The social impacts of products: a review

Many agree that every product has economic, environmental, and social impacts on those who use and produce them. While environmental and economic impacts are well known and measures have been developed, our understanding of social impacts is still developing. While efforts have been made to identify social impacts, academics, and practitioners still disagree on which phenomena should be included, and few have focused on the impacts of products specifically compared with programs, policies, or other projects. The primary contribution of this review essay is to integrate scholarship from a wide array of social science and engineering disciplines that categorizes the social phenomena that are affected by products. Specifically, we identify social impacts and processes including population change, family, gender, education, stratification, employment, health and well-being, human rights, networks and communication, conflict and crime, and cultural identity/heritage. These categories are important because they can be used to inform academics and practitioners alike who are interested in creating products that generate positive social benefits for users.     

Evaluating Pollution Prevention Progress (P2P)

P2P (Pollution Prevention Progress) is a computer-based tool that supports the comparison of process and product alternatives in terms of environmental impacts. This tool provides screening-level information for use in process design and in product life cycle assessment (LCA). Twenty one impact categories and data for approximately 3,000 chemicals are represented in the default database of the new release, P2P Mark III. These data help identify which emissions may require further, more sophisticated, characterisation in the different impact categories. In this paper, we primarily focus on the persistence-bioaccumulation toxicity (PBT) methodology adopted for the classification of chemicals in the context of (eco-)toxicological impacts. This classification methodology is cross-compared with a characterisation approach that provides a more complete model-based representation of the source-to-effect (or environmental) mechanism, but for fewer chemicals. To ensure that the quantity of the emission, and not just chemical hazard, is taken into account the comparison is based on a case study for the production of BDO (1,4-butanediol). Insights are presented independently for both the chemical processing stage, as well as from a broader life cycle perspective. Software available from:     

离心式冷水机组生命周期影响评价及关键影响因素分析

离心式冷水机组市场发展迅速,其生命周期中对环境产生的负面影响也日益受到关注。为了辨识离心式冷水机组全生命周期内环境影响的主要阶段和关键影响因素,为产品的优化设计提供依据,运用生命周期评价方法(LCA),选取CML 2002评价模型对离心式冷水机组的原材料获取、生产、运输、使用和回收再利用全生命周期过程的环境影响进行了定量评价,并对相关参数进行了敏感性分析。评价结果表明:机组整个生命周期环境影响主要体现在气候变暖和酸化,在同温层臭氧减少、富营养化、不可再生资源消耗等方面影响稍小;在造成的环境影响方面,使用和维护阶段的电能消耗是主要环节。敏感性分析结果表明,机组的制冷剂类型、能效水平和运行时间是机组环境影响的关键影响因素。     

Combining U.S.-based prioritization tools to improve screening level accountability for environmental impact: The case of the chemical manufacturing industry

There are two quantitative indicators that are most widely used to assess the extent of compliance of industrial facilities with environmental regulations: the quantity of hazardous waste generated and the amount of toxics released. These indicators, albeit useful in terms of some environmental monitoring, fail to account for direct or indirect effects on human and environmental health, especially when aggregating total quantity of releases for a facility or industry sector. Thus, there is a need for a more comprehensive approach that can prioritize a particular chemical (or industry sector) on the basis of its relevant environmental performance and impact on human health. Accordingly, the objective of the present study is to formulate an aggregation of tools that can simultaneously capture multiple effects and several environmental impact categories. This approach allows us to compare and combine results generated with the aid of select U.S.-based quantitative impact assessment tools, thereby supplementing compliance-based metrics such as data from the U.S. Toxic Release Inventory. A case study, which presents findings for the U.S. chemical manufacturing industry, is presented to illustrate the aggregation of these tools. Environmental impacts due to both upstream and manufacturing activities are also evaluated for each industry sector. The proposed combinatorial analysis allows for a more robust evaluation for rating and prioritizing the environmental impacts of industrial waste.     

