemplary application, the developed methodological framework is used to identify relevant criteria for the evaluation of RTFV alternatives for an island aiming at energy self-sufficiency.

Dynamic Versus Static Life Cycle Assessment of Energy Renovation for Residential Buildings

Currently, a life cycle assessment is mostly used in a static way to assess the environmental impacts of the energy renovation of buildings. However, various aspects of energy renovation vary in time. This paper reports the development of a framework for a dynamic life cycle assessment and its application to assess the energy renovation of buildings. To investigate whether a dynamic approach leads to different decisions than a static approach, several renovation options of a residential house were compared. To identify the main drivers of the impact and to support decision-making for renovation, a shift of the reference study period—as defined in EN 15643-1 and EN 15978—is proposed (from construction to renovation). Interventions related to the energy renovation are modelled as current events, while interventions and processes that happen afterwards are modelled as future events, including dynamic parameters, considering changes in the operational energy use, changes in the energy mix, and future (cleaner) production processes. For a specific case study building, the dynamic approach resulted in a lower environmental impact than the static approach. However, the dynamic approach did not result in other renovation recommendations, except when a dynamic parameter for electricity production was included.

Changes over Time Matter: A Cycle of Participatory Sustainability Assessment of Organic Coffee in Chiapas, Mexico

This paper discusses how to incorporate the changes within an agroecosystem into sustainability assessment. We measured the sustainability of 86 organic coffee producers located in 4 municipalities of Sierra Madre of Chiapas, Mexico. Based on the MESMIS framework, a set of indicators was selected. A sustainability index was constructed using the multi-criteria decision method known as the analytical hierarchy process in a broad participatory process with producers and cooperatives. Likewise, classification of producers was carried out through land use transitions in their lands between 1999 and 2019 using satellite imagery. A variance analysis between classes was performed to identify statistical differences. The results show that producers who expand their coffee plantations into forested areas have more sustainability levels than those producers who convert agricultural activities into coffee plantations and producers with both transitions in coffee expansion-conversion. The indicators of labor efficiency, benefit-to-cost ratio, price, remnant of primary vegetation, recovery of production from natural phenomena, family succession, and producer land area showed statistical differences between classes. These results are relevant because sustainability assessment is an action-oriented method. Therefore, the contribution of this study can help guide recommendations for specific groups of producers.

Assessing the Contribution of Innovative Technologies to Sustainable Development for Planning and Decision-Making Processes: A Set of Indicators to Describe the Performance of Sustainable Urban Infrastructures (ISI)

The sustainable development of our cities and regions has become an integral part of the current debate. To achieve the sustainability goals, however, the development of sustainable technologies and infrastructures as well as decisive municipal action at the local level are essential. The research project VertiKKA (“Vertical Air Conditioning and Wastewater Treatment System”), sponsored by the German Ministry of Education and Research, addresses both technology development and the integration of innovative technologies and infrastructures into urban planning and decision-making processes. As a result, a set of indicators was developed that allows the assessment of urban infrastructures and technologies and their contribution to sustainable development. This article presents the “set of indicators for sustainable urban infrastructures” (ISI). ISI is based on the results of literature and policy review but was further developed and tailored to urban infrastructures and technologies. ISI considers the ecological, economic, and social dimension of sustainability to be of equal importance; in addition, ISI places particular emphasis on looking at the technology development process and on the creation of supportive governance structures for implementation. In order to create a link between research and practice, the applicability of ISI to the VertiKKA technology is critically reflected.

Setting life cycle assessment (LCA) in a future-oriented context: the combination of qualitative scenarios and LCA in the agri-food sector

By combining qualitative scenarios and life cycle assessment (LCA), we place the latter in a larger context. This study outlines the importance of the integration of future perspectives into LCA, and also the significance of taking changes in the environment of technology into account, rather than just technological development itself. Accordingly, we focused on adapting the background system of an attributional LCA in the agri-food sector. The proposed technology was assumed not have evolved in the considered time horizon. In this context, the objectives of this paper were twofold: (i) to methodologically prove the applicability of integrating qualitative scenarios into LCA and (ii) to focus on changes in the background system, which is sometimes overlooked in the context of future-oriented LCA. This allowed to evaluate the future potential of different technologies, assessing their environmental impact under uncertain future developments. Methodologically, the qualitative information from scenarios was transformed into quantitative data, which was successively fed into the life cycle inventory (LCI) of the LCA approach. This point of integration into the second phase of LCA translates into future changes in the entire environment in which a technology is used. This means that qualitatively described scenario narratives need to be converted into value estimates in order to be incorporated into the LCA model. A key conclusion is that changes in the background of an LCA—the changing framework expressed through the inventory database—can be very important for the environmental impact of emerging technologies. This approach was applied to a food processing technology to produce apple juice. The proposed methodology enables technology developers to make their products future-proof and robust against socioeconomic development. In addition, the market perspective, if spelled out in the scenarios, can be integrated, leading to a more holistic picture of LCA with its environmental focus, while simultaneously empowering actors to make the right strategic decisions today, especially when considering the long investment cycles in the agri-food sector.

