Carbon Footprint

By |April 27th, 2014||Comments Off on Carbon Footprint

Primary Source: Jeswani, H. and Azapagic, A. (2006) Carbon Footprint Modelling in Report on the SWOT analysis of concepts, methods, and models potentially supporting LCA. Eds. Schepelmann, Ritthoff & Santman (Wuppertal Institute for Climate and Energy) & Jeswani and Azapagic (University of Manchester), pp 166-169

Level of analysis: Micro (on substances, products, companies, person, household), meso (sectors) and Macro (on countries and regions)

Assessed aspects of sustainability: Environmental

Main purpose of the assessment:

To estimate greenhouse gases of activities, events, products, services, etc.
Detailed Description
The concept of carbon footprint is being widely used in the public debate on responsibility and mitigation against the threat of climate change.

Carbon footprint represents net emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases over the full life cycle of a product, process, service or organisation (Carbon Trust, 2007a). Normally, it is expressed as a CO2 equivalent (usually in kilograms or tonnes per functional unit) and as such is equivalent to the usual LCA impact category Global Warming Potential (GWP). The life cycle concept of the carbon footprint means all direct (on-site, internal) and indirect emissions (off-site, external, embodied, upstream and downstream) need to be taken into account.

Carbon footprint can be calculated using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology (ISO 14044). The LCA approach ensures that the emissions from the whole supply chain are accounted for (Carbon Trust, 2006). PAS 2050 is a new British standard for calculating carbon footprints of goods and services, being developed by British Standards Institution (BSI). It is partly based on ISO 14044 and as such does not represent a completely new methodology (BSI, 2008).

The task of calculating carbon footprints with LCA can be approached methodologically from two different directions: bottom-up, based on Process Analysis (PA) or top-down, [...]

Partial Equilibrium Modelling (PEM)

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Primary Source: Ekvall, T. (2006) Partial Equilibrium Modelling in Report on the SWOT analysis of concepts, methods, and models potentially supporting LCA. Eds. Schepelmann, Ritthoff & Santman (Wuppertal Institute for Climate and Energy) & Jeswani and Azapagic (University of Manchester), pp 160-165

Level of analysis: Micro and meso level.

Assessed aspects of sustainability: All; the PEM results can be part of the assessment of all aspects of sustainability.

Main purpose of the assessment:

To predict and quantify effects of decisions on the price and flow of specific materials, products and services.

Description of the methodology:

PEM is a technique for modelling the markets of selected goods (materials, products and/or services). It utilised either explicit supply and demand curves, or estimates of how sensitive the supply and demand are for changes in the price of the good. It can also account for effects of changes in the price of related goods.
Detailed Description
The concept of partial equlibrium is based on the idea of supply and demand being kept in balance through changes in price. If a decision results in an increased use (ΔX ) of a material, product or service in a life cycle, this will contribute to an increase in the price of this good. This increase is likely to stimulate increased production (S) of the good, but also to reduce the demand (D) for the good in other life cycles. Such effects can be quantified through partial equilibrium modelling (PEM).

PEM can be applied on the conceptual level as well as in optimising computer models. On the conceptual level, effects on supply and demand are quantified through estimates of price elasticity. The own-price elasticity of demand (ηD) can be defined as follows (Friedman 1976):

where DD is the [...]

Life Cycle Activity Analysis (LCAA)

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Primary Source: Suomalainen, K. (2006) Life Cycle Activity Analysis in Report on the SWOT analysis of concepts, methods, and models potentially supporting LCA. Eds. Schepelmann, Ritthoff & Santman (Wuppertal Institute for Climate and Energy) & Jeswani and Azapagic (University of Manchester), pp 153-159

Level of analysis: Micro

Assessed aspects of sustainability: environmental, economic

Main purpose of the assessment:

To economically optimize a production life cycle with environmental goals/constraints.

