Selected non-renewable and renewable energy processes from the ecoinvent 2.2 life cycle inventory database were analysed using basic contribution analysis, geometric series expansion, and structural path analysis. The hierarchical perspective of the ReCiPe impact assessment method was applied. The sources studied included biomass, wind, solar photovoltaic, hydropower, natural gas combined cycle and hard coal. Several technologies within each energy source were studied for comparison purposes. The processes were compared based on material consumption, land use and emissions for the production of 1 EJ (278 TWh). Results indicate that all of the renewable energy sources studied had a significantly lower impact than the non-renewable sources chosen. With the exception of bioenergies and pumped reservoir hydropower, technologies for the same energy source showed similar behaviour in the analyses performed.The findings from this study confirm previous work stating the environmental and human health superiority of renewable energy technologies over fossil fuel energy.

Land use refers to the use of land for intensive human activities aiming at exclusive use of land for certain purposes and adapting the properties of land areas in view of these purposes. Environmental problems are, however, generated as a result of these human activities which modify the shape and properties of large land areas according to the requirements of human activities and thereby excluding wild animals and plants from coexisting on such land areas and in their neighbourhoods. Land use also leads to the degradation of the natural environment. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is used for evaluating the environmental burdens associated with products or processes while taking their whole life cycle into consideration. LCA is a comprehensive assessment method which considers all aspects of natural environment, human health, and resources. Land use is regarded as an impact category in Life Cycle Assessment and is treated as such. However, the environmental impacts associated with land use and land use change are not being adequately considered in LCA, if considered at all.Life Cycle Impact Assessment is a part of LCA and is aimed at understanding and evaluating the magnitude and significance of the potential environmental impacts of products or processes and this involves developing characterization factors which link an environmental impact to a category indicator. In the assessment of land use impacts, characterization factors are developed so as to weigh the magnitude of environmental interventions such as land occupation and land transformation on the potentially affected attributes of ecosystem quality such as biodiversity, ecological functions and natural resources.The goal of this study is to review the progress of the implementation of land use and land use change as an impact category in LCA with a particular focus on biodiversity, recognize limitations, and indicate future prospects for the development of land use impact assessment methodologies and subsequent integration into LCA. Land use impacts are not being widely integrated into LCA because they are dependent on the regional or local situation which is not well known in LCA and land use as an environmental intervention is very complex. However, the importance of land use cannot be overemphasized when assessing products or processes which make use of raw materials that originate from land extensive activities. Despite this importance, there have been diverse arguments on how to include land use impacts, for example, on biodiversity in LCA so as to provide a common and acceptable methodology for this assessment.This study focuses on how land use impacts can be included in LCA. With a particular focus on land use impacts on biodiversity, the result of this review shows that only a few studies have been carried out. The problem of non-convergence of the methodology for the assessment of land use in LCA still persists because most of the proposed methodologies deal with different aspects of land use impacts and are therefore conflicting.Most of the studies reviewed stress the importance of biodiversity measured in terms of vascular plant species diversity. However, there are other methodologies which consider other impact pathways such as life support functions. The number of studies thereby correlates with an increase in the interest in the research area. However, it is difficult to identify any trend of convergence. Different methods are being proposed which do not actually agree with one another. Some of these methods are not “closely” related to the use of land in the normal usage sense. Most of the methods being proposed are exemplified in different regions and these have not been found to be applicable to global cases. This could be a limiting factor for the applicability of the proposed methodologies in LCA. In order to overcome these shortcomings, more research work would be needed before these methodologies could be incorporated into LCA which is presumed to be a global assessment methodology. This will enhance the credibility of the results provided by an LCA and the subsequent acceptability of the LCA methodology.

