Resource Footprints are Good Proxies of Environmental Damage

Steinmann, Zoran J. N.; Schipper, Aafke M.; Hauck, Mara; Giljum, Stefan; Wernet, Gregor; Huijbregts, Mark A. J.

doi:10.1021/acs.est.7b00698

Cited by 81 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…; Steinmann et al. , ). If such a limited set was found sufficient for emerging technologies, it would be convenient in order to reduce data requirement.…”

Section: Recommendations and Future Workmentioning

confidence: 97%

Environmental Assessment of Emerging Technologies: Recommendations for Prospective LCA

Arvidsson

Tillman

Sandén

et al. 2017

J of Industrial Ecology

339

233

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The challenge of assessing emerging technologies with life cycle assessment (LCA) has been increasingly discussed in the LCA field. In this article, we propose a definition of prospective LCA: An LCA is prospective when the (emerging) technology studied is in an early phase of development (e.g., small-scale production), but the technology is modeled at a future, more-developed phase (e.g., large-scale production). Methodological choices in prospective LCA must be adapted to reflect this goal of assessing environmental impacts of emerging technologies, which deviates from the typical goals of conventional LCA studies. The aim of the article is to provide a number of recommendations for how to conduct such prospective assessments in a relevant manner. The recommendations are based on a detailed review of selected prospective LCA case studies, mainly from the areas of nanomaterials, biomaterials, and energy technologies. We find that it is important to include technology alternatives that are relevant for the future in prospective LCA studies. Predictive scenarios and scenario ranges are two general approaches to prospective inventory modeling of both foreground and background systems. Many different data sources are available for prospective modeling of the foreground system: scientific articles; patents; expert interviews; unpublished experimental data; and process modeling. However, we caution against temporal mismatches between foreground and background systems, and recommend that foreground and background system impacts be reported separately in order to increase the usefulness of the results in other prospective studies. Keywords:case study emerging technology industrial ecology life cycle assessment (LCA) prospective technological changeConflict of interest statement: The authors have no conflict to declare.

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“…; Steinmann et al. , ). If such a limited set was found sufficient for emerging technologies, it would be convenient in order to reduce data requirement.…”

Section: Recommendations and Future Workmentioning

confidence: 97%

Environmental Assessment of Emerging Technologies: Recommendations for Prospective LCA

Arvidsson

Tillman

Sandén

et al. 2017

J of Industrial Ecology

339

233

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…If we consider all categories that could be included in LCA regarding ES, the impact assessment of LCA would easily consist of at least 27 midpoint impact categories in total. While some efforts have focused on trying to find common ground among existent categories to minimize the amount of impact categories needed in the impact assessment of LCA (Steinmann et al, 2017), it is also arguable that the impact assessment of LCA is still considerably limited, and the addition of impact categories assessing a wide range of impacts is essential to improve its robustness. A major complication is that this increased number of impact categories complicates the interpretation and decision making based on LCA results.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards an optimal coverage of ecosystem services in LCA

Alejandre

Bodegom

Guinée

2019

Journal of Cleaner Production

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License: Article 25fa pilot End User Agreement This publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act (Auteurswet) with explicit consent by the author. Dutch law entitles the maker of a short scientific work funded either wholly or partially by Dutch public funds to make that work publicly available for no consideration following a reasonable period of time after the work was first published, provided that clear reference is made to the source of the first publication of the work. This publication is distributed under The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) 'Article 25fa implementation' pilot project. In this pilot research outputs of researchers employed by Dutch Universities that comply with the legal requirements of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act are distributed online and free of cost or other barriers in institutional repositories. Research outputs are distributed six months after their first online publication in the original published version and with proper attribution to the source of the original publication. You are permitted to download and use the publication for personal purposes. All rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyrights owner(s) of this work. Any use of the publication other than authorised under this licence or copyright law is prohibited. If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons.

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“…In a recent study, Sabia et al [34] observed that for 1 kg of sheep milk using the ReCiPe endpoint approach, the impacts in terms of damage on biodiversity was equal to 3.29 E-07 species*year. Steinmann et al [72] observed that this damage can be the result of the combination of land and energy footprints. In addition, [73] observed that agronomic practices may undermine both soil and water quality while also negatively affecting the natural biodiversity through, for example, N deposition in ecosystems.…”

Section: Effect On Biodiversity With Two Different Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of Feed Concentrate Intake on the Environmental Impact of Dairy Cows in an Alpine Mountain Region Including Soil Carbon Sequestration and Effect on Biodiversity

et al. 2020

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Several studies on the environmental impacts of livestock enterprises are based on the application of life cycle assessments (LCA). In Alpine regions, soil carbon sequestration can play an important role in reducing environmental impacts. However, there is no official methodology to calculate this possible reduction. Biodiversity plays an important role in the Alpine environment and is affected by human activities, such as cattle farming. Our aim was to estimate the carbon footprint (CF) of four different dairy production systems (different in breeds and feeding intensity) by using the LCA approach. The present study included 44 dairy Alpine farms located in the autonomous province of Bolzano in northern Italy. Half of the farms (n = 22) kept Alpine Grey and the other half (n = 22) Brown Swiss cattle. Within breeds, the farms were divided by the amount of concentrated feed per cow and day into high concentrate (HC) and low concentrate (LC). This resulted in 11 Alpine Grey low concentrate (AGLC) farms feeding an average amount of 3.0 kg concentrated feed/cow/day and 11 Alpine Grey high concentrate (AGHC) farms with an average amount of 6.3 kg concentrated feed/cow/day. Eleven farms kept Brown Swiss cows with an average amount of 3.7 kg concentrated feed/cow/day (BSLC) and another 11 farms feeding on average 7.6 kg concentrated feed/cow/day (BSHC). CF for the four systems was estimated using the LCA approach. The functional unit was 1 kg of fat and protein corrected milk (FPCM). Furthermore, two methodologies have been applied to estimate soil carbon sequestration and effect on biodiversity. The system with the lowest environmental impact in terms of CF was BSHC (1.14 kg CO2-eq/kg of FPCM), while the most impactful system was the AGLC group (1.55 kg CO2-eq/kg of FPCM). Including the CF reduction due to soil carbon sequestered from grassland, it decreased differently for the two applied methods. For all four systems, the main factor for CF was enteric emission, while the main pollutant was biogenic CH4. Conversely, AGLC had the lowest impact when the damage to biodiversity was considered (damage score = 0.41/kg of FPCM, damage to ecosystem diversity = 1.78 E-07 species*yr/kg FPCM). In comparison, BSHC had the greatest impact in terms of damage to biodiversity (damage score = 0.56/kg of FPCM, damage to ecosystem diversity = 2.49 E-07 species*yr/kg FPCM). This study indicates the importance of including soil carbon sequestration from grasslands and effects on biodiversity when calculating the environmental performance of dairy farms.

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Resource Footprints are Good Proxies of Environmental Damage

Cited by 81 publications

References 49 publications

Environmental Assessment of Emerging Technologies: Recommendations for Prospective LCA

Environmental Assessment of Emerging Technologies: Recommendations for Prospective LCA

Towards an optimal coverage of ecosystem services in LCA

Effect of Feed Concentrate Intake on the Environmental Impact of Dairy Cows in an Alpine Mountain Region Including Soil Carbon Sequestration and Effect on Biodiversity

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