Description of the methodology:

Life Cycle Activity Analysis (LCAA) is a methodology developed by Thore and Freire (1999) to combine classical activity Analysis (AA) with environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). It provides a computable approach to economic and environmental optimization of the supply chain of products, processes or services. LCAA considers all activities from ‘cradle to grave’ including alternative methods of production, distribution, reuse and recovery.
Detailed Description
LCAA combines mathematical programming of Activity Analysis with the LCA methodology. AA was developed by Koopmans (1951, 1957). The original formulation, (Koopmans, 1957), was not well suited for numerical solution, since it assumed that there were as many commodities as activities, and that the resulting system of equations had a non-singular solution. The reformulation of AA as a Linear Programming (LP) problem, permitted any number of activities and any number of commodities, (Charnes and Cooper, 1961). Activity Analysis can be viewed as a tool of partial economic analysis modelling for the representation of an industry or a sector of the economy, providing a mathematical format suitable for the representation of an entire vertical production chain (Thore, 1991). More recently, Heijungs (1996, 1997) recognized the conceptual similarities between LCA and classical Activity Analysis (AA) and observed that Life Cycle Inventory is an extension of AA, both being “commodity-by-industry analysis”, however no connection between [...]

Multicriteria Analysis (MCA)

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Primary Source: Armines, P. (2006) Multicriteria Analysis in Report on the SWOT analysis of concepts, methods, and models potentially supporting LCA. Eds. Schepelmann, Ritthoff & Santman (Wuppertal Institute for Climate and Energy) & Jeswani and Azapagic (University of Manchester), pp 149-152

Level of analysis: Micro, meso and macro

Assessed aspects of sustainability: environmental, economic

Main purpose of the assessment:

Choose among different proposed actions (e.g. environmental directive, choice of technology, environmental policy, …) if there are criteria that have not been evaluated in monetary terms.

Description of the methodology:

Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) (often called Multi- Criteria Decision Analysis – MCDA) provides the methodological tools to help decision makers to effectively handle complex decision situations in which the level of conflict between criteria is such that intuitive solutions cannot be satisfactory. There are several different MCA methods. Some involve asking the participants in an MCA to indicate weighting factors for the various criteria under consideration; others involve the elicitation of preference rankings between each pair of alternative choices.
Detailed Description
Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) (often called Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis – MCDA) provides the methodological tools to help decision makers to effectively handle complex decision situations in which the level of conflict between criteria is such that intuitive solutions cannot be satisfactory [see e.g. Zeleny 1982]. MCA can support comparison of different policy/project options, using and weighting multidimensional and not homogeneous sets of criteria and identifying the effects of these options and the trade-offs among the different involved aspects; as consequence MCA can be used as alternative or in combination with methods using monetary comparison, as CBA. In addition, MCA can help in resolving disagreement if stakeholders have different views on the relative importance of the considered criteria. It is important [...]

Energy/Exergy Analysis

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Primary Source: Suomalainen, K. (2006) Energy / Exergy Analysis in Report on the SWOT analysis of concepts, methods, and models potentially supporting LCA. Eds. Schepelmann, Ritthoff & Santman (Wuppertal Institute for Climate and Energy) & Jeswani and Azapagic (University of Manchester), pp 141-147

Level of analysis: All, can be used to assess specific processes from an energy efficiency point of view, as well as entire socio-economic systems to assess sustainability from a global perspective (sustainability indicators).

Assessed aspects of sustainability: as energy efficiency – environmental, as sustainability indicators – socio-economical.

Main purpose of the assessment:

To assess sustainability/efficiency of a system through evaluation of its energy flows and energy efficiency.

Description of the methodology:

Energy analysis has traditionally focused on production processes at the micro-level, often with the aim to lower production costs by increasing energy efficiency. It has also commonly been used to analyse resource use, in a manner similar to material flow analysis (Ahlroth et al, 2003). There are several different ways to measure energy. One example is exergy, which can be defined as a measure of available energy. This has been applied on e.g. process engineering systems, nations and products. Similar to cumulative energy requirements analysis, in emergy analysis the total inputs of energy, materials, information and labour are added using “emergy”-equivalents which describe the accumulated energy associated with the different types of inputs. Recently, however, energy analysis has been developed as a method to evaluate sustainability of complex systems, such as socio-economic systems (Giampietro, 1999).
Detailed description
Exergy as an indicator for resource depletion

The energetic argument claims that useful energy (exergy) is the ultimate limiting resource. Each material resource has an associated energy cost and thus every potentially limited resource is limited in part [...]

