scholarly journals The Success of the Construction Industry’s Adoption of the Carbon Assessment Strategy PAS2050

2021 ◽  
Vol 877 (1) ◽  
pp. 012019
Author(s):  
Holly Smith ◽  
Amoako-Attah Joseph ◽  
Raad K. Hashim ◽  
Khalid S. Hashim

Abstract PAS2050 was introduced in order to help combat the extremely high levels of emissions that the construction industry emits, as well as the large volume of natural resources they use, through the life cycle of a project. It was developed to create a consistent method of assessing the life cycle of Greenhouse gases as well as a method to increase understanding of where they arise from within a supply chain. This is essential in today’s world as without change, the climate will continue to rise in temperature and contribute negatively to the already dramatic effects of climate change that have already been seen. By implementing PAS2050 the industry aims to allow stakeholders to realise the impacts and encourage movement towards a more sustainable future. This research aims to determine how well the construction industry has adopted the carbon assessment strategy covered by PAS2050 through informed opinions, data and case studies. Using journals and research, alongside a questionnaire which will be distributed to individuals within the industry, an informed decision will be made to determine how well the construction industry has adopted PAS2050. The results found that the industry is having difficulty in adapting to the change at all levels and scopes. The findings of this research show that the industry has only touched the surface and although the larger organisations are leading the charge, enough is not being done by smaller organisations and the supply chain.

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (17) ◽  
pp. 4722 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamalakanta Sahoo ◽  
Richard Bergman ◽  
Sevda Alanya-Rosenbaum ◽  
Hongmei Gu ◽  
Shaobo Liang

Climate change, environmental degradation, and limited resources are motivations for sustainable forest management. Forests, the most abundant renewable resource on earth, used to make a wide variety of forest-based products for human consumption. To provide a scientific measure of a product’s sustainability and environmental performance, the life cycle assessment (LCA) method is used. This article provides a comprehensive review of environmental performances of forest-based products including traditional building products, emerging (mass-timber) building products and nanomaterials using attributional LCA. Across the supply chain, the product manufacturing life-cycle stage tends to have the largest environmental impacts. However, forest management activities and logistics tend to have the greatest economic impact. In addition, environmental trade-offs exist when regulating emissions as indicated by the latest traditional wood building product LCAs. Interpretation of these LCA results can guide new product development using biomaterials, future (mass) building systems and policy-making on mitigating climate change. Key challenges include handling of uncertainties in the supply chain and complex interactions of environment, material conversion, resource use for product production and quantifying the emissions released.


Author(s):  
Oscar Lopez-Chavez ◽  
Santa Magdalena Mercado-Ibarra ◽  
Humberto Aceves-Gutiérrez ◽  
José Manuel Campoy-Salguero

Climate change is one of the world's major problems and concerns the entire human population as its effects are global in scope. Climate change is driven by the greenhouse effect, which is generated by greenhouse gases (GHG). The construction industry is important in the development of a country, both economically and culturally, since it is through it that the infrastructure needs required for a nation's economic and social activities are met. Urban environments are composed of various structures that favor economic, social and any other activities of interest within the existing population; such urban environment is mainly connected by a system that is constituted by asphalt pavements of flexible or rigid type. This project analyzes the environmental impacts generated during the construction process of an asphalt pavement corresponding to the Real de Sevilla III subdivision, located in Obregon City, Sonora, Mexico, applying the Simapro 9.0 Software, obtaining a result of 12.618 Kg CO2 eq/m2 and 1,140, 863.493 Kg-CO2/fractionation generated by its main materials and activities and equipment consumptions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Daferera ◽  
Mariam Abaskharoun ◽  
Evangelia Theodoratou

This assessment refers to the ecological footprint which is a way to measure the impacts of human activities on Earth. It basically calculates the demand and consumption that measures the needs of a society, as well as the waste and greenhouse gases that generates daily in productive sea and fertile land areas. Moreover, it measures all the natural resources needed to support the material needs of a population or person through the technology, lifestyle and habits of each country. Subsequently we are going to examine the advantages and disadvantages of the phenomenon that human activities provoke and the ways to eliminate the caused problem. The world-average ecological footprint in 2013 was 2.8 global hectares per person and the average per country ranges from over 10 to under 1 global hectares per person. There is also a high variation within countries, based on individual lifestyle and economic possibilities that we also examine. Summarizing all those effects we are going to analyze open international data as far as the metabolism of the ecological footprint concerns in our word but especially in our country to form prospects for our planet the principles of life cycle assessments with the aid of statistics and charts.


