According to the Bruntland Commission sustainable development is defined as “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Sustainable development rests on three pillars, not only environmental sustainability, but also economic as well as social sustainability. In Sweden, large quantities of cut flowers are imported, the industry had a turnover exceeding 900 million SEK in 2021. The global flower production has moved to low-income countries such as Africa or South America, where in many cases poor working conditions and unhealthy working conditions is a fact. This affects both the workers and people in their vicinity. The cut flower industry has a major environmental impact because of its dependence on rapid and often energy-intensive distribution channels and farming. Cut flowers is a product that often get attack by pest and are therefore heavily sprayed with pesticides. All agricultural products imported to the EU must be pest-free, which can lead to an encouragement and over-use of pesticides.  The aim of the study is to, through life cycle analyses see what environmental impact cut flowers have. Is it possible for the industry to become more sustainable by buying Swedish-grown flowers in season and will florists be willing to change their supply? Collection of data was carried out through interviews of farmers and florists. Cut flowers grown outdoor in Sweden showed a third of the environmental impact of a cut flower imported from outside the EU. In both cases, it was transport that provided the largest influencing factor. For the Swedish flowers, it was the private transports that had the greatest impact. As the farms where the flowers grow in many cases often also where the place they were sold and there was often no public transport. For the imported flowers, it was the air transport and refrigerated trucks that had the largest environmental impact. The Swedish cut flower gardens often had a smaller cultivation area, and this affected the amount of flowers they could grow. It was therefore difficult for the florist to get the amount of flowers they needed. The vas life for the Swedish flowers was by some of the florist considered inferior to the imported flowers. Cut flowers can also have a symbolic value and can therefore be hard to change to another sort of flower. It is also more or less impossible to grow Swedish cut flowers outdoors all year, as the climate does not allow it. However, it could be possible to grow other things as branches, gras and vines.

After the Paris agreement 2015 the Energy Commission in Sweden proposed a goal for Sweden of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. The focus in this report has been on how buildings in Sweden could reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Year 2017 the government gave a task for Boverket in Sweden (National Board of Housing, Building and Planning) to investigate the possibility to introduce a climate declaration on buildings. The idea is a life cycle analysis (LCA) should be performed on the building in order to get a building permit. An LCA include all CO2 emissions emitted from resources used for raw material extraction, production of materials, construction site operations, user phase and also the demolition and disposal in the end of life of the building. The first draft from Boverket was published in February 2018 where they recommended a simple declaration. They recommended in the beginning to only include a few components in the declaration, and to only include the production phase. The major interest in this report have been to gain more understanding on how to perform LCAs and also how the LCA result could be used to decrease CO2 emissions. A case study was made on a residential building project called Mården, in Umeå Sweden. The first part in this thesis was to determine the phase in the buildings life cycle with the largest potential for decreasing CO2 emissions. When the LCA was performed on case study building Mården it was difficult to use exact data, since only 20 % of the construction products where declared in an environmental product declaration (EPD). Therefore the other 80 % where approximated with similar products declared in an EPD, or with generic data (general data for a type of product). An EPD is an LCA on a single product and could therefore give exact information on CO2 emissions for a specific product. However, several improvements where implemented in the buildings life cycle and where compared with this reference case. The result from the LCA showed the energy use in the user phase emitted the largest amount of CO2 emissions, and therefore also where the phase with the largest potential for reducing CO2 emissions. When the Swedish district heating mix where replaced with an energy source with 50 % less CO2 emissions, the emissions for the whole life cycle could be decreased with 20 %. Smaller improvements such as more environmental friendlier concrete, shorter transport distance between manufacturer and construction site or less water usage resulted in a decrease by 1.6-7 %. It was though shown these smaller improvement could result in a large decrease of CO2 emissions if more buildings also would improve the same thing. 