Selected non-renewable and renewable energy processes from the ecoinvent 2.2 life cycle inventory database were analysed using basic contribution analysis, geometric series expansion, and structural path analysis. The hierarchical perspective of the ReCiPe impact assessment method was applied. The sources studied included biomass, wind, solar photovoltaic, hydropower, natural gas combined cycle and hard coal. Several technologies within each energy source were studied for comparison purposes. The processes were compared based on material consumption, land use and emissions for the production of 1 EJ (278 TWh). Results indicate that all of the renewable energy sources studied had a significantly lower impact than the non-renewable sources chosen. With the exception of bioenergies and pumped reservoir hydropower, technologies for the same energy source showed similar behaviour in the analyses performed.The findings from this study confirm previous work stating the environmental and human health superiority of renewable energy technologies over fossil fuel energy.

An emerging interest in constructing ultra low energy buildings, with low impact materials and maximizing the potential of using renewable energy reflects the potential in building industry to significantly contribute towards reducing environmental impacts. Life cycle assessments of the different green building prototypes provide a means to estimate the impacts of such buildings as well as provide suggestive improvements. The Active house in Stjørdal, Norway is one such prototype of a green building. This is a single family residence which is built with a concept of solar architecture in ultra low-energy buildings. It is challenging to harness solar energy at high latitudes. The Active house uses the fundamental construction details for a Passive house as mentioned in Norwegian regulatory standard, with specific changes in increasing the glazed surface to promote passive solar heat gain as well as increase daylighting , but also making it vulnerable to heat loss. The house is based on timber framework. Apart from electricity the house uses solar collectors which are connected to the hot water storage and hydronic floor heating. Space heating is also compensated by use of wood stoves. In the LCA results suggest that, based on the construction the Active house requires ten percent more energy than an equivalent Passive house which uses only electricity and wood. However, due to the effectivity of the solar collectors, it compensates for the need of the extra energy and in a lifetime of 60 years, it performs 15 % better , contributing to lesser environmental impacts than an equivalent Passive house. It is understood that extra embodied energy does not affect the environmental performance of a building if it results in better environmental performance (1). However, it is important to create demonstrable value of the building for the end user. Lifecycle assessment results from simulated operational use carries considerable error with respect to how the building actually performs. The results in this study have also been estimated with an approximate error factor derived from previous studies (2). There is a necessity to make every stakeholder of the building participative in the functioning of the building, inclusive of the end user, and maintaining the well-being. The case has also been scored in the basic categories of a sustainibility certification, with the results available from the lifecycle assessment and energy simulation.

Environmental accounting and documentation of each industry and organization is required for the sustainable development. In addition, environmental awareness is creating pressure to the industry to declare and label environmental features of their product to the consumers. Industrial products interact with environment during entire life cycle of a product and consequences are undesirable environmental impacts. The solution for minimum environmental impacts is the development of methods and tools to measure and compare environmental impacts of products (goods and services are summarized under the term product according the ISO 14040). ISO 14020 series, ISO 14025 - environmental declaration, ISO 14024 - environmental label, and ISO 14021 - self declared environmental claim are facilitating to the industry to communicate environmental impacts of their product. At present, global warming and it’s consequences in climate change are major concerns of environmental impacts for the global society. One specific means to communicate global warming environmental impact is ‘carbon footprint’ of the product, which can be declared to the consumers following the methodology of upcoming ISO 14067- carbon footprint of products. Life cycle assessment is the back bone for industries to quantify environmental impacts, and to document and declare environmental impacts of production activities. This thesis reviews existing environmental documentation system of product, accesses ISO standard for carbon footprint of product and relates it to the environmental product labeling and declaration (EPDs), develops system theory to model a road case system for carbon footprint, calculates carbon footprint of the road construction case and recommends carbon footprint as part of environmental product declaration (EPD). The thesis starts with reviewing existing environmental documentation and carbon footprint accounting systems with a main focus on ISO requirements. The thesis further discusses system theory of industrial ecology to account carbon footprint of the products. System engineering and LCA methodology are taken as tools to account carbon footprint of the products. Road construction case E6 – Kroppen – Tonstad, Trondheim, is taken as case for the carbon footprint account, which is a part of transportation service. Finally, discussions are made on the connection between environmental declaration and carbon footprint, issues of ISO 14067 – carbon footprint of product, system boundary and data aggregations for LCA methodology for road case.

