Speaker
Description
The transition to a sustainable and low-fossil carbon society requires a variety of investments. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a useful and widely acknowledged tool for comparing the environmental impacts of new and existing technologies to support the decision making. Although the primary rationale for carrying an LCA is to anticipate the consequences of new investment decisions, many LCAs fail to reflect the future in which these decisions will be operating and are based on the context applied at the time of the study. This is true for both foreground (studied system) and background (generic activities) data. The latter, however, is most often stemming from state-of-the-art life cycle inventory (LCI) database and not established by the LCA practitioner. As a result, its prospective attributes are more likely to be neglected.
In recent years, researchers and practitioners in the field have started recognizing this flaw and a variety of methods has been developed to incorporate the aspect of the future to incorporate prospective and time-dependent background data for LCA. However, despite the numerous advancements, most of the existing studies focus on electricity and energy sector and moreover, do not challenge the underlying decision-making paradigm defining the competitiveness of technologies over one another based primarily on economic aspects such as cost-competitiveness.
Through the first part of the study, the limitations of the existing mainstream future scenarios in global environmental scenario studies (7 studies and 23 scenarios) are shown. Through constructing causal loop diagrams for each reviewed study, the variables with the greatest number of causal connections, the “cause” and “effect” variables, and the most reported cause-effect relationships across all studies were identified. Moreover, the study found that all the reviewed studies share a limited worldview where the economic dimension is the dominant consideration, influencing the decision-making and defining future sustainability.
In a future that enables a transition to a low-fossil carbon economy, there is a need for different decision-making paradigms, where factors other than economic aspects, such as social and environmental aspects, are considered in priority for decision-making. Under this alternative decision-making paradigm, less profitable technologies may not be discarded or be classified as low priority if they are “efficient” in other environmental and social dimensions.
To bridge this gap, the second part of the study proposes a framework for systematically selecting background data for prospect LCAs by adopting alternative decision-making paradigms. This affects the whole LCA structure beyond the mere choice of background data and the framework is designed to include these interactions, keep consistency in the developed storylines, provide transparency and broad operationality for LCA practitioners and applicable beyond the electricity and overall energy sector. A modular block approach is demonstrated by combining the alternative decision-making paradigms with the key components critical in conducting prospective LCA, which forms scenarios with consistent storylines.
Furthermore, in the third part of the study, an extensive full LCA is performed for the sustainable aviation fuel case study for seven technological pathways under six scenarios, using the previously proposed framework. The process and the results are compared with LCA results using a conventional method. The aim is to demonstrate that the difference made in LCA data selection due to alternative decision-making paradigms leads to highly different results compared to LCA results under the current mainstream decision-making paradigm, proving the necessity of the use of such a framework that adopts multiple decision-making paradigms in LCA.
References
[1] B.M. Zimmermann, H. Dura, M.J. Baumann, M.R. Weil, Prospective time-resolved LCA of fully electric supercap vehicles in Germany, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management. 11 (2015) 425–434. https://doi.org/10.1002/ieam.1646.
[2] C. Vadenbo, D. Tonini, V. Burg, T.F. Astrup, O. Thees, S. Hellweg, Environmental optimization of biomass use for energy under alternative future energy scenarios for Switzerland, Biomass and Bioenergy. 119 (2018) 462–472. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2018.10.001.
[3] Z. Navas-Anguita, D. García-Gusano, D. Iribarren, Prospective Life Cycle Assessment of the Increased Electricity Demand Associated with the Penetration of Electric Vehicles in Spain, Energies. 11 (2018) 1185. https://doi.org/10.3390/en11051185.
[4] A. Mendoza Beltran, B. Cox, C. Mutel, D.P. Vuuren, D. Font Vivanco, S. Deetman, O.Y. Edelenbosch, J. Guinée, A. Tukker, When the Background Matters: Using Scenarios from Integrated Assessment Models in Prospective Life Cycle Assessment, Journal of Industrial Ecology. (2018) jiec.12825. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12825.
[5] B. Cox, C.L. Mutel, C. Bauer, A. Mendoza Beltran, D.P. van Vuuren, Uncertain Environmental Footprint of Current and Future Battery Electric Vehicles, Environ. Sci. Technol. 52 (2018) 4989–4995. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.8b00261.
[6] B. Cox, C. Bauer, A. Mendoza Beltran, D.P. van Vuuren, C.L. Mutel, Life cycle environmental and cost comparison of current and future passenger cars under different energy scenarios, Applied Energy. 269 (2020) 115021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115021.
