Iron and steel production is one of the most resource and energy demanding industries around the world. Throughout the life cycle of iron and steel products, the intensive use of raw materials and energy results in contributions to a wide range of environmental impacts. This study conducts a life cycle assessment (LCA) for iron and steel production in Turkey using SimaPro software and IMPACT 2002+ impact assessment method with the purpose of comparing the impacts of life cycle stage (coke making, sintering, iron making, steel making) and final products (billet, slab, hot rolled wire rod, hot rolled coil). The system boundary was set as cradle-to-gate, the functional unit was selected as 1 ton of product, and the study was conducted using the inventory data collected from one of the three integrated iron and steel facilities representing the majority of the industry in Turkey. Different production scenarios for the final products were also evaluated to see the variation in the total impacts. The results indicated that, liquid steel production process exhibited the highest total environmental impact, which was followed by sinter production. Coke production process showed the highest impact on depletion of non-renewable energy sources. The comparison of the impacts for different final products revealed that hot rolled coil causes the highest total environmental impact. Moreover, the environmental impact of mechanical workshop of the facility was found negligible when compared to the production processes.

This is the report of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study on some masonry wall types. As the starting point, literature on masonry materials, techniques and possible end-of-life scenarios were examined that are needed for the formulation of a LCA study. Prevalent masonry types were detected as fired clay brick, AAC block, natural stone, mud brick as well as prevalent end-of-life cases as landfill, reuse and recycling. Additionally, an overview of the literature on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was presented in order to detect a framework for the structure of a LCA study. After the collection of all needed information, several possible life cycle scenarios were formulated in a realistic manner for each stated masonry type. Obtained information was applied to a LCA evaluation software product named SimaPro life cycle inventory software (PR&eacute / Consultants, 2012). By means of the software product, general scores of environmental impact for all alternatives were obtained. Besides analyzing and comparing the scores, basic reasons behind the results were discussed in terms of similarity and difference. The results reveal that when the requirements shaping the wall are clearly described, the most and the least environmental friendly wall types are detectable. During the study two main scopes, such as commonly used wall thicknesses and thicknesses for thermal insulation were described and several types of walls with life cycle alternatives were labeled as the most or the least harmful to nature. To conclude, although it is not reasonable to point out one type of masonry as the least harmful one for any cases, the conditions of each case detect the most and the least v harmful type of masonry walls. Nevertheless, the relatively low environmental impact of mud brick masonry is striking. Therefore the environmental friendly aspect of mud brick masonry is underlined &ndash / one more time- by the results of this study.

There is growing interest in the assessment of products from a life cycle perspective. Product life cycles are often dominated by extensive chemical supply chains that lead up to the materials contained in the products and the overwhelming contribution that the production of these chemicals make to the overall life cycle due to their energy intensity. Hence, chemical engineers are uniquely positioned to carry out significant components of this assessment because of their skills in chemical process design and analysis. Furthermore, the complexity and extent of life cycle concerns creates opportunities for new process systems tools to be developed to support product design and analysis. The specific thesis objectives are threefold. The first is to develop a systematic methodology to optimize material selections for a product based on life cycle inventory (LCI) characteristics. The second is to use this methodology combined with sustainability assessment standards to assess whether these standards are congruent with life cycle assessment. The third is to develop an approach to design product sustainability assessment standards that are clear and consistent with life cycle principles. The overall contributions will be in the applied domain of life cycle assessment and its integration into standards setting, and in contributions to optimization tools and methods. The three objectives will be illustrated in the domain of carpet systems. Previous research has generated a substantial database of gate-to-gate (GTG) life cycle inventories for various chemicals that make up carpet, extending from the inputs to the final carpet mill back to the natural resources such as oil, natural gas and mined calcium carbonate. Carpet recycling is a promising alternative approach for reducing life cycle impacts and is being practiced at a growing scale in the U.S. This thesis uses the specific individual LCI gate-to-gate blocks for virgin materials and for important carpet recycling and general polymer recycling processes. A database for the GTG LCI will be used to construct a virtual chemical tree that automatically that represents the potential cradle-to-gate (CTG) use of resources. The alternatives for each possible route for the product will be generated, and optimization approaches will be applied to optimize the performance of the carpet system according to life cycle objectives. Sustainability assessment standards are currently being developed for a range of building products, such as carpet, resilient flooring, commercial textile coverings and office furniture. This activity has been stimulated through the considerable success of the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) LEED standard. The LEED Standard is points-based: the building design and construction earns points for having certain attributes or promoting certain activities. The points are totaled and then the building earns a rating based on the total being above a certain threshold. The second thesis objective is met through extending the LCI optimization methodology to represent point-based standards. A product can then be optimized to maximize the number of points it earns or to minimize its life cycle attributes. This approach can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of an emerging carpet sustainability standard, NSF-140, in integrating LCI into the standard. The last objective, standard design, is approached through designing the tables that award points in the standard to be consistent with life cycle information. Certain minimum principles of consistency are articulated and then the designs shown to be consistent with these principles in the case that the life cycle impact assessment method maps the life cycle inventory to impact through a linear weighting.