Social Life Cycle Assessments: A Review on Past Development, Advances and Methodological Challenges

Society’s interest in social impacts of products, services and organizational behaviors is rapidly growing. While life cycle assessments to evaluate environmental stressors have generally been well established in many industries, approaches to evaluate social impacts such as Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) lack methodological consistency and standardization. The aim of this paper is to identify past developments and methodological barriers of S-LCA and to summarize how the automotive industry contributed to the advancement or application of this method. Therefore, a qualitative content analysis of 111 studies published between 2015 and 2020 is used to gather information on past scientific and political milestones, methodological barriers impeding S-LCA and the participation of the automotive sector. The review shows that a broad range of sectors such as the automotive industry contributed to the testing and advancement of S-LCA in the past but that S-LCA remains a young and immature method. Large-scale application is impeded by major barriers such as the variety of impact categories and sub-categories, the lacking integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), issues of linking LCA structures to social phenomena or the difficult tracking of social impact pathways. Further research on standardization possibilities, the connection to political social targets and the testing of methods is necessary to overcome current barriers and increase the applicability and interpretability results.

Setting Thresholds to Define Indifferences and Preferences in PROMETHEE for Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of European Hydrogen Production

The Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) is a proven method for sustainability assessment. However, the interpretation phase of an LCSA is challenging because many different single results are obtained. Additionally, performing a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is one way—not only for LCSA—to gain clarity about how to interpret the results. One common form of MCDAs are outranking methods. For these type of methods it becomes of utmost importance to clarify when results become preferable. Thus, thresholds are commonly used to prevent decisions based on results that are actually indifferent between the analyzed options. In this paper, a new approach is presented to identify and quantify such thresholds for Preference Ranking Organization METHod for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE) based on uncertainty of Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methods. Common thresholds and this new approach are discussed using a case study on finding a preferred location for sustainable industrial hydrogen production, comparing three locations in European countries. The single LCSA results indicated different preferences for the environmental, economic and social assessment. The application of PROMETHEE helped to find a clear solution. The comparison of the newly-specified thresholds based on LCIA uncertainty with default thresholds provided important insights of how to interpret the LCSA results regarding industrial hydrogen production.

Holistic Evaluation of Digital Applications in the Energy Sector—Evaluation Framework Development and Application to the Use Case Smart Meter Roll-Out

The development of digital technologies is accelerating, enabling increasingly profound changes in increasingly short time periods. The changes affect almost all areas of the economy as well as society. The energy sector has already seen some effects of digitalization, but more drastic changes are expected in the next decades. Besides the very positive impacts on costs, system stability, and environmental effects, potential obstacles and risks need to be addressed to ensure that advantages can be exploited while adverse effects are avoided. A good understanding of available and future digital applications from different stakeholders’ perspectives is necessary. This study proposes a framework for the holistic evaluation of digital applications in the energy sector. The framework consists of a combination of well-established methods, namely the multi-criteria analysis (MCA), the life cycle assessment (LCA), and expert interviews. The objective is to create transparency on benefits, obstacles, and risks as a basis for societal and political discussions and to supply the necessary information for the sustainable development and implementation of digital applications. The novelty of the proposed framework is the specific combination of the three methods and its setup to enable sound applicability to the wide variety of digital applications in the energy sector. The framework is tested subsequently on the example of the German smart meter roll-out. The results reveal that, on the one hand, the smart meter roll-out clearly offers the potential to increase the system stability and decrease the carbon emission intensity of the energy system. Therefore, the overall evaluation from an environmental perspective is positive. However, on the other hand, close attention needs to be paid to the required implementation and operational effort, the IT (information technology) and data security, the added value for the user, the social acceptance, and the realization of energy savings. Therefore, the energy utility perspective in particular results in an overall negative evaluation. Several areas with a need for action are identified. Overall, the proposed framework proves to be suitable for the holistic evaluation of this digital application.

