Using life cycle assessment to achieve a circular economy

Peña, Claudia; Civit, Bárbara María; Gallego‐Schmid, Alejandro; Druckman, Angela; Caldeira-Pires, Armando; Weidema, Bo Pedersen; Mieras, Eric; Wang, Rui; Fava, James A.; Canals, Llorenç Milà i; Cordella, Mauro; Arbuckle, Peter; Valdivia, Sonia; Fallaha, Sophie; Motta, Wladmir Henriques

doi:10.1007/s11367-020-01856-z

Cited by 163 publications

(96 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Currently, the methodologies used to aggregate circularity indicators, broken down into all the main components of the product cycle, at the level of product, service, or company, are developed, but their approaches are dependent of the region/country and their calculation is incomplete, due to leaking of data [118][119][120]. It can also be concluded that the indicators in the current framework are limited, from the point of view of circularity, only to waste recycling processes containing recyclable materials and that important circularity indicators are not included in the European Commission's strategy and action plan, related to prolonging as much as possible the life cycle of products and materials.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Critical Review of EU Key Indicators for the Transition to the Circular Economy

Păcurariu

Vâtcă

Lakatos

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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The objective of this paper is to analyze the extent to which the system of indicators that is used in the Monitoring Framework for the transition to the circular economy (CE) is efficient and relevant in their contribution to the sustainable development of European communities. The fundaments of the transition framework and the main characteristics of the circularity indicators are presented. A critical review was performed in order to fulfill the objective of analyzing the current indicators. It is concluded that the indicators in the current framework are (as a selection from a very broad range of indicators theoretically proposed and with estimated practical applicability) limited from the perspective of circularity only to waste generation and recycling processes containing recyclable materials, without including important circularity indicators related to the prolonging and extending the life cycle of products and materials. This paper proposes and defines such an indicator, based on the consideration of the fundamental scalars describing economy, mass, energy, time, and value, respectively. The indicator is described and its applicability in all the phases of the economy is estimated.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Critical Review of EU Key Indicators for the Transition to the Circular Economy

Păcurariu

Vâtcă

Lakatos

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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“…The private sector and industry, which have a public commitment to ensure that recycled materials account for a certain proportion of products placed on the market, will play a key role in shaping demand. The private sector will have to implement the solutions that are most appropriate given the extended life cycle of the product [41][42][43].…”

Section: Literature Review On Circularitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Core Elements Towards Circularity: Evidence From the European Countries

Lingaitienė¹,

Burinskienė²

2021

Preprint

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In this paper, the authors identified key elements important for circularity: (1) Background: The primary goal of circularity is to eliminate waste and to prove the constant use of resources. In the paper, we classify studies according to circular approaches. The authors identified main elements and classified them into categories important for circularity, starting with the managing and reducing waste and the recovery of resources; and ending with the circularity of material, and general circularity-related topics and presented scientific works dedicated to each of the above-mentioned categories. The authors analyzed several core elements from the first category aiming to investigate and connect different waste streams and provided a regression model; (2) Methods: The authors used a dynamic regression model to identify relationships among variables and selected the ones, which has an impact on the increase of biowaste. The research was delivered for the 27 European Union countries during the period between 2020 and 2019; (3) Conclusions: The authors indicated that the recycling rate of wasted electrical equipment in the previous year has an impact on the increase of recycling biowaste next year. This is explained as non-metallic spare parts of electronic equipment are used as biowaste for fuel production. And the separation process of the composites of electric equipment takes some time, on average the effect is evident in one year period.

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“…Agri-food by-products and biowaste reuse shows great potentialities in the construction industry. As shown by much of the literature, life cycle methodologies underpin Circular Economy strategies but also highlight some weaknesses (Notarnicola et al 2016 ; Peña et al 2021 ) which can be overcome through the proper use of multi-criteria approaches. Recent studies, in fact, have demonstrated that multi-criteria approaches are a useful and effective decision aiding support tools to assess the potentials of new sustainable construction materials (Moretti et al 2017 ; Kurda et al 2019 ; Saeli et al 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coffee biowaste valorization within circular economy: an evaluation method of spent coffee grounds potentials for mortar production

Scalia

Saeli

Miglietta

2021

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Purpose Spent coffee grounds (SCG) are biowastes extensively generated within the coffee supply chain. Nowadays, their disposal represents an increasing environmental concern due to its toxicity and organic nature. With the estimated increase of coffee production and consumption in the upcoming years, there is an imperative need to find a proper reverse option, along with a novel industrial application, which allows for the valorization of this coffee by-product within a circular economy perspective. This study aims at investigating a potential reuse of spent coffee grounds to produce novel construction materials to be used for sustainable buildings. Methods After having illustrated the forward flows within the coffee life cycle and the potential reverse flow options, an evaluation method based on multi-criteria analyses was elaborated to test not only the technical but also the environmental and economic performances of novel materials originating from the incorporation of SCG as an aggregate in natural hydraulic lime and geopolymer-based mortars. Moreover, we focus on the reuse of another waste streams— biomass fly ash—deriving from the paper-pulp industry, rarely investigated in both traditional construction applications and in geopolymer manufacture. The two (geopolymer- and lime-based) mortar typologies are here studied and compared as potential green material for applications in construction, with satisfying engineering performance and high insulation attitude, giving a new life to a common organic waste. Consequently, we compare eight formulations by means of multi-criteria approaches that are nowadays claimed as a useful and effective decision aiding support instrument to assess the development of new sustainable construction materials. They permit to consider simultaneously some controversial and often uncertain aspects like technological (as the usual scientific studies do), environmental, and economic (more difficult to easily approach and evaluate). For this purpose, in this paper, we have analyzed the performance of the novel bio-composite mortars using VIKOR and TOPSIS methods to rank a set of alternatives according to various evaluation criteria that often conflict one with each other. Results Results show that adding spent coffee grounds can efficiently improve the technical and sustainable performances of the novel mortars for different applications in the building sector. The presence of SCG increases water absorption and improves the insulation performance along with an environmental impact reduction. The considered technological properties are highly promising—such as the improvement in thermal insulation. In particular, even the addition of only 5% SCG leads to a significant reduction of the thermal conductivity and consequently to a greater insulating performance. Conclusions To date, most of the available literature on recycling SCG in construction materials do not consider mortar-based applications and, moreover, nor multi-criteria approaches. Therefore, our study proposes itself as an innovative track solution to food waste management lowering the employment of non-renewable natural resources and the costs associated to construction material production. At the same time, a novel and innovative way of such waste disposal is suggested, pursuing the sustainability and substantially reducing the environmental impact of construction and building materials. This study is a fundamental step in assessing the applicability of our designed and produced materials and its potentials to be produced at an industrial scale.

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Using life cycle assessment to achieve a circular economy

Cited by 163 publications

References 9 publications

A Critical Review of EU Key Indicators for the Transition to the Circular Economy

A Critical Review of EU Key Indicators for the Transition to the Circular Economy

Core Elements Towards Circularity: Evidence From the European Countries

Coffee biowaste valorization within circular economy: an evaluation method of spent coffee grounds potentials for mortar production

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