书刊胶印生产工艺生命周期评价案例研究

采用生命周期影响评价末端计量模型LIME,对辽宁大连地区书刊胶印生产过程中的能耗、物耗及其各类排放等进行了环境影响量化分析。通过对评价结果的分析比较,指出各工序的主要环境影响因素,从而对书刊胶印的工艺设计、生产及其废弃物回收处理等各个阶段提出了具体的改善建议。     

The Role of Household Food Waste in Comparing Environmental Impacts of Packaging Alternatives

This paper examines the environmental impacts of food waste and the influence that packaging alternatives can have on causing food waste. This paper presents the results of three life cycle assessment case studies on packed food products. The life cycle assessments were conducted for ham, dark bread and Soygurt drink (fermented soy‐based drink). In each case study, the environmental impacts of the products were assessed with different assumptions about the packaging sizes and alternative materials. The studies especially considered the environmental impacts resulting from food waste generated by consumers as a function of the variable packaging options. The food waste of other parts of the production chain of the studied products was also taken into account. A consumer survey was carried out to estimate the amounts of product waste generated in Finnish households connected to the three investigated products. The environmental impacts of the food products, household food waste and packaging were modelled by scenarios with varying rates of household food waste and different waste management options. The results indicated that the significance of the production and post‐consumer life of packaging was relatively low for climate change, eutrophication and acidification, in comparison with the production chain of the ham, dark bread and Soygurt. According to the results, packaging solutions that minimize the waste generation in households as well as in distribution and retail will lead to the lowest environmental impacts of the entire product‐packaging chain. Therefore, it is important to design packages that protect the food properly and allow the consumer to use the product fully. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

水泥生产中矿渣综合利用的环境负荷分析研究

本研究采用生命周期评价方法定量化利用矿渣生产水泥的环境影响潜力,并与硅酸盐水泥进行对比分析,据此辨识水泥生产中矿渣综合利用的环境热点与改进潜力。研究结果显示,利用矿渣生产水泥的环境负荷相对于硅酸盐水泥降低15％,同时可以避免矿渣处置造成的环境影响。此外,研究证明矿渣在水泥中利用的相关环节,生产过程燃煤燃烧的直接排放与消耗电力的间接排放是造成环境影响的主要来源。因此,降低水泥生产能耗与增加余热回收率是降低环境影响的最有效措施。根据分析,若能达到国际先进化水平15．6％的余热回收率,可进一步使水泥的环境负荷降低6％左右。     

Environmental impact assessment in an uncertain environment

'Green' manufacturing has become an important issue in industry, driven by regulations governing manufacturing emissions, growing worldwide environmental certification requirements (ISO 14000) and an emerging consumer preference for ecolabel products. Establishing a quantitative and effective assessment model to assess the environmental impact of manufacturing processes for a product has become important. This paper focuses on analysing the uncertainty of weighting factors in an environmental impact assessment and applying fuzzy set theory to determine the vague or fuzzy weighting factors of the various environmental impact categories. A case study demonstrates that the fuzzy set-based model can effectively account for the vagueness and uncertainty of information being used for environmental impact assessments. The proposed fuzzy model is useful, not only for evaluating the environmental impact of a manufacturing process, but also for selecting processes when environmental impact is one of the factors to be considered.     

A novel framework for analyzing the green value of food supply chain based on life cycle assessment

The environmental impact is one of the major pillars of concerns when addressing the sustainability of food supply chain. In life cycle assessment of food supply chain, a particular environmental impact category from farming to distribution is aggregated. These values are widely used in determining which supply chain is performing more environmentally sound on the basis of a particular impact category. However, when different categories of environmental impacts are represented in one matrix, different impact categories can exhibit increasing and decreasing trends simultaneously for the same product. Moreover, different impact categories have different units of measurement. All of these factors make it difficult to clearly prefer one supply chain to the other. Therefore, a quantifiable indicator is desirable for each individual product which can represent all impact categories for a single product through a single index and can be easily comparable during decision making. This paper presents a new framework to compute a single index based on Life cycle assessment using vector space theory. This index can be utilized to compare the environmental sustainability among various food supply chains. The index is named as green value of a supply chain. The use of this proposed green value is explained through three case studies with different goals, scopes, system boundaries, and functional units. It is also shown that how the order of green value varies by changing the functional unit of the same product. The contribution of green value is the better interpretation of Life cycle assessment result for the purpose of decision making and is easily understandable to customers, manufacturers, policy makers, and other stakeholders.     