Life cycle assessment as tool for realization of sustainable development goals - towards sustainable future of the world: mini review

“One planet, one main goal: good life for all”: it could be a motto of sustainable world. Sustainability is global mega trend in all fields of life to promote prosperity protecting our planet. Sustainable development is a requirement and a priority for all people all over the world. It is defined as development of the current world with a view to the future generations. In 2015, the UN Member States established Agenda 2030, including seventeen “Sustainable Development Goals”, SDG, which should be realized by 2030. Objectives scope all areas of life, namely quality of human life, ecosystem, world peace or partnerships. Each goal has an environmental context. According to the “United Nations Environment Program” (UNEP), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a perfect method in the context of the environmental dimensions of the SDGs. The concept not only concerns the effects of the process/production system or the product/service but also all stages of its life (from cradle to grave), considering the carbon, environmental, consumer or biodiversity footprints. LCA is the only comprehensive eco-innovation indicator and policy implementation technique of sustainable development in companies in terms of eco-efficiency and eco-products. This mini review provides a survey of the current state of knowledge on sustainability and sustainable development as well as the relevance of new holistic methodology bridging SDGs with LCA, on the base of the newest scientific worldwide literature.

Design for Sustainable Public Transportation: LCA-Based Tooling for Guiding Early Design Priorities

Environmental sustainability is an increasingly important subject for public transportation organizations. For passenger train operators, modernization projects provide key opportunities to improve the environmental impact of their rolling stock by making informed design decisions at the midpoint of the life cycle of their trains. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is widely adopted as the main instrument for evaluating environmental impact. However, in the past LCA was rarely used in the earlier design stages, where it is most effective, due to constrained access to data, information, and LCA-specific expertise. To this end, a purpose-built streamlined LCA tool for train modernization is developed and demonstrated, following a Design Science Research approach. The developed tool simplifies the application of LCA employing four main design principles: (1) sacrificing the declarative function of LCA, (2) the use of Input–Output-based Life Cycle Inventory, (3) the inclusion of ‘shadow costs’, (4) the limitation of the included environmental impact categories. By streamlining the application of LCA in this way, it becomes possible to introduce LCA-based principles and ways of thinking into a process that would otherwise be inaccessible to performing LCA in: the early design stages of modernization projects.

SDG-Based Sustainability Assessment Methodology for Innovations in the Field of Urban Surfaces

The sustainability of urban surfaces can be enhanced by introducing innovations. An ex-ante assessment of the potential sustainability impacts of innovations in urban areas can provide decision-makers with valuable recommendations for their selection before implementation. This knowledge helps to make the innovation more future-proof. Although a first methodological approach for such an assessment is available, there is no readily applicable set of indicators. Hence, this article proposes a holistic sustainability impact assessment method tailored to the management of urban surfaces and their innovations. For the development of the method, a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)-based, top-down approach is adopted. The proposed assessment method makes it possible to identify an innovation’s potential contribution to the achievement of the SDGs before its introduction. In this article, the assessment method is tested by evaluating the sustainability impacts of weed-suppressing joint filling sand on a walkway in a municipal cemetery in Southern Germany. The case study shows that a mixed impact of the innovation in the three dimensions of sustainability could be expected within the system boundary. It highlights the need for innovation optimization, mainly in the economic dimension. As a result, the introduced method can support the innovation process of urban surfaces for sustainable municipal development.

Sustainability Assessment of Product–Service Systems Using Flows between Systems Approach

The development of product–service systems (PSS) is currently considered a promising solution to the challenge of sustainability. Nevertheless, the sustainability of these systems has not been systematically assessed and there is a need to develop more guiding principles. In this work, an approach based on the flows between product and service systems is used to facilitate both the definition of PSS boundaries and the identification of links between the systems involved. In addition, the life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) method is applied to simultaneously quantify environmental, economic and social impacts. Two cases are analysed. First, the production process of cow´s milk, in which a veterinary service is required, is studied using data measured from a dairy farm. Next, the sustainability of a clothing retail service taking, into account that a construction product is involved in its creation stage, is evaluated. In each PSS specific life cycle, stages are analysed, a functional unit referred to both products and services is defined, and quantitative indicators are selected to assess each sustainability dimension. The category of workers is selected to evaluate social aspects. The relative incidence of each system is evaluated and the impacts of different factors on the PSS sustainability are analysed.