2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 115-119
Author(s):  
János Lazányi

Pressure on natural resources and the global environment have been identified as the most important challenges to maintain prosperity and improve environmental care. Agriculture is responsible for only a small proportion of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, but the sector is more closely associated with emissions of other greenhouse gases such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). The global warming potential of agricultural activities defined as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in CO2 equivalents is relatively low in Hungary, when calculated per land area. However this difference decline, when a GHG emission is calculated per product unit, as yields are lower then in West European countries. Environmental load caused by agriculture is also low in Hungary, where increasing part of EU resources are used for the long-term preservation of natural resources and for the raising of awareness of sustainable farming. The strength of the environmental situation of Hungary, consist of several elements, such as the rich bio-diversity, the significant size of territories falling under natural protection, the extent and importance of forests and the low environmental load from crop production. Among the weaknesses the nitrate load of the animal husbandry farms, the increasing water and wind erosion, the soil compaction and degradation have to be taken into consideration. Climate change has high risk potential and the mitigation activities of the New Hungary Rural Development Programme (HRDP) are investigated in this paper with the aim to increase mitigation activities in rural area and reduce the causes of climate change.  


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-64
Author(s):  
Arieyanti Dwi Astuti

ENGLISHMinimizing the adverse impact of sugarcane plantation can be carried out through many ways including increasing the efficiency of energy and natural resources consumption as well as improving the management of waste and emissions. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was applied to assess the environmental impact of sugarcane plantation without considering sugarcane usage as a raw material in the sugar industry (gate to gate). CML (baseline) was used as Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) method. This study aimed to: 1) examine the natural resources and energy consumption; 2) analyze and identify potential environmental impacts; and 3) recommend alternative improvements to reduce environmental impacts. It used primary data and secondary data. The results showed that: 1) natural resources were used to produce 16,097 ton of sugarcane or 1 ton of sugar, were land requirement (0.233 ha), water consumption (2,223.117 m3), and energy consumption (19,234.254 MJ); 2) there are five most potential environmental impacts which are analyzed by using openLCA including climate change (134,275.23 kg CO2 eq), eutrophication (120.24 kg PO4 eq), acidification (1.54 kg SO2 eq), photochemical oxidation (0.36 kg ethylene eq), and human toxicity (0.15 kg 1.4-dichlorobenzene eq); 3) alternative recommendation could be conducted by reducing the usage of inorganic fertilizer, and utilizing cane trash (dry leaves, green leaves, and tops) as boiler fuel for production process in sugar factory. INDONESIABudidaya tebu menimbulkan dampak negatif terhadap lingkungan sehingga diperlukan upaya untuk meminimalisir dampak negatif tersebut melalui efisiensi konsumsi energi, konsumsi sumber daya alam (SDA), serta pengelolaan limbah dan emisi. LCA merupakan salah satu metode untuk menganalisis dampak lingkungan dari budidaya tebu tanpa mempertimbangkan penggunaan tebu panen sebagai bahan baku industri gula (gate to gate). Metode yang digunakan untuk LCIA adalah CML (baseline). Penelitian ini  bertujuan untuk: 1) menghitung penggunaan SDA dan energy, 2) menganalisis dan mengidentifikasi potensi dampak lingkungan, dan 3) menyajikan rekomendasi perbaikan untuk menurunkan dampak lingkungan. Data penelitian berupa data primer dan data sekunder. Unit fungsional pada penelitian ini adalah produksi 1 ton gula untuk satu tahun. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa: 1) konsumsi SDA berupa lahan tebu seluas 0,233 ha, air sebanyak 2.223,117 m3 dan energi sebesar 19.234,254 MJ; 2) potensi dampak lingkungan yang dianalisis menggunakan OpenLCA menghasilkan 5 dampak lingkungan tertinggi, yaitu climate change (134.275,23 kg CO2 eq), eutrophication (120,24 kg PO4 eq), acidification (1,54 kg SO2 eq), photochemical oxidation (0,36 kg ethylene eq), and human toxicity (0,15 kg 1,4-dichlorobenzene eq); 3) alternatif perbaikan yang direkomendasikan berupa penggunaan pupuk anorganik dengan dosis yang tepat dan memanfaatkan limbah pasca pane n (daun kering, serasah) sebagai bahan bakar boiler untuk proses produksi industri gula.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Cook