A life cycle methodology for mapping the flows of pollutants in the urban environment

This paper presents an integrated life cycle methodology for mapping the flows of pollutants in the urban environment, following the pollutants from their sources through the environment to receptors. The sources of pollution that can be considered by this methodology include products, processes and human activities. Life cycle assessment (LCA), substance flow analysis (SFA), fate and transport modelling (F&TM) and geographical information systems (GIS) have been used as tools for these purposes. A mathematical framework has been developed to enable linking and integration of LCA and SFA. The main feature of the framework is a distinction between the foreground and background systems, where the foreground system includes pollution sources of primary interest in the urban environment and the background comprises all other supporting activities occurring elsewhere in the life cycle. Applying the foreground–background approach, SFA is used to track specific pollutants in the urban environment (foreground) from different sources. LCA is applied to quantify emissions of a number of different pollutants and their impacts in both the urban (foreground) and in the wider environment (background). Therefore, two “pollution vectors" are generated: one each by LCA and SFA. The former comprises all environmental burdens or impacts generated by a source of interest on a life cycle basis and the latter is defined by the flows of a particular burden (substance or pollutant) generated by different sources in the foreground. The vectors are related to the “unit of analysis" which represents a modified functional unit used in LCA and defines the level of activity of the pollution source of interest. A further methodological development has also included integration of LCA and SFA with F&TM and GIS. A four-step methodology is proposed to enable spatial mapping of pollution from sources through the environment to receptors. The approach involves the use of GIS to map sources of pollution, application of the LCA–SFA approach to define sources of interest and quantify environmental burdens and impacts on a life-cycle basis. This is followed by F&TM to track pollution through the environment and by the quantification of site-specific impacts on human health and the environment. The application of the integrated methodology and the mathematical framework is illustrated by a hypothetical example involving four pollution sources in a city: incineration of MSW, manufacture of PVC, car travel and truck freight.     

On the simulation,economic analysis,and life cycle assessment of batch-mode organic solvent recovery alternatives for the pharmaceutical industry

This study explores design alternatives for the purification and possible reuse of low-volume organic solvents waste streams in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Solvent use has a large impact on the life cycle of pharmaceutical processes, as typically 80–90% of the total mass used in the production of an active pharmaceutical ingredient is attributed to solvent use. Solvents are not consumed in pharmaceutical processes so they exit the process as waste. These waste streams are usually disposed of using incineration; therefore, generating significant life cycle emissions from disposal and replacement of virgin solvent. Solvent recovery efforts are generally limited to large-volume waste streams. However, results show that solvents in low-volume streams can also be economically recovered using a versatile multi-campaign solvent recovery skid. Three different solvent waste streams were evaluated, and 85.3% reduction in total emissions and 86.3% reduction in operating costs were achieved. Investment in the solvent recovery system was determined to have a payback period of 4.5 years and a 28% IRR over 10 years. A life cycle impact assessment shows impacts on the human health, ecosystems, and resources categories have been reduced by 82.4, 85.1, and 87.1%, respectively.     

Choice of Life Cycle Assessment Software Can Impact Packaging System Decisions

A number of software packages are available that are designed to facilitate making environmental comparisons between different packaging options, to facilitate ‘green’ packaging design and assessment of the environmental aspect of sustainability. Some of these (e.g. SimaPro and GaBi) are full‐fledged ISO 14040/14044‐compliant programs for life cycle assessment (LCA). Others are more limited, but are designed to be much simpler to use (e.g. COMPASS and Package Modeling). A systematic comparison of the evaluation of several packaging systems using COMPASS, SimaPro, GaBi, and Package Modeling found significant discrepancies in LCA results from different software systems. Availability of common impact categories among the software limited comparisons to four categories: greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel/non‐renewable energy, eutrophication, and water depletion. Given a common set of basic packaging containers as input, results from the LCA software systems being studied disagreed on which container had the greatest environmental impact, and in some cases results were more than an order of magnitude different between software. Discrepancies in results occurred in all four impact categories, and all four software systems disagreed with each other at multiple points in the comparisons. If there is to be increasing use of LCA analysis in guiding packaging design, this issue must be fully understood and resolved. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Environmental assessment of different photo-Fenton approaches for commercial reactive dye removal