Product Oriented Environmental Management Systems (POEMS)

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Primary Source: Rinaldi, C. (2006) Product Oriented Environmental Management Systems SWOT Analysis in Report on the SWOT analysis of concepts, methods, and models potentially supporting LCA. Eds. Schepelmann, Ritthoff & Santman (Wuppertal Institute for Climate and Energy) & Jeswani and Azapagic (University of Manchester), pp 129-140

Level of analysis: Any, but primary focus is on the micro level (product and services)

Assessed aspects of sustainability: environmental and economic.

Main purpose of the assessment:

Main purpose of POEMS is the continuous improvement of a product’s life cycle, through an environmental management system focused on products. Main purpose of the SWOT analysis is to evaluate strength and weakness of this management tool and to assess the requirements for the application of the New LCA in POEMS.

Description of the methodology:

“Product Oriented Environmental Management Systems” (POEMS) can be defined as Environmental Management Systems (EMS) with a special focus on the continuous improvement of a product’s ecoefficiency (ecological and economic) along the life cycle, through the systematic integration of eco-design in the company’s strategies and practices [3].
Detailed Description
Tools for assessing environmental quality of products, i.e. Design for Environment (DfE) and environmental labels based on life cycle approach, and those dedicated to environmental management of processes (Environmental Management Systems, EMS), that started to spread in the 90’ in substantially separated spheres, are progressively integrating. Needs arise from firms and policy makers, for some important reasons: 1) incorporating product’s life cycle perspective into the product development process is a core requirement; 2) traditional EMS (ISO 14001, EMAS) do not encompass products in their procedures and do not answer to the needs of firms to communicate the environmental quality of products; 3) various approaches of ecodesign, even if it implies the cooperation [...]

Ecodesign (EDM)

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Primary Source: Buttol, P. (2006) Ecodesign SWOT Analysis in Report on the SWOT analysis of concepts, methods, and models potentially supporting LCA. Eds. Schepelmann, Ritthoff & Santman (Wuppertal Institute for Climate and Energy) & Jeswani and Azapagic (University of Manchester), pp 121-128

Level of analysis: Any, but primary focus is on the micro level (e.g. household, company, product level)

Assessed aspects of sustainability: environmental.

Main purpose of the assessment:

Main purpose of Ecodesign is to incorporate environmental considerations into the design process of products and reduce products’ environmental burdens throughout the whole life cycle. The main purpose of the SWOT analysis is to assess the requirements for the application of the New LCA, as analytical tool characterised by a broadened and deepened scope if compared to ISOLCA, in the Ecodesign procedural framework.

Description of the methodology:

Ecodesign, also referred to as Design for Environment (DfE), Green Design, Environmental conscious/friendly Design, Life Cycle Design, is a systematic way of incorporating environmental attributes into the design of a product. It can be defined as “design which addresses all environmental impacts of a product throughout the complete life cycle of the product, without unduly compromising other criteria like function, quality, cost and appearance” [1]. An ecodesign procedure starts considering the potential environmental impacts of a product throughout its life-cycle and leads to improvement steps, paths of product eco-innovation and new creative management approaches.
Detailed description
Ecodesign is a systematic methodology that incorporates environmental considerations into the design process of products. Its main purpose is to develop environmentally friendly goods and services. This is achieved by reducing products’ environmental burdens throughout the whole life cycle and taking into account the other product and customer requirements such as functionality, quality, safety, cost, manufacturability, [...]

External Costs (ExternE)

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Primary Source: Rabl, A. (2006) External Costs SWOT Analysis in Report on the SWOT analysis of concepts, methods, and models potentially supporting LCA. Eds. Schepelmann, Ritthoff & Santman (Wuppertal Institute for Climate and Energy) & Jeswani and Azapagic (University of Manchester), pp 115-120

Level of analysis: Micro, meso, and macro.

Description of the matter of the assessment/what is the purpose of applying the tool?:  

MIPS means Material Intensity Per Service Unit. MIPS indicates the quantity of resources used for this product or service. MIPS is an input-oriented method on micro level for estimating the environmental impact of products or services. Calculations are used for accounting the life-cycle-wide material / resource demand for products and services as indicator for their environmental impacts.