2.4 million tons of CO2 emissions could for example be reduced in Sweden if 50 % of Sweden’s all new building projects would improve their choice of concrete. To make sure buildings could reduce their CO2 emissions there is important LCAs are performed before the building is constructed, to make sure all phases in the life cycle can be improved. If an LCA will be performed when the building is constructed, it is only possible to improve a few parts in the user phase, since the other phases already have passed. The second part in this thesis was to compare the different LCA softwares; (i) One Click LCA (needs license, from Finland), (ii) e-tool (free, from Australia) and (iii) BM (free, from Sweden). When more exact data were tried to be used in e-tool and One Click LCA the results were similar for the CO2 emissions from the production phase. E-tool only resulted in 6 % higher CO2 emissions in the production phase than One Click LCA. The LCA in the eventual future climate declaration will probably be performed with generic data, since in an early stage the contractors will not have detailed information on their construction products. An LCA was thus performed in each software with generic data, and the result differed a lot. The CO2 emissions from the production phase resulted in 36 % and 23 % less CO2 emissions in BM and e-tool than in One Click LCA. If several softwares will be allowed in this eventual climate declaration, the judgment could be difficult since different generic data is used in each sofware. The generic data were also different for one type of product in a single software, where the CO2 emission could differ with as much as 50 % between two types of generic data for one type of products. This leads to a difficulty when choosing generic data since there will be lack of information on the construction products at the time when this eventual climate declaration should be performed. A main focus for the future development should be on evaluating a standard database that could be used in EU. If a future law will be implemented it could be valuable to declare detailed rules on how to perform the LCA. Since depending on who will perform the LCA different results could occur due to different data used or assumptions on things like products, boundaries or used resource. However, this master thesis has shown there is possible to use the LCA methodology to find solutions for decreasing the CO2 emissions for buildings.

Cob is an earth based building technique that may be an alternative for the construction of new homes in developing countries. Earth based constructions techniques commonly used in the past, like adobe and wattle-and-daub, have increasingly been replaced by buildings using more processed materials commercially available such as bricks or concrete blocks. The cost of such commercial materials is often unreachable for a large part of the population in developing countries. Cob buildings could be an appropriate option in rural areas, where human labor is a less restricted resource compared to monetary capital, and most of the materials needed are locally available. The cob technique is based on a mixture of clay, sand, straw and water that enables the builder to combine different materials and to create a variety of shapes. A recently constructed cob building in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, was studied using screening LCA methodology applied to the construction phase, as well as by applying a diffusion of innovation framework (specifically the five perceived attributes of an innovation). Results regarding fossil CO2 emissions due to material production and material transportation were contrasted to an equivalent concrete block building. The highest contribution to CO2 emissions from the cob building was generated by paints and solvents, and bricks and tiles (cooked earth); whereas in the concrete building it was due to the concrete bricks and iron. According to this case study, cob building technique seems to have the potential to be an affordable option for rural housing in Nicaragua, and at the same time accountable for rather limited emissions of fossil CO2 emissions in its construction phase. At present, some obstacles to the use of cob technique are lack of examples for people to see and experience, and a general limited knowledge on how to work with cob technique. / Cob är en byggteknik med jord som främsta material som kan vara ett alternativ vid byggande av nya bostäder i utvecklingsländer. Några jordkonstruktionstekniker, som adobe och ”bajareque”, var vanligare förr, men har ersatts av byggande med förädlade material som tegel eller betongblock. Kostnaden för dessa material är oftast hög och blir oöverkomlig för en stor del av befolkningen. Cob hus skulle kunna vara ett alternativ på landsbygden, där arbetskraft är en mer tillgänglig resurs än kapital, och de flesta av de material som behövs finns lokalt. Cob tekniken är en blandning av lera, sand, halm och vatten som även kan kombineras med andra material för att skapa olika former. Byggnationsfasen för ett nyligen konstruerat cob hus i Matagalpa, Nicaragua, studerades med en screenande LCA. Valda delar av Rogers teori ”diffusion of innovation” användes (främst de fem attributen för