[7] S.H. Lee, L. Hamelin, Unravelling global future scenarios in the perspective of bioeconomy planning, Biomass and Bioenergy. 168 (2023) 106670. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2022.106670.
[8] R. Sacchi, T. Terlouw, K. Siala, A. Dirnaichner, C. Bauer, B. Cox, C. Mutel, V. Daioglou, G. Luderer, PRospective EnvironMental Impact asSEment (premise): A streamlined approach to producing databases for prospective life cycle assessment using integrated assessment models, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. 160 (2022) 112311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2022.112311.
[9] B. Maes, R. Sacchi, B. Steubing, M. Pizzol, A. Audenaert, B. Craeye, M. Buyle, Prospective consequential Life Cycle Assessment: Identifying the future marginal suppliers using Integrated Assessment Models, Chemistry, 2023. https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv-2023-300bk.
[10] P. Su-ungkavatin, Assessing the environmental performance of future sustainable aviation systems: methodological development and evaluation by life cycle assessment, INSA Toulouse, 2022.
[11] S. Sala, A.M. Amadei, A. Beylot, F. Ardente, The evolution of life cycle assessment in European policies over three decades, Int J Life Cycle Assess. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-021-01893-2.
[12] B. Maes, A. Audenaert, B. Craeye, M. Buyle, Consequential ex-ante life cycle assessment on clinker production in the EU: How will the future influence its environmental impact?, Journal of Cleaner Production. 315 (2021) 128081. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128081.
[13] T. Gibon, R. Wood, A. Arvesen, J.D. Bergesen, S. Suh, E.G. Hertwich, A Methodology for Integrated, Multiregional Life Cycle Assessment Scenarios under Large-Scale Technological Change, Environ. Sci. Technol. 49 (2015) 11218–11226. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5b01558.
[14] L. Vandepaer, K. Treyer, C. Mutel, C. Bauer, B. Amor, The integration of long-term marginal electricity supply mixes in the ecoinvent consequential database version 3.4 and examination of modeling choices, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. 24 (2019) 1409–1428. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-018-1571-4.
[15] S.H. Lee, L. Hamelin, Unravelling Global Future Scenarios in the Perspective of Bioeconomy Planning, (2021). https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/mb68h.
[16] FAO, The future of food and agriculture - Alternative pathways to 2050., Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, 2018. http://www.fao.org/global-perspectives-studies/resources/detail/en/c/1157074/.
[17] Global trends 2030: alternative worlds: a publication of the National Intelligence Council, National Intelligence Council, December 2012, 2012.
[18] International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2019, OECD/IEA, Paris, 2019. https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2019.
[19] R. M’barek, G. Philippidis, T. Ronzon, Alternative Global Transition Pathways to 2050: Prospects for the Bioeconomy - An application of the MAGNET model with SDG insights, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2019. doi:10.2760/594847.
[20] OECD, Global Material Resources Outlook to 2060: Economic Drivers and Environmental Consequences, OECD, Paris, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264307452-en.
[21] K. Riahi, D.P. van Vuuren, E. Kriegler, J. Edmonds, B.C. O’Neill, S. Fujimori, N. Bauer, K. Calvin, R. Dellink, O. Fricko, W. Lutz, A. Popp, J.C. Cuaresma, S. Kc, M. Leimbach, L. Jiang, T. Kram, S. Rao, J. Emmerling, K. Ebi, T. Hasegawa, P. Havlik, F. Humpenöder, L.A. Da Silva, S. Smith, E. Stehfest, V. Bosetti, J. Eom, D. Gernaat, T. Masui, J. Rogelj, J. Strefler, L. Drouet, V. Krey, G. Luderer, M. Harmsen, K. Takahashi, L. Baumstark, J.C. Doelman, M. Kainuma, Z. Klimont, G. Marangoni, H. Lotze-Campen, M. Obersteiner, A. Tabeau, M. Tavoni, The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: An overview, Global Environmental Change. 42 (2017) 153–168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.05.009.
[22] World Economic Forum, Shaping the Future of Global Food Systems: A Scenarios Analysis, World Economic Forum, Cologny/Geneva, 2017. https://www.weforum.org/whitepapers/shaping-the-future-of-global-food-systems-a-scenarios-analysis.
[23] K. Raworth, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017.
| Keywords | climate change, sustainability, life cycle assessment, lca, propsective lca, bioeconomy, sustainable aviation system, sustainable aviation fuel |
|---|