In 2006 an international standard, ISO 14025, was published on the principles and procedures of environmental product declarations (EPD). The standard gives requirements to the development of EPDs and PCRs and is used as a basis of EPD development within many EPD programmes globally. Despite an international standard, published EPDs today have different contents and format depending on who published the EPD. The main goal of EPDs is to provide objective, comparable and credible information about the environmental impacts of a product throughout its life cycle. These objectives can be diminished by the variations seen in EPDs and PCRs today. Through the mapping of six different international EPD programmes and the analysis of published PCRs and EPDs, this thesis shows that there is a need for communication between and harmonisation of EPD programmes at a global level. The main objective of this thesis is to contribute in the harmonisation of standards and guidelines for communication of environmental performance products and services in Norway. The thesis results in a recommendation to the Norwegian EPD Foundation within five areas; o format and layout of EPD o front page of EPD o environmental impact categories o user guide o online database

Vosso, the second-largest watershed in Norway, was considered special as it produced some of the biggest salmon in the country. This salmon had economic, cultural as well as ecological importance. Due to its diversity, it was regarded a unique biological resource. Yet in the late 1980s the stock collapsed, quite abruptly and unexpected. This triggered a large-scale scientific research and eventually led to a rescue project to restore the wild Vosso salmon. The goal of this thesis was to explore the fundamental questions about the impact of human activity on nature and the conflicts of interest that exist within the management for the restoration of the wild salmon population in Vosso. The study aimed to answer the following question: “How does the strategy of the salmon restoration project in Vosso address the human dimensions for the restoration of the wild Vosso salmon population on a short and long term?” A systems approach was used for data collection and analysis. According to Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology, the researcher first started with an examination of the background of the problem. The second step was to examine systems thinking about the situation. This step was operationalized with help of interviews, a questionnaire, content analyses and a discourse analysis. The third step of SSM required the development of a common understanding of the change and the change processes needed among the stakeholders involved in the rescue project. The strategy of the salmon restoration project in Vosso is mostly directed towards finding the causes for the decline of the Vosso salmon population. The measures taken to restore the salmon are primarily centered on producing salmon and treating sea lice. In the short term, this may lead to an increase of salmons in the river. But, if the sources of salmon threats are not eliminated, the survival of the salmon stock will be at risk, and the goal of reaching a sustainable salmon stock that reproduces naturally will be a challenging one. The inclusion of human dimensions in the rescue project is based on the involvement of people with different world views, neglecting differences in interest and centering on achieving the same objective: a wild salmon population that is able to reproduce naturally. However, salmon management in Vosso disregards long-term human dimensions: those human values embedded in institutions and passed on from generation to generation. For reaching sustainable salmon stocks, it is not only important to involve stakeholders with different values in salmon management, it is also crucial to understand the environmental discourses that trigger these values. This understanding needs to occur at all levels of management that influence the outcome of the salmon restoration project in Vosso. This study has shown that the salmon restoration management is trying to achieve sustainability, while employing a problem-solving discourse of administrative rationalism. For the achievement of a sustainable salmon population, the prevailing discourse of administrative rationalism in salmon management needs to make room for the discourse of sustainability.

A systems thinking based approach was used to define and investigate the current state of knowledge in the academic disciplines related to sustainable residential dwellings via literature review. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with respondents connected to the system definition. The goal of the study was to determine the extent to which the academic disciplines, as well as the respondents, incorporated the social, economic, environmental and intergenerational aspects of sustainability. Significant variation was found in both the disciplines as well as in the responses of interviewees. Life-cycle cost analysis of dwellings built to the Norwegian passive house standard was used to investigate the implications of using alternative discount factors for extended assumed life spans. The results indicated that alternative discount factors have the potential to significantly reduce rental costs while fulfilling the potential Pareto optimality criterion. The alternative discount factors used in the life-cycle cost analysis were later shown to have flaws which limit their usefulness; a methodology for deriving a representative multigenerational discount rate was proposed.

