Economic Allocation in Life Cycle Assessment

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fulvio Ardente ◽  
Maurizio Cellura
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Economic Allocation

scholarly journals Dairy Buffalo Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Affected by a Management Choice: The Production of Wheat Crop

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 11108
Author(s):  
Elio Romano ◽  
Pasquale De Palo ◽  
Flavio Tidona ◽  
Aristide Maggiolino ◽  
Andrea Bragaglio
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Farming Systems ◽  
Wheat Crop ◽  
Land Occupation ◽  
Economic Allocation ◽  
Acidification Potential ◽  
Dairy Buffalo ◽  
Management Choice

Life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed in dairy buffalo farms representative of Southern Italian farming systems, similar due to several characteristics, with the exception of wheat production. This work evaluated the impacts derived from this management choice, comparing farms with wheat crop (WWC) or not (NWC). In agreement with the literature, economic allocation was chosen as a useful strategy to attribute equivalents to by-products, i.e., culled animals; the same criterion was also adopted to assign pollutants to wheat grain, limited to WWC farms. Environmental impacts in terms of Global Warming Potential (GWP, kg CO2 eq), Acidification Potential (AC, g SO2 eq), Eutrophication Potential (EU, g PO43-eq), Agricultural Land Occupation (ALO, m2y) and Water Depletion (WD, m3) were estimated. The production of wheat crop significantly affected (p < 0.05) the Agricultural Land Occupation (ALO) category as WWC farms need adequate land. WWC farms could allow a significant reduction in eutrophication (EU) compared to NWC farms (p < 0.05).

scholarly journals Review and expert survey of allocation methods used in life cycle assessment of milk and beef

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Venla Kyttä ◽  
Marja Roitto ◽  
Aleksi Astaptsev ◽  
Merja Saarinen ◽  
Hanna L. Tuomisto
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Economic Allocation ◽  
Allocation Method ◽  
Lca Practitioners ◽  
By Products ◽  
Allocation Methods

Abstract Purpose Beef and dairy production systems produce several by-products, such as fertilizers, bioenergy, hides, and pet foods, among which the environmental impacts arising from production should be allocated. The choice of allocation method therefore inevitably affects the results of life cycle assessment (LCA) for milk and beef. The aims of this study were to map out the different allocation methods used in dairy and beef LCA studies and to clarify the rationale for selecting a certain method. Methods A literature review was conducted to identify the different allocation methods used in LCA studies of milk and beef production and the products using beef by-products as a raw material. The justifications for the use of different methods in the studies were also collected. To map out the perspectives of LCA practitioners and further clarify the reasoning behind the use of certain allocation methods, a mixed method survey with quantitative questions and qualitative explanatory fields was sent to the authors included in the literature review. Results and discussion The literature review showed that the most commonly used allocation method between milk and meat was biophysical allocation, which is also the recommended method in LCA guidelines of milk production. Economic allocation was the second most common method, although the rationale for using economic allocation was weak. By-products, such as inedible body parts, were not considered in milk studies and were taken into account in only a small number of beef studies. This might be because most of the studies have cradle-to-farm gate system boundaries. According to the survey, a significantly higher share of LCA practitioners would allocate impacts also to these by-products. Conclusions The allocation is usually done between milk and meat, and other by-products are not taken into account. Since these materials are an unavoidable part of production and there are numerous uses for them, these outputs should be recognized as products and also taken into consideration in LCA studies.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment of Honey: Considering the Pollination Service

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioannis Arzoumanidis ◽  
Andrea Raggi ◽  
Luigia Petti
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Electricity Consumption ◽  
Impact Category ◽  
Natural Ecosystems ◽  
Pollination Service ◽  
Economic Allocation ◽  
Natural Land