Die vorliegende Ausgabe beschäftigt sich mit dem Thema der Regenwassernutzung im nicht privaten Bereich. Im ersten Teil werden in einer Literaturrecherche die bisherigen Erkenntnisse und Untersuchungen auf diesem Gebiet zusammengetragen und ausgewertet, um sie im zweiten Teil der Arbeit anzuwenden. Für das Fraunhofer-Institutszentrum Dresden wird die Nutzung von Regenwasser als Nachspeisewasser für die Kühltürme sowohl technisch als auch wirtschaftlich analysiert. Die Dimensionierung der Regenwassernutzungsanlage verdeutlicht, durch die Beachtung der örtlichen Gegebenheiten, die Forderung nach einer umfassenden individuellen Planung bei Großprojekten wie diesem. Ebenso beim technischen Aufbau als auch bei der Auswahl der sensiblen Anlagenbauteile stellen die Größe der Auffangflächen, die Anforderungen der Verbrauchsstellen und die Länge der Leitungen besondere Anforderungen an Planung und Ausführung. Ohne die Betrachtung ökologischer Vorteile der Regenwassernutzung ist die hier konzipierte Anlage aus betriebswirtschaftlicher Sicht als positiv zu bewerten.

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<p>The building sector is a major contributor to theenvironmental loads generated by the society. The recognitionof this fact by the sector and a general strive toward asustainable society have lead to afocus on different toolsthat can be used to enhance the environmental performance ofthe sector and the society. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is oneof these tools. The LCA methodology was initially developed forassessments of short-lived consumer products. The increasinginterest in using the LCA methodology in the context of thebuilding sector has initiated a development of the methodologyto be able to consider the specific characteristics andconsiderations of the building sector. These are specific forthe building sector, but not always unique. Examples ofcharacteristics and considerations are: that each building isunique, the functional output is not always a physical productbut rather a service, the long service lives of buildings.These have implications on several elements in the LCAmethodology. The influenced elements that are dealt with inthis thesis are in particular the modeling of the system, thefunctional unit, boundary setting, life cycle scenarios,scenarios and inventory of the usage phase and allocationprocedures.</p><p>Buildings and constructions are commonly not static systems.The systems are rather dynamic in the sense that the systemwill provide different services based on the same physicalstructure during its service life. To be able to model thedynamic system sequential life cycle thinking is introduced anda list of topics is derived. The list of topics is a structuredpresentation of issues that are of interest in the pursuit of aflexible LCA methodology. The goal is to find out if amethodological approach is suitable for modeling dynamicsystems with a functional unit that is based on the providedservice rather than the physical building.</p><p>Boundary setting, life cycle scenarios, allocationprocedures, predicted service life and the modelling of theusage phase are all elements of the LCA methodology that havean potential to influence the result of an LCA in a significantway. The magnitude of the potential influence has beenmonitored based on the results of three case studies, whichhave been elaborated further to be able to estimate themagnitude of the potential influence.</p><p>There is a multitude of available allocation procedurespresented and used in different contexts. The procedures aredeveloped based on different considerations and with differentintended applications. Two alternative allocation proceduresare presented in this thesis. The first is a proceduredeveloped with multi recyclable materials in mind and it isbased on the recyclability of materials and products. Thesecond procedure is quite recently developed and it is based ona combination of economic parameters and recyclability.</p><p>The importance of the usage phase for buildings andconstructions has previously been recognised. The maincontributors to the environmental loads generated during theusage phase are energy use, maintenance and emissions fromproducts. It is, however, not very common to consider the usagephase in assessments conducted on materials and components,even though it is stipulated in e.g. ISO 14025 that the wholelife cycle should be considered. A proposal of a model toestimate the environmental loads is, therefore, presented.</p><p><b>Keywords:</b>Life cycle assessment, Building materials andcomponents, Buildings and constructions, Allocation, Resultvariation, Usage phase, Energy demand</p>

Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions are now higher than ever before, with severe implications for both humans and ecosystems around the world. To mitigate climate change, large and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions are required. The management of lawns entail frequent maintenance activities, such as mowing, irrigation and fertilisation, which require energy and cause greenhouse gas emissions. Lawns cover a significant part of urban areas worldwide, with functions such as air quality improvement, flood mitigation and the potential to sequester carbon and consequently reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. The existing knowledge about the environmental impact from lawn management is limited and more research is needed to determine related climate effects. The objective of the study was to evaluate energy use and carbon footprint from urban lawn systems with different intensities through a life cycle perspective. The lawns included in the study consisted of utility lawns and meadow lawns, with management under responsibility of Uppsala municipality, and the two golf courses Upsala GK and Sigtuna GK, divided into the lawn types greens, tees, fairways and roughs. The energy use and carbon footprint was determined by an inventory of the existing lawn management practices through interviews with greenkeepers at the golf courses, stakeholder at Uppsala municipality and lawn caretakers. Additional information for the inventory was received from literature and databases. Based on the inventory, calculations of the energy use and carbon footprint throughout the life cycle was made. The results showed that greens had the largest carbon footprint and energy use per hectare followed by tees, fairways, roughs, utility lawns and meadow lawns. The energy use was the highest for the golf courses, with 16.5 GJ ha-1 year-1 for Upsala GK and 13.0 GJ ha-1 year-1 for Sigtuna GK. Lower energy use was determined for the utility lawns and meadow lawns, where 3.0 and 0.5 GJ ha-1 year-1 were required for the lawn management, respectively. The carbon footprint of the golf courses was 1.33 Mg CO2- equivalents (CO2e) ha-1year-1 for Upsala GK and 0.94 Mg CO2e ha-1 year-1 for Sigtuna GK, which was larger compared to the utility lawns of 0.2 Mg CO2e ha-1 year-1 and meadow lawns of 0.03 Mg CO2e ha-1 year-1. Mowing, irrigation and manufacturing of fertiliser were the management activities consuming most energy. The activities with largest carbon footprint were mowing, manufacturing of fertiliser and soil emissions from application of fertilisers. This study was a part of a multidisciplinary research programme, where the results will be used to determine the net emission balance when the carbon sequestration potential of the lawns has been concluded. Suggested improvements at the golf courses were to reduce the applied amounts of nitrogen fertiliser and improve the documentation of used resources. Increasing the usage of hybrid and electrical mowers was recommended for both the municipality as well as the golf courses to reduce the energy use and the carbon footprint. / Halterna av växthusgaser i atmosfären är högre än någonsin, vilket medför stora konsekvenser för både människor och ekosystem runt om i världen. För att motverka klimatförändringar måste åtgärder för att minska växthusgaserna i atmosfären genomföras. Gräsytor kräver kontinuerlig skötsel, såsom klippning, bevattning och gödsling, vilket är energikrävande och ger upphov till utsläpp av växthusgaser. En stor del av världens städer består av gräsytor som bidrar med positiva effekter till samhället genom att bland annat förbättra luftkvaliteten, dämpa översvämningar och lagra in kol i marken och på så sätt reducera atmosfärens koldioxidhalt. Den nuvarande kunskapen om miljöpåverkan från gräsyteskötsel är bristfällig och fler studier behövs för att bestämma ytornas klimatpåverkan. Syftet med studien var att bestämma energianvändning och klimatavtryck ur ett livscykelperspektiv för gräsytor med varierande skötselintensitet. De valda ytorna var bruksgräsmattor och slåttermarker som sköts av Uppsala kommun samt de två golfklubbarna Upsala GK och Sigtuna GK, vars ytor delades upp i green, tee, fairway och ruff. Energianvändningen och klimatavtrycket bestämdes genom en inventering av nuvarande skötselåtgärder. Detta gjordes genom intervjuer med greenkeepers på golfklubbarna, ansvariga på Uppsala kommun samt ansvariga för gräsyteskötsel på entreprenadföretag upphandlade av kommunen. Dessutom inhämtades information från litteraturen och databaser. Baserat på inventeringen utfördes beräkningar på energianvändning och klimatavtryck ur ett livscykelperspektiv. Resultatet visade att greener hade den högsta energianvändningen och det största klimatavtrycket, som i fallande storleksordning följdes av tee, fairway, ruff, bruksgräsmattor och slåttermarker. Greenerna bidrog med 20 % av golfbanornas totala klimatavtryck, trots att de bara utgör 3 % av golfbanans totala area. Den totala energianvändningen var störst för golfbanorna, med 16.5 GJ ha-1 år-1 för Upsala GK och 13.0 GJ ha-1 år-1 för