innovationsspridning). Resultaten avseende CO2-utsläpp från produktion och transport av material jämfördes med ett hus i liknande storlek, byggt i betongblock. Det största bidraget till utsläpp av CO2 från cob huset genererades av färger och lösningsmedel, tegel och kakel (bränd jord), medan det i betongblockshuset berodde på betongblock och järn. Enligt denna fallstudie verkar cob byggteknik att ha potential att vara ett prisvärt alternativ för bostäder på landsbygden i Nicaragua, och resulterar i relativt små CO2-utsläpp under byggskedet. Några av de hinder för spridningen av cob tekniken som föreligger för närvarande är brist på exempel för människor att se och uppleva, samt dålig allmän kunskap om hur man arbetar med denna teknik. / Cob es una técnica de construcción en tierra que puede ser una alternativa para la construcción de nuevas viviendas en los países en vía de desarrollo. Algunas de las técnicas de construcciones en tierra como el adobe y el bahareque fueron comunes en el pasado, sin embargo han sido sustituidas por construcciones con materiales procesados como ladrillos o bloques de concreto. El costo de estos materiales suele ser alto volviéndose inasequibles para una gran parte de la población. Las construcciones en cob podrían ser una opción adecuada en las zonas rurales, donde la mano de obra es un recurso abundante a bajo costo, y la mayoría de los materiales necesarios están disponibles a nivel local. La técnica del cob se basa en una mezcla de arcilla, arena, paja y agua que puede ser combinada con otros materiales para crear una gran variedad de formas. La fase de construcción de una casa en cob en Matagalpa, Nicaragua; fue estudiada por medio de un LCA preliminar. Igualmente se utilizó el marco de difusión de la innovación propuesto por Rogers para evaluar los cinco atributos que hacen que esta técnica pueda o no ser difundida en Matagalpa. Los resultados en relación con las emisiones de CO2 por la producción de material y del transporte de material se contrastaron con una casa de dimensiones similares construida en bloque de concreto. La mayor contribución a las emisiones de CO2 de la casa de cob fue generada por las pinturas y solventes, y ladrillos y tejas (tierra cocida), mientras que en la casa de bloque de concreto las emisiones se debieron a los bloques de concreto y al hierro. De acuerdo con este caso de estudio, la técnica de construcción cob parece tener el potencial de ser una opción asequible para la vivienda rural en Nicaragua, generando emisiones de CO2 más bajas que las construcciones de bloque de concreto durante la fase de construcción. En la actualidad, algunos de los obstáculos para la difusión de la técnica del cob son la falta de ejemplos para que las personas puedan ver y experimentar, y un escaso conocimiento general sobre cómo trabajar con esta técnica.

Vid årsskiftet 2022 trädde en ny lag i kraft med syfte att bidra till en lägre klimatpåverkan vid produktion av nya byggnader, denna lag är klimatdeklarationen. Klimatdeklaration bygger på metodiken ifrån en livscykelanalys men är begränsad till att enbart titta på produktskedet och byggproduktionsskedet (A1-A5), då dessa skeden ses som de mest kritiska sett till klimatpåverkan av byggnadens livscykel. Genom att implementera en klimatkalkyl i tidigt skede av byggprocessen med samverkan av samtliga berörda aktörer, beskriver Boverket att byggnadens miljöpåverkan kan påverkas betydligt. Miljöpåverkan av de ingående produkterna av byggnaden redovisas som kg koldioxidekvivalenter per kvadratmeter bruttoarea med data som finns att tillgå som specifika data eller som generiska data. Denna fallstudie har som syfte att besvara hur en totalentreprenörs arbetsprocess har påverkats och vilka utmaningar som tillkommit sedan klimatdeklarationen trätt i kraft. Dessutom är syftet med studien att bidra med en ökad förståelse kring hur implementeringen påverkat berörda. Studien har genomförts genom att granska en fallstudie med hänseende på en entreprenadform, detta har gjorts genom kvalitativ forskningsmetodik. I studien har det hållits semi-strukturerade intervjuer med aktörerna för att få problemformuleringarna besvarade. Entreprenadformen i studien består av en totalentreprenad viket vidare bestod av entreprenören Peab. Konstruktörskonsult och arkitekter har varit medverkande i studien genom intervjuer, dock har de valts att hållas anonyma. En litteraturstudie har även gjorts för att erhålla kunskap kring ämnet. Från de utförda intervjuerna har det framkommit att de berörda aktörerna i fallstudiens entreprenadform berörts varierande av klimatdeklarationens tillträdande. Aktörerna ifrån Peab beskriver sig bli mer berörda framöver då projekten kommer att beröras av lagkravet. Arkitekt och konstruktör beskriver sig inte alls vara berörda av klimatdeklarationen och beskriver att den ekonomiska aspekten fortfarande är avgörande. Sammanfattningsvis har det konstaterats att klimatdeklarationen delvis givit den effekt som den är menad till att ge för en totalentreprenör. Det har dock kunnat konstaterats att den som bär huvudansvaret för upprättningen för klimatdeklarationen är kalkylingenjören. / As of January first, 2022 a new law was implemented to control the environmental impact of the construction