An environmental study using life cycle assessment (LCA) has been applied to three bench-scale wastewater treatments for Cibacron Red FN-R hetero-bireactive dye removal: artificial light photo-Fenton process, solar driven photo-Fenton process and artificial light photo-Fenton process coupled to a biological treatment. The study is focused on electricity and chemicals consumption, transports and atmosphere and water emissions generated by the different processes involved. Results show that the artificial light photo-Fenton process is the worst treatment in terms of environmental impact. On the other hand, both solar driven and coupled to biological photo-Fenton processes reduce significantly the environmental damage, although none can be identified as the best in all impact categories. The major environmental impact is attributed to the H2O2 consumption and to the electrical energy consumption to run the UVA lamp. An economic analysis of the different photo-Fenton processes has also been performed and the results are discussed together with those obtained from the environmental assessment.     

生物质增强聚乙烯醇在食品包装领域的应用研究进展

目的 研究定制猫眼彩盒的生产对环境的影响,为此类型包装材料对环境的影响评估以及生产工艺改进提供参考。方法 采用生命周期评价(LCA)方法定性、定量分析其对环境(9个环境因素)的影响,在e-Footprint软件上,在线完成全部生命周期评价,包括建模、计算分析、数据质量评估和LCA结果发布。结果 该类型产品对初级能源消耗、水资源消耗和气候变化的影响较大。每个彩盒消耗0.71 MJ初级能源和0.35 kg水,排放0.05 kg影响气候变化的气体。其中,白卡纸和定制猫眼膜的初级能源消耗占比分别为37%和35%,水资源消耗的79%来自白卡纸生产,影响气候变化气体的排放占比分别为29%和25%。结论 通过优化白卡纸和定制猫眼膜材料、结构以及生产工艺流程,可降低定制猫眼彩盒的能源消耗(含初级能源和水资源),减少温室效应气体的排放。     

Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Packaging Systems for Extended Shelf Life Milk

The aim of this study is to carry out a comparative analysis of the environmental impact of different packaging systems used for extended shelf life milk. The analysis, carried out exploiting the life cycle assessment approach, takes into account the packaging manufacturing process, the food packaging process, the transport phases and the end‐of‐life management of the different packaging systems. The packaging end‐of‐life is modelled by considering three possible options, such as recycling, thermo‐valorization with energy recovery and landfill. One litre of extended shelf life milk is used as the reference unit, while multilayer cartons, polyethylene terephthalate bottles labelled with shrink sleeve film and high‐density polyethylene bottles are analysed as the packaging types. The key characteristics of each component of the three packaging systems were either provided by packaging manufacturers or derived from data available in literature. The evaluation of the end‐of‐life impact was performed considering the Italian scenario, exploiting, in particular, the data provided by specific Italian consortia. Other data for the inventory analysis phase were extrapolated from the SimaPro databases (e.g. Ecoinvent or Plastic Europe Database). Cumulative energy demand and CML2001 were adopted as the impact assessment methods. The results obtained show that the multilayer carton system is the less environmentally impactful option for almost all the considered impact categories and that its environmental impacts are, on average, more than 12% lower than high‐density polyethylene system and more than 34% lower than polyethylene terephthalate with shrink sleeve label. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

TRACI 2.0: the tool for the reduction and assessment of chemical and other environmental impacts 2.0