Sigtuna GK. Den lägsta energianvändningen resulterade från bruksgräsmattor och slåttermarker där 3.0 och 0.5 GJ ha-1 år-1 krävdes för respektive gräsyta. Även för klimatavtrycket så var det större för golfbanorna med 1.33 Mg CO2- ekvivalenter (CO2e) ha-1 år-1 för Upsala GK och 0.94 Mg CO2e ha-1 år-1 för Sigtuna GK, jämfört med bruksgräsmattorna vars klimatavtryck var 0.2 Mg CO2e ha-1 år-1 och slåttermarkerna med 0.03 Mg CO2e ha-1 år-1. Klippning, bevattning och produktion av gödningsmedel var de skötselåtgärder som hade högst energiförbrukning. De skötselåtgärder med det största klimatavtrycket var klippning, produktion av gödningsmedel samt de emissioner som uppstod till följd av gödslingen. Detta projekt var en del av ett multidisciplinärt forskningsprogram där resultaten kommer att användas för att bestämma nettoutsläppsbalanser för gräsytorna när potentialen att lagra kol i marken har bestämts. Förslagna åtgärder för golfbanorna var att reducera gödselgivorna av kväve och öka dokumentationen av använda resurser. Det rekommenderades att öka användandet av hybrider och elektriska maskiner både inom kommunens gräsyteskötsel och på golfbanorna.

Over the last twenty years or more, Uganda has benefitted from significant strides in water and sanitation initiated by the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. While the rapid progress towards development has been vastly beneficial, it is also important that it does not occur at the expense of the environment. The environmental impacts of these water sources must be evaluated and understood. However, to develop a robust understanding of the impact requires inclusion of the community members who use these sources and their perceptions of them. Consequently, the goal of this research is to investigate the interrelationships between socioeconomic factors, water source features, and household water source and treatment choices, along with the associated environmental impacts of those choices. This research focuses on two villages in Wakiso District, Uganda--Nalugala and Kitala and includes: (1) development and implementation of a country-specific survey of 200 households to gain qualitative and quantitative accounts of socioeconomic factors (e.g., education, gender of the head of household, number of household members), water source features (cost, convenience, quality, quantity of water) and community members' water supply choices; (2) statistical analysis to investigate any correlation between socioeconomic factors, water source features and household source choice; and (3) a life cycle assessment of each water source and treatment method used in the surveyed communities to highlight their associated environmental impacts. Based on statistical findings, the water source features which are considered most significant to impacting household choice are convenience, visual water quality (turbidity), and cost. When inspecting socioeconomic factors using the Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI), no significant correlation was determined between the PPI levels and source choice. Consequently, the PPI was disaggregated to further analyze any significant correlations between socioeconomic indicators in the survey (social, economic, and educational) and water source choice. Three factors (i.e. gender of head of household, number of household members, and construction material of the house's external walls) were significantly correlated with the household's choice for their water source. The combination of qualitative and quantitative survey data underscores the disconnection between community members' perceptions of water quality and the actual, laboratory-tested data. This notion (perception vs. reality) asserts itself because the treatment techniques that respondents use for local sources are based on their perceived ideas of water quality. The techniques sometimes contradict the theoretical treatment methods (based on water quality tests) needed to raise a source's water to potable standards. A life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted on each source and (1) the treatment methods community members most frequently used in comparison to (2) the theoretical treatment methods which would be necessary to raise each source to potable standards. Tap water was found to have the highest environmental impact based on actual community practices. Although it was tested to meet drinking water standards, community members boiled it, increasing its impacts in the categories of land use and global warming. On the other hand, rainwater and surface water had the highest impacts in the same categories (global warming and land use) based on the theoretical treatment which is required for the source water to be potable. The impact of the various fuel sources used to treat water by boiling was also evaluated. The greatest impact was for the use of propane gas followed by charcoal.