industry this law is the climate declaration. This law has its fundamental pillars from what´s known as life cycle analysis but is limited to, as of today, only the stages of (A1-A5) which are defined as the product stage and the construction stage. These stages have the biggest impact on the climate seen from the perspective of a life cycle analysis. The climate impact of building materials is stated as kilogram carbon dioxide equivalent per square meter gross area with available data in forms of specific data or generic data. The purpose of this study is to answer any uncertainties that the climate declaration may entail and the effect it has had on a contractor´s work process. The study was conducted by performing semi structured interviews. The contract form consisted of a main contractor positioned by Peab. By using this research methodology, the issue of the study has been answered. Examining the data from performed interviews, it was stated that the climate declaration had variously affected the roles in the case study. Peab´s actors describe themselves getting more involved with climate declaration work as more projects are being affected by the new requirement. The architect and construction designer seems not to be affected by the climate declaration and mentions that the economic aspect is still the dominant factor. In summary it has been shown that the climate declaration partly has affected the main contractor and that the main contractors engineer for calculations will have the responsibility for establishing the climate declaration.

U.S. water withdrawals have increased slowly since 1980, despite significant growth in the population and economy during this period. This implies that other factors have contributed to offsetting decreases in water withdrawals. The economic input-output life cycle assessment (EIO-LCA) model was used to estimate the total water withdrawal for 135 industrial summary sectors for 1997 and 2002. The change in water withdrawals for the economy from 1997 to 2002 was allocated to changes in five governing factors — population, GDP per capita, water use intensity, production structure, and consumption pattern — using structural decomposition analysis (SDA). The changes in population, GDP per capita and water use intensity increased total water withdrawal, while the changes in production structure and consumption pattern decreased water withdrawals from 1997 to 2002. Consumption pattern change was the largest net contributor to the change in water withdrawals. The counter balancing of these factors is what has kept U.S. water withdrawals relatively constant. To project U.S. water withdrawal for the next 20 years, four scenarios were developed for each of the five governing factors based upon available predictions or historical trends. The total water withdrawals for U.S. 66 aggregated industrial sectors for 2013-2030 were projected using the EIO-LCA model with fixed and changing economic structure, respectively. The structure and consumption pattern were held constant at the 2012 level and the other three factors were varied across time in the EIO-LCA model with fixed economic structure, while all five governing factors were changed across time with changing economic structure. The maximum projected total water withdrawal is 370 trillion gallons for 2030, which is more than 2.5 times the 2005 U.S. water withdrawal, corresponding to a scenario with maximum growth assumptions for all factors considered. The medians of total water withdrawals projected by the models with constant vs. evolving economic structure for 2013-2030 follow a continuous increasing trend, and the projected median values by the two models are comparable. The median of total water withdrawal will reach around 180 trillion gallons in 2030, about 1.2 times the 2005 U.S. water withdrawal. The variance in GDP per capita and water use intensity were the two most significant contributors to the uncertainty in projected total water withdrawals for U.S. industrial sectors. The distinction of consumptive and non-consumptive water use is important for water resource management and assessment of availability and quality of water sources. Consumptive water use coefficients (ratio of consumptive water use to water withdrawal) were estimated by aggregated industrial sectors based on available data. The projected total consumptive water uses for all industrial sectors range from 45-47 trillion gallons in 2013 to 23-51 trillion gallons in 2030 using the EIO-LCA model with fixed economic structure. The median total consumptive water use is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 0.5% during this period. The effects of changes in cooling technology for thermoelectric power generation and irrigation technology for agriculture on changes in consumptive water use for other sectors during 2013-2030 were investigated. Changes in cooling technology do not impact consumptive water use projections for most sectors, but do impact power generation-related sectors. Shifts in irrigation technology do not only affect consumptive water use for agriculture, but also affect significantly the consumptive water use for sectors requiring agricultural products as important supply chain components.