An increasing need to find alternatives to fossil fuels, and a growing awareness of the global warming effect has resulted in substantial research and development on biofuels. Biofuels are being considered a potential substitution of petroleum based fuels in the transport sector.With this increasing interest in biofuels comes the need to establish the environmental effect of the fuels. Results from several life cycle assessments reviewed in this report show that there are some benefits of biofuels in global warming impact compared to conventional fuels. How great this benefit is varies between the studies. Differences in critical issues such as allocation, carbon sequestration, and fertilizer use have significant impact on the results of the life cycle assessments. There is a lack of studies dedicated to investigating other environmental areas. The studies that have, show little consistency in their results, but indicate an increase of damage in categories such as acidification and eutrophication. No consistent results were shown on impact categories such as human toxicity potential or photochemical smog.Second generation fuels are claimed to be more sustainable than first generation fuels. There are many different types of second generation fuels being developed. Research and Development have resulted in technologies such as hydrolysis, pyrolysis, gasification and hydrothermal upgrading . Technology challenges and high costs still exist with these technological solutions, the second generation bio-fuels being 2-3 times more expensive than conventional fuels.Most of the second generation fuels are in their pilot phase, but several successful pilot projects exist for both hydrolysis and gasification. Gasification to produce bio-fuels is especially promising. The company Choren, who uses this technique, is planning to produce and sell their products in 2007. One of the main products of the company is Fischer-Tropsch (FT) diesel.A life cycle assessment on a second generation biofuel was performed. This was done by doing a Hybrid analysis on a Fischer- Tropsch diesel following the gasification route. The Hybrid analysis consists of a foreground and background system. The foreground system comprises important processes in the fuels lifetime. This includes biomass production, transport, production and use of the fuel. The background system contains economic data taken from the Norwegian background. The aim of the LCA is to compare the environmental effects of a second generation biofuel with first generation biofuels, and the impact category chosen in the impact assessment is global warming potential.The results of the work show that the global warming impact throughout the life cycle of the biofuel is 39 eq g/km. This proves to show a considerable reduction in the category, compared to both conventional diesel and average values of first generation biofuels. This implies that Fischer –Tropsch diesel is a more sustainable transport solution, yet more work is suggested to be taken on investigating the overall environmental impact of both second generation and first generation biofuels. .

China's economy has grown at remarkable rates in the last three decades, bringing about big improvements in people's quality of life. On the downside, the increased economic activity has contributed to serious environmental problems, many of which are related to the country's energy system. Focusing particularly on Beijing, this study aims at illuminating how income growth and lifestyle changes relate to energy use in the society. An extended input-output analysis is applied to estimate the direct and indirect household energy consumption (HEC) of Beijing households at different levels of development in the year 2005. Using observations of how HEC varies across income groups in 2005 as a basis, projections of HEC towards 2015 are made. According to the results, the total HEC in Beijing amounts to 42% of the total direct energy use occurring in all sectors within Beijing's geographical boundaries. Hence, a significant portion of the energy use in the society can be linked with consumer activities. For urban residents, indirect influences on energy use are found to be more than three times greater than the direct influences. Mainly due to growing incomes, total HEC in urban Beijing will grow substantially in the period 2005-2015, even with overall efficiency improvements corresponding to the central government's targets. The results indicate that the share of transport related energy use to total HEC will increase significantly. Without major efficiency improvements, huge increases in transport related energy use is to be expected towards 2015. Air conditioners will be the most important single electrical appliance contributing to increased residential electricity consumption in the near future.Due to significant uncertainty, the figures should be taken as rough guides to the magnitude of different types of energy use only. Nonetheless, it is the author's opinion that the study produces valuable insights that can add to our understanding of the underlying drivers of energy use in the Beijing society. The estimates are considered sufficiently accurate to serve as a basis for making some recommendations for improving the energy efficiency of the society. Based on the findings of the study, the author calls on central and local governments to: 1) Further incorporate the important role of consumer behaviour and lifestyle into energy conservation policies; 2) Make strong efforts to mitigate transport related environmental problems, focusing attention both on producers and consumers; 3) Give high priority to constructing energy efficient buildings; 4) Further strengthen and expand the performance standard and labelling scheme for electrical appliances; 5) Consider imposing constraints on the promotion of consumerism by the mass media and advertising industry.