In recent decades, the environmental issues from the construction sector have attracted increasing attention from both the public and authorities. Notably, the bridge construction is responsible for considerable amount of energy and raw material consumptions. However, the current bridges are still mainly designed from the economic, technical, and safety perspective, while considerations of their environmental performance are rarely integrated into the decision making process. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a comprehensive, standardized and internationally recognized approach for quantifying all emissions, resource consumption and related environmental and health impacts linked to a service, asset or product. LCA has the potential to provide reliable environmental profiles of the bridges, and thus help the decision-makers to select the most environmentally optimal designs. However, due to the complexity of the environmental problems and the diversity of bridge structures, robust environmental evaluation of bridges is far from straightforward. The LCA has rarely been studied on bridges till now. The overall aim of this research is to implement LCA on bridge, thus eventually integrate it into the decision-making process to mitigate the environmental burden at an early stage. Specific objectives are to: i) provide up-to-date knowledge to practitioners; ii) identify associated obstacles and clarify key operational issues; iii) establish a holistic framework and develop computational tool for bridge LCA; and iv) explore the feasibility of combining LCA with life cycle cost (LCC). The developed tool (called GreenBridge) enables the simultaneous comparison and analysis of 10 feasible bridges at any detail level, and the framework has been utilized on real cases in Sweden. The studied bridge types include: railway bridge with ballast or fix-slab track, road bridges of steel box-girder composite bridge, steel I-girder composite bridge, post tensioned concrete box-girder bridge, balanced cantilever concrete box-girder bridge, steel-soil composite bridge and concrete slab-frame bridge. The assessments are detailed from cradle to grave phases, covering thousands of types of substances in the output, diverse mid-point environmental indicators, the Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) and monetary value weighting. Some analyses also investigated the impact from on-site construction scenarios, which have been overlooked in the current state-of-the-art. The study identifies the major structural and life-cycle scenario contributors to the selected impact categories, and reveals the effects of varying the monetary weighting system, the steel recycling rate and the material types. The result shows that the environmental performance can be highly influenced by the choice of bridge design. The optimal solution is found to be governed by several variables. The analyses also imply that the selected indicators, structural components and life-cycle scenarios must be clearly specified to be applicable in a transparent procurement. This work may provide important references for evaluating similar bridge cases, and identification of the main sources of environmental burden. The outcome of this research may serve as recommendation for decision-makers to select the most LCA-feasible proposal and minimize environmental burdens. / <p>QC 20150311</p>

Life cycle assessment of soil remediation options:Study of options at Norrbyskär - which alternative has the least climate impact?  The purpose of this report was to make a life cycle assessment (LCA) to compare four suggested options for soil remediation at Norrbyskär, Umeå. The question formulation was to find out which option that had the least climate impact depending on the aim of the remediation. Main focus of the study was emissions of CO2 from transportation and machine work for each remediation option. The LCA was a screening and presented a good overview for the results. What sets the four remediation options apart is the amount of soil that is processed for each option. The LCA was performed according to the standards ISO 14040:2006 and ISO 14044:2006. Calculations in the report was performed with the LCA-software SimaPro and general data from EcoInvent. The results showed that the total emissions from each soil remediation option varied between 310 and 590 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e). The option that only included covering of the contaminated area with new soil had the least emissions and the option that included excavation and filling with new soil had the highest emissions. Both options do not fulfill the same goals in the end, though. One conclusion is that the more extensive remediation is the greater is the climate impact.