<p>This study includes a life cycle assessment, LCA, on an ecological produced cotton shirt for the company Reflective Circle, which designs ethical and ecological clothes.</p><p>Initially were cotton farming and textile production studied to gather basic knowledge about the processes. Since this shirt is being ecological produced in the whole production chain, we studied what an ecological production means, but also how a conventional production works. When this was done we could start to discuss the differences and similarities between the production of the shirt and general conventional production.</p><p>When the LCA was first initiated, the main focus was on the green house gas emissions from the manure at the cultivation. Thereafter the process steps such as picking, ginning, carding, spinning, weaving and sewing were being studied. The picking is done by hand, but the rest of the processes are handed by machines which consumes energy. This conduce emissions like carbon dioxide, methane gas and nitrous oxide. The cotton farming is settled in Peru, and from there the textile is sent via Sweden to Estonia to become a shirt. This also conduce emissions, which is shown and discussed.</p><p>The assessment describes the exact influence on the environment during the production of the shirt, with just a few exceptions when data has been taken from other sources. This and how other presumptions are affecting the result are discussed in the chapter where insecurity is refereed.</p><p>Our result shows that the production of the shirt is affecting the environment in many ways. The most affected parts are emissions of green house gases from the farming and the use of electricity from the machines in the processes which also gives emissions of green house gases. When the shirt is laundered by the user, he or she is contributing to the use of energy, but this depends on how many times they do it.</p><p>The study ends up with a discussion about our results, how trustworthy it is and what our conclusions are.</p>

<p>The aim of my thesis was to do a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of an average thread tap that is manufactured by Dormer Tools AB, and to create a practical model that the company can use in order to study other thread taps from an environmental perspective.</p><p>The method of LCA is used to investigate the environmental effects of a product during its life cycle. This is a gate-to-grave analysis with focus on steel and thread tap manufacturing, coating procedure, use, waste management and transports. Three common coating types were compared separately. </p><p>Steel manufacturing answers for the highest energy and raw material consumption under the life cycle of the thread tap. Its emissions contribute to global warming, acidification and eutrophication above others. Transport emissions create the most photochemical oxidants (Los Angeles smog).</p><p>The study has certain limitations, nevertheless I think that it fulfills its aims, and it can – along with the model – be used as the basis of more environmentally adapted product choices at Dormer Tools.</p>

The aim of my thesis was to do a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of an average thread tap that is manufactured by Dormer Tools AB, and to create a practical model that the company can use in order to study other thread taps from an environmental perspective. The method of LCA is used to investigate the environmental effects of a product during its life cycle. This is a gate-to-grave analysis with focus on steel and thread tap manufacturing, coating procedure, use, waste management and transports. Three common coating types were compared separately. Steel manufacturing answers for the highest energy and raw material consumption under the life cycle of the thread tap. Its emissions contribute to global warming, acidification and eutrophication above others. Transport emissions create the most photochemical oxidants (Los Angeles smog). The study has certain limitations, nevertheless I think that it fulfills its aims, and it can – along with the model – be used as the basis of more environmentally adapted product choices at Dormer Tools.