<p>Construction serves the needs of society with infrastructure that provides safe and healthy places in which to live, work, learn and play, with transport that serves trade and leisure, and with industries that drive our economic prosperity. Yet in serving important societal needs, construction has also been a major contributor to the degradation of the planet’s natural resources and acceleration of climate change. These harmful impacts are now threatening human prosperity and safety. The Henderson Colloquium, organised by IABSE UK in September 2020, asked key players across multiple sectors of the construction industry this question: How can the construction industry serve the future needs of a society threatened by climate change? The discussions revealed the need for deep-seated change across all elements of the industry including our business models, our professional institutions, education, and government policy. These outcomes are being shared in this paper to stimulate thinking in a wider, international forum of construction professionals.</p>


Author(s):  
Samantha J. Werth ◽  
Alice S. Rocha ◽  
James W. Oltjen ◽  
Ermias Kebreab ◽  
Frank M. Mitloehner

Abstract Purpose A life cycle assessment was performed for the production of a total mixed ration (TMR) fed to finishing feedlot cattle in California, USA. The goal was to determine the climate change impact of the feed supply chain associated with the production of 1 kg finishing TMR (kg CO2e/kg TMR). A secondary goal was to compare the climate change impact of feed versus finished beef (kg CO2e/kg live weight). Methods The TMR was based on feeds commonly fed to finishing cattle in California. The Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance Partnership (LEAP) guidelines were followed for inventory data collection. System boundaries included the production of crops and feed additives, transportation of TMR components, and compound feed production. Data were sourced from national databases and Ecoinvent™ unit process data. Three scenarios were assessed as a result of allocation at the transportation step: Scenario A (100% empty return load); Scenario B (50% empty return load): and Scenario C (0% empty return load). Energy, mass, and economic allocation, and system expansion of dried distillers grain solubles (DDGS) were assessed for sensitivity analysis. Total feedlot emission data from Stackhouse-Lawson et al. (2012) were used to compare to impacts of TMR production. Results Total emissions were determined to be 0.630 kg CO2e/kg TMR for Scenario A, 0.576 kg CO2e/kg TMR for Scenario B, and 0.521 kg CO2e/kg TMR for Scenario C. Corn production, transportation, and liquid premix production were primary contributors to the life cycle impacts of TMR production. Mass-based allocation of DDGS was found to have the most significant effect on overall impacts of the finishing TMR, with a 42% increase in life cycle emissions compared to other allocation methods. For Scenario A, feed used in Angus feedlot production contributed to 76% of total Angus feedlot emissions. Additionally, feed used in Holstein feedlot production contributed to 58% of total Holstein feedlot emissions. Conclusions and recommendations The present study demonstrates a need to better assess the feed supply chain of feedlot beef production in order to accurately identify areas that have the most significant impacts on overall emissions. This may aid in minimizing impacts associated with feed production and, by extension, beef production. The present study may also serve to inform future decisions for improvements or alterations of the LEAP guidelines.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (8(SE)) ◽  
pp. 16-26
Author(s):  
Charles Durai ◽  
K. Sentamilselvan

The present study made an attempt to know the significant relationship between the respondents’ demographic variables and their attitude regarding supply chain management supply chain frame work in Construction Industry. 100 samples were selected randomly from Chennai, TamilNadu. Based on the objectives certain hypotheses were formulated. Statistical tools such as one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Correlation method was used to analyse the data. Questionnaire and interview method was used to collect the necessary data.  Result proved that there is a significant relationship between demographic graphic variables and attitude regarding Supply chain management. Type of firm and qualification is highly significant. It is inferred that above 10 years’ experience group obtained higher mean value. So this group have favorable attitude regarding SCM.


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