News

A historic exercise book

August 20, 2019 by Bo Weidema

References to my ‘ancient’ 1994 exercise book come up from time to time. Therefore we have today decided to share a simple scan of this book, to make it available for discussion within the LCA community. Someone might take inspiration for an updated version with modern LCA techniques?

The book contains two fictional LCA reports on baby diapers, which make use of the same data, interpreting these differently. This causes diverging results. The book was intended to allow students to discover by themselves the implications of certain methodological choices or assumptions.

The book is very outdated in many respects (eg. the impact assessment methodologies and the state of data gathering and interpretation). But the overall teaching methodology seems to be still valid. Nothing like ‘walking the talk’ to improve learning. This is even to this day our concept at International Life Cycle Academy.

Two fictional life cycle assessments 1994 (pdf, 30 MB)

Life Cycle Academy Awards 2019

August 13, 2019 by ILCA

The following papers have been nominated for the 2019 Awards (listed alphabetically; nominated author in bold, some have been nominated for more than one category).

If you are attending LCM 2019, come by the PRé booth at 13:00 on Monday 2nd September where the three Academy Award winners will be celebrated at a little award ceremony. The rest of the conference, you can find the list of the winners at the PRé booth.

Category: Best contribution to policy application of LCA

Arvidsson R, Tillman A, Sandén B A, Janssen M, Nordelöf A, Kushnir D, Molander S.: Environmental Assessment of Emerging Technologies: Recommendations for Prospective LCA. Journal of Industrial Ecology 22:1286-1294.

Chaudhary A, Brooks T M.: Land Use Intensity-Specific Global Characterization Factors to Assess Product Biodiversity Footprints. Environmental Science & Technology 52(9):5094-5104.

Cooper J, Stamford L, Azapagic A.: Sustainability of UK shale gas in comparison with other electricity options: Current situation and future scenarios. Science of the Total Environment 619-620:804–814.

Cucurachi S, Schiess S, Froemelt A, Hellweg S. Noise footprint from personal land‐based mobility. Journal of Industrial Ecology 2019:1-11.

Roibás L, Loiseau E, Hospido A.: On the feasibility and interest of applying territorial Life Cycle Assessment to determine subnational normalisation factors. Science of the Total Environment 626:1086–1099.

Hutner P, Helbig C, Stindt D, Thorenz A, Tuma A.: Transdisciplinary Development of a Life Cycle-Based Approach to Measure and Communicate Waste Prevention Effects in Local Authorities. Journal of Industrial Ecology 22(5):1050-1065.

Larrea‐Gallegos G, Vázquez‐Rowe I, Wiener H, Kahhat R.: Applying the Technology Choice Model in Consequential Life Cycle Assessment: A Case Study in the Peruvian Agricultural Sector. Journal of Industrial Ecology 23:601-614.

Lehmann A, Berger M, Finkbeiner M.: Life Cycle Based CO2 Emission Credits: Options for Improving the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Current Tailpipe Emissions Regulation in the Automotive Industry. Journal of Industrial Ecology 22:1066-1079.

Ridoutt B G, Hadjikakou M, Nolan M, Bryan B A.: From water-use to water-scarcity footprinting in environmentally extended input–output analysis. Environmental Science & Technology 52:6761-6770.

Schaubroeck T, Ceuppens S, Luong AD, Benetto E, De Meester S, Lachat C, Uyttendaele M.: A pragmatic framework to score and inform about the environmental sustainability and nutritional profile of canteen meals, a case study on a university canteen. Journal of Cleaner Production 187: 672-686.

Vandepaer L, Cloutier J, Bauer C, Amor B.: Integrating Batteries in the Future Swiss Electricity Supply System. A Consequential Environmental Assessment. Journal of Industrial Ecology 23(3):709-725.

Zheng J, Suh S.: Strategies to reduce the global carbon footprint of plastics. Nature Climate Change 9:374–378.

Category: Best contribution to sustainable consumption

Beretta C, Hellweg S.: Potential environmental benefits from food waste prevention in the food service sector. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 147:169-178.

Blackstone N T, El-Abbadi N H, McCabe M S, Griffin T S, Nelson M E.: Linking sustainability to the healthy eating patterns of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans: a modelling study. The Lancet Planetary Health 2(8):PE344-E352.