This study includes a life cycle assessment, LCA, on an ecological produced cotton shirt for the company Reflective Circle, which designs ethical and ecological clothes. Initially were cotton farming and textile production studied to gather basic knowledge about the processes. Since this shirt is being ecological produced in the whole production chain, we studied what an ecological production means, but also how a conventional production works. When this was done we could start to discuss the differences and similarities between the production of the shirt and general conventional production. When the LCA was first initiated, the main focus was on the green house gas emissions from the manure at the cultivation. Thereafter the process steps such as picking, ginning, carding, spinning, weaving and sewing were being studied. The picking is done by hand, but the rest of the processes are handed by machines which consumes energy. This conduce emissions like carbon dioxide, methane gas and nitrous oxide. The cotton farming is settled in Peru, and from there the textile is sent via Sweden to Estonia to become a shirt. This also conduce emissions, which is shown and discussed. The assessment describes the exact influence on the environment during the production of the shirt, with just a few exceptions when data has been taken from other sources. This and how other presumptions are affecting the result are discussed in the chapter where insecurity is refereed. Our result shows that the production of the shirt is affecting the environment in many ways. The most affected parts are emissions of green house gases from the farming and the use of electricity from the machines in the processes which also gives emissions of green house gases. When the shirt is laundered by the user, he or she is contributing to the use of energy, but this depends on how many times they do it. The study ends up with a discussion about our results, how trustworthy it is and what our conclusions are.

The pulp- and paper production is a very energy intensive industry sector. Both Sweden and the U.S. are major pulpandpaper producers. This report examines the energy and the CO2-emission connected with the pulp- and paperindustry for the two countries from a lifecycle perspective.New technologies make it possible to increase the electricity production in the integrated pulp- andpaper mill through black liquor gasification and a combined cycle (BLGCC). That way, the mill canproduce excess electricity, which can be sold and replace electricity produced in power plants. In thisprocess the by-products that are formed at the pulp-making process is used as fuel to produce electricity.In pulp- and paper mills today the technology for generating energy from the by-product in aTomlinson boiler is not as efficient as it could be compared to the BLGCC technology. Scenarios havebeen designed to investigate the results from using the BLGCC technique using a life cycle analysis.Two scenarios are being represented by a 1994 mill in the U.S. and a 1994 mill in Sweden.The scenariosare based on the average energy intensity of pulp- and paper mills as operating in 1994 in the U.S.and Sweden respectively. The two other scenarios are constituted by a »reference mill« in the U.S. andSweden using state-of-the-art technology. We investigate the impact of varying recycling rates and totalenergy use and CO2-emissions from the production of printing and writing paper. To economize withthe wood and that way save trees, we can use the trees that are replaced by recycling in a biomassgasification combined cycle (BIGCC) to produce electricity in a power station. This produces extra electricitywith a lower CO2 intensity than electricity generated by, for example, coal-fired power plants.The lifecycle analysis in this thesis also includes the use of waste treatment in the paper lifecycle. Both Sweden and theU.S. are countries that recycle paper. Still there is a lot of paper waste, this paper is a part of the countries municipalsolid waste (MSW). A lot of the MSW is landfilled, but parts of it are incinerated to extract electricity. The thesis hasdesigned special scenarios for the use of MSW in the lifecycle analysis.This report is studying and comparing two different countries and two different efficiencies on theBLGCC in four different scenarios. This gives a wide survey and points to essential parameters to specificallyreflect on, when making assumptions in a lifecycle analysis. The report shows that there arethree key parameters that have to be carefully considered when making a lifecycle analysis of wood inan energy and CO2-emission perspective in the pulp- and paper mill in the U.S. and in Sweden. First,there is the energy efficiency in the pulp- and paper mill, then the efficiency of the BLGCC and last theCO2 intensity of the electricity displaced by BIGCC or BLGCC generatedelectricity. It also show that with the current technology that we havetoday, it is possible to produce CO2 free paper with a waste paper amountup to 30%. The thesis discusses the system boundaries and the assumptions.Further and more detailed research, including amongst others thesystem boundaries and forestry, is recommended for more specificanswers.