TRACI 2.0, the Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and other environmental Impacts 2.0, has been expanded and developed for sustainability metrics, life cycle impact assessment, industrial ecology, and process design impact assessment for developing increasingly sustainable products, processes, facilities, companies, and communities. TRACI 2.0 allows the quantification of stressors that have potential effects, including ozone depletion, global warming, acidification, eutrophication, tropospheric ozone (smog) formation, human health criteria-related effects, human health cancer, human health noncancer, ecotoxicity, and fossil fuel depletion effects. Research is going on to quantify the use of land and water in a future version of TRACI. The original version of TRACI released in August 2002 (Bare et al. J Ind Ecol 6:49–78, 2003) has been used in many prestigious applications including: the US Green Building Council’s LEED Certification (US Green Building Council, Welcome to US Green Building Council, 2008), the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s BEES (Building for Environment and Economic Sustainability) (Lippiatt, BEES 4.0: building for environmental and economic sustainability technical manual and user guide, 2007) which is used by US EPA for Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (US Environmental Protection Agency, Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP), 2008d), the US Marine Corps’ EKAT (Environmental Knowledge and Assessment Tool) for military and nonmilitary uses (US Marine Corps, Environmental knowledge and assessment tool (EKAT): first time user’s guide, 2007), and within numerous college curriculums in engineering and design departments.     

Eco-redesign of a personal electronic product subject to the energy-using product directive

It cannot be denied that environmental consciousness is becoming important. Ironically, legislation is probably the most satisfactory driver for pushing manufacturers to take environmental concerns into design considerations. In fact, the European Union introduced a new law (directive 2005/32/EC) for regulating the environmental consequences of all energy-using products (EuPs) in August 2007, the scope of which covers all products that rely on energy sources in any form for operation. Design alternatives are required in the product development stage so that environmental concerns can be considered as a decision parameter. In complying with the directive, life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a useful tool to draw conclusions and to compare the performance of alternatives. In this connection, a case study is carried out to assess the environmental impact of a personal electronic product through LCA, subject to the scope of the stated directive. The objectives of this paper are threefold: (i) to report the case in relation to the directive; (ii) to summarise the results of the LCA accordingly; and (iii) to suggest a new conceptual design and to compare the LCA of this new design with the original design.     

The life cycle assessment of a telecommunications semiconductorlaser

Life cycle assessment is a technical management tool that can help quantify the environmental impacts associated with products or processes. For example, it relates the energy and materials used or during the manufacture, distribution, operation and disposal of a product to their impact on the environment as fossil reserve depletion, ozone depletion, landfill volume, etc. This paper focuses on the practicalities of conducting a life cycle assessment on a semiconductor communications laser     

Establishing political impact assessment: revisiting contemporary approaches with Bangladesh cases

Abstract

Despite the enormous significance of differentiated interests and power relations among the stakeholders in development interventions, political impact does not receive adequate attention and space in existing environmental impact assessment and social impact assessment frameworks. The goal of political impact assessment is to ensure democratization, participation, equity; human rights and understand the marginalization process, conflict and cooperation. Inadequate focus on political impacts like participation, marginalization and democratization could have severe impacts like increasing vulnerability and inequality. Using qualitative approaches, this study demonstrates that political impacts like lack of participation, democratization, access to service delivery and violation of human rights created and is predicted to create marginalization in case of Jamuna Bridge and Padma Bridge in Bangladesh. The paper argues that political impacts needs to be emphasized and assessed separately for facilitating more equitable distribution of benefits of infrastructure project and mitigating marginalization of individuals and communities.     

Safety,health or the environment--which comes first?

This paper describes the development and application of two integrated models which can be used for assessing the life cycle risk (to life) and environmental impact of a number of possible concept options for new offshore oil and gas developments. The two models can also be used for ranking the designs in terms of lowest human risk and environmental impact. The paper also gives values/criteria for both risks to safety, health and the environment by which the total safety, health and environmental assessment/impact may be balanced as a whole. The paper illustrates the use of the models and shows that the pragmatic or cosmetic improvement to safety, health or the environment may not be advantageous to the overall safety, health and environmental objectives. While the models were developed originally for offshore installations, the basic framework can be readily adapted for use on onshore petrochemical processes.