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been increasingly used for the improvement of the environmental performance of products and services, including food systems. Amongst them, however, honey appears to have been rarely analysed. Furthermore, the pollination by honeybees can be regarded as one of the functions of an apiculture system and is of utmost importance both for natural ecosystems and agriculture. When implementing an LCA of an apiculture system, the pollination service can and should be considered as one of the functions of a multifunctional system and the issue of how to deal with this multifunctionality in the modelling of that system should be considered carefully. The aim of this paper is to explore the economic value of pollination as a potential basis for managing multifunctionality in LCA modelling as well as its implementation in a case study. Economic allocation was performed between the pollination service and honey production. The results demonstrated that the production phase is the most impactful one for most of the environmental categories (due to the use of glass for the honey jars and electricity consumption during the storage of supers in refrigerator rooms), followed by the distribution phase. Finally, the most affected environmental impact category appeared to be natural land transformation, followed by marine ecotoxicity, freshwater eutrophication and human toxicity.

scholarly journals Production routes to bio-acetic acid: Life cycle assessment

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Budsberg ◽  
Rodrigo Morales-Vera ◽  
Jordan Crawford ◽  
Renata Bura ◽  
Rick Gustafson
Keyword(s):  
Acetic Acid ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Natural Gas ◽  
Ethyl Acetate ◽  
Extraction Method ◽  
Extraction Methods ◽  
System Expansion ◽  
Acetic Acid Production ◽  
Economic Allocation

Abstract Background: Similar to biofuels, numerous chemicals produced from petroleum resources can also be made from biomass. In this research we investigate cradle to biorefinery exit gate life cycle impacts of producing acetic acid from poplar biomass using a bioconversion process. A key step in developing acetic acid for commercial markets is producing a product with 99.8% purity. This process has been shown to be potentially energy intensive and in this work two distillation and liquid-liquid extraction methods are evaluated to produce glacial bio-acetic acid. Method one uses ethyl acetate for extraction. Method: two uses alamine and diisobutyl ketone. Additionally two different options for meeting energy demands at the biorefinery are modeled. Option one involves burning lignin and natural gas onsite to meet heat/steam and electricity demands. Option two uses only natural gas onsite to meet heat/steam demands, purchases electricity from the grid to meet biorefinery needs, and sells lignin from the poplar biomass as a co-product to a coal burning power plant to be co-fired with coal. System expansion is used to account for byproducts and co-products for the main life cycle assessment. Allocation assessments are also performed to compare the life cycle tradeoffs of using system expansion, mass allocation, or economic allocation for bio-acetic acid production. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to determine potential effects of a decrease in the fermentation of glucose to acetic acid.Results: Global warming potential (GWP) and fossil fuel use (FFU) for ethyl acetate extraction range from 1000 - 2500 kg CO 2 eq. and 32 - 56 GJ per tonne of acetic acid, respectively. Alamine and diisobutyl ketone extraction method GWP and FFU ranges from -370 - 180 kg CO 2 eq. and 15 - 25 GJ per tonne of acetic acid, respectively.Conclusions: Overall the alamine/diisobutyl ketone extraction method results in lower GWP and FFU values compared to the ethyl acetate extraction method. Only the alamine/diisobutyl extraction method finds GWP and FFU values lower than those of petroleum based acetic acid. For both extraction methods, exporting lignin as a co-product produced larger GWPs and FFU values compared to burning the lignin at the biorefinery.

DEVELOPMENT OF DETERGENT RECIPE WITH IMPROVED ENVIRONMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 223-229
Author(s):  
Yuliia Slyva ◽  
◽  
Oleksiy Verenikin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Synthetic Detergent ◽  
General Scheme ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
Environmental Characteristics ◽  
Environmental Standard ◽  
Ecological Characteristics ◽  
Environmental Criteria ◽  
Environmental Properties

The research on the development of an innovative formula of a synthetic detergent with improved environmental properties, which meet the environmental standard of SOU OEM 08.002.12.065:2016 "Detergents and cleaning products. Environmental criteria for life cycle assessment" is carried out. The accumulated theoretical and practical experience is generalized, the general scheme of designing and development of new goods taking into account features of detergents with the improved ecological characteristics is created.

Life Cycle Assessment of Two Alternative End-of-life Scenarios for Leather Safety Shoes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra LUCA ◽  
David SANCHEZ DOMENE ◽  
Francisca ARAN AIS
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
End Of Life
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