Chaudhary A, Krishna V.: Country-Specific Sustainable Diets Using Optimization Algorithm. Environmental Science & Technology 53(13):7694-7703.

Mi Z, Zheng J, Meng J, Zheng H, Li X, Coffman D, Woltjer J, Wang S, Guan D.: Carbon emissions of cities from a consumption-based perspective. Applied Energy 235:509-518.

Poore J, Nemecek T.: Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science 01 Jun 2018:987-992.

Ridoutt B G, Hadjikakou M, Nolan M, Bryan B A.: From water-use to water-scarcity footprinting in environmentally extended input–output analysis. Environmental Science & Technology 52:6761-6770.

Saxe H, Jensen J D, Bølling Laugesen S M, Bredie W L P.: Environmental impact of meal service catering for dependent senior citizens in Danish municipalities. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 24(4):654-666.

Stylianou K, Fulgoni V L, Jolliet O: HEalth Nutritional Index (HENI): A Health Burden Based Tool for Food and Diet Nutritional Evaluation. Presentation at LCAFood 2018. Also published as Chapter 3 in Ph.D. Thesis of Katerina Stylianou (Nutritional and Environmental Impacts of Foods on Human Health) at https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/147641

Category: Best contribution to sustainable production

Pomponi F, Lenzen M.: Hybrid life cycle assessment (LCA) will likely yield more accurate results than process-based LCA. Journal of Cleaner Production 176:210-215.

Poore J, Nemecek T.: Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science 01 Jun 2018:987-992.

Ridoutt B, Motoshita M, Pfister S.: An LCA impact assessment model linking land occupation and malnutrition-related DALYs. International Journal Life Cycle Assessment. First Online 13 Feb 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-019-01590-1

Sevenster M, Luo Z, Eady S, Grant T.: Including long-term soil organic carbon changes in life cycle assessment of agricultural products. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. First Online 17 July 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-019-01660-4

Thonemann N, Pizzol M.: Consequential life cycle assessment of carbon capture and utilization technologies within the chemical industry. Energy & Environmental Science 12:2253-2263.

Win open access for your next publication

June 24, 2019 by ILCA

The deadline for nominations for the 2019 awards of the International Life Cycle Academy is approaching, with less than a month to go. We are pleased to inform you that the winners of the 2019 award will be offered free open access for a publication in ‘Resources’.

The Academy awards are given to honour contributions of outstanding quality, within the last two years (incl. current year of the award), within the field of quantitative sustainability assessment, in the form of either conference presentations or scientific publications. Equal weight is given to scientific content and application/communication.

We remind you that the award categories for 2019 are:

Best contribution to sustainable production
Best contribution to sustainable consumption
Best contribution to policy application of LCA

This year the winners will be revealed at a ceremony at the LCM2019.

Nominations should be sent to info@ilca.es before July 15^th2019. Self-nominations are admitted, but must be accompanied by at least 1 external recommendation letter. Nominations should include:

Title, name and e-mail address of nominee
The Award category sought, among the ones listed above (min. 1, max. 2)
A motivation of maximum 10 lines of text
A copy of the conference presentation or scientific publication that the Award is sought for. Conference presentations must have been accepted for presentation at a conference between November 2017 and September 2019 and be accompanied by a copy of the confirmation letter. Scientific publications must be published on-line or in paper after October 2017.

See https://ilca.es/meetings-and-awards/academy-awards/awards-2017/ for the winners of the 2017 awards.

We look forward to receive your nominations!

On behalf of the Award Committee

Bo Weidema & Shabbir Gheewala

How about a peer review of your course?

June 21, 2019 by ILCA

Did you know that ILCA facilitates peer-reviews of course plans and teaching materials?

Peer-reviewing of course plans and teaching materials is done as a mutual service among Academy members. But the great thing is that Non-academy members can also have their course plans and teaching materials reviewed against a fee.

The review procedure is particularly useful when a new course is being implemented or even when an old course is in need of a ’makeover’. But a review facilitated by ILCA is a two-way exchange benefiting both reviewer and reviewee. In a way, you can see this as a 2-way knowledge exchange when an ‘old hand’ reviews the implementation of a new course at a different institution.