Description of the methodology:

Combination of LCA with impact pathway analysis (IPA)

The principal steps of an IPA for pollutants are the following:

–          specification of the emissions (e.g. kg/s of particles emitted by stack);

–          calculation of increased pollutant concentrations in all affected regions (e.g. μg/m3 of particles, using models of atmospheric dispersion);

–          calculation of damages (e.g. number of cases of asthma due to these particles, using a dose-response function);

–          monetary valuation of this damage (e.g. multiplication by the cost of a case of asthma).

The resulting values are summed over all receptors, choosing the temporal and spatial boundaries of the analysis such as to ensure that essentially all the damage is taken into account.
Detailed Description
Here we can only give a very brief discussion of the key features of the methodology used for the analysis of impact pathways, i.e. of the chain emission – dispersion – impact – cost. For a more complete presentation we refer to the reports of the ExternE Project or to review papers [...]

Material Intensity Per Service Unit (MIPS)

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Primary Source: Ritthoff, M. (2006) Material Intensity per Service Unity SWOT Analysis in Report on the SWOT analysis of concepts, methods, and models potentially supporting LCA. Eds. Schepelmann, Ritthoff & Santman (Wuppertal Institute for Climate and Energy) & Jeswani and Azapagic (University of Manchester), pp 109-113

Level of analysis: Micro (products, companies, household) Additional explanation: MIPS is close to MFA. Investigations on macro level and most investigations on meso level are carried out as MFA (see MFA).

Description of the matter of the assessment/what is the purpose of applying the tool?:  

MIPS means Material Intensity Per Service Unit. MIPS indicates the quantity of resources used for this product or service. MIPS is an input-oriented method on micro level for estimating the environmental impact of products or services. Calculations are used for accounting the life-cycle-wide material / resource demand for products and services as indicator for their environmental impacts.

Description of the methodology:

MIPS calculates the use of resources from the point of their extraction from nature: all data corresponds to the amount of moved ton in nature, thus to the categories of biotic or renewable resources, abiotic or non-renewable resources, water, air and earth movement in agriculture and silviculture. By interlocking the processes on all these levels, optimisation of all material inputs contributes to a life-cycle-wide increase in resource productivity s.o..

Detailed description

MIPS means Material Intensity Per Service unit. In order to estimate the input related impact on the environment caused by the manufacture or services of a product, MIPS indicates the quantity of resources (material) used for this product or service. The reciprocal of MIPS is defined as resource productivity per service unit.

The basic idea of MIPS is, that material extractions cause changes in natural material flows [...]

Eco-Efficiency Analysis (EE)

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Primary Source: Guinée, J. (2006) Eco-Efficiency Analysis SWOT Analysis in Report on the SWOT analysis of concepts, methods, and models potentially supporting LCA. Eds. Schepelmann, Ritthoff & Santman (Wuppertal Institute for Climate and Energy) & Jeswani and Azapagic (University of Manchester), pp 103-108

Level of analysis: Micro at the level of substances and products, meso at the level of businesses and sectors.

Assessed aspects of sustainability: environmental, economic

Description of the methodology:

There is not one methodology for Eco-Efficiency analysis (EE). The current situation is rather that there is a general conceptual understanding of what Eco-Efficiency (EE) is and there is a variety of methods for EE analysis (e.g., Landsiedel & Saling, 2002; Saling et al., 2002; Seppäläa et al., 2005; Kobayashi et al., 2005; Davidson et al., 2005; Scholz & Wiek, 2005; Dahlström & Ekins, 2005; Hellweg et al., 2005; Morioka et al., 2005; Suh et al., 2005; Saling et al., 2005). In this SWOT, we will therefore not describe EE analysis in detail, as it is exactly the detail that is differing widely among different authors. For example, some calculate a number for eco-efficiency whereas others present plots without combining ecological and economic indicators into one number.

According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD): Eco-efficiency is achieved by the delivery of competitively-priced goods and services that satisfy human needs and bring quality of life, while progressively reducing ecological impacts and resource intensity throughout the life-cycle to a level at least in line with the earth’s estimated carrying capacity. In short, it is concerned with creating more value with less impact.

According to Huppes & Ishikawa (In Anonymous, 2005), “Eco-efficiency is an instrument for sustainability analysis, indicating an empirical relation in economic activities between environmental cost [...]