scholarly journals Calculation and Evaluation of Carbon Footprint in Mulberry Production: A Case of Haining in China

Author(s):  
Yi Li ◽  
Yi Wang ◽  
Qing He ◽  
Yongliang Yang

Carbon footprint refers to the greenhouse gas emissions of an activity during the whole life cycle or a specific period of time. Mulberry is an important cash crop. Thus, establishing a standardized accounting method for the carbon footprint of mulberry production and analyzing its carbon emission scenarios is important in correctly understanding the impact of mulberry production on the environment. Using the life cycle assessment method and on the basis of the statistical data of mulberry production of urban farmers in Haining City, China, in 2014–2016, this study calculates and evaluates the carbon footprint of mulberry production. Results show the following. (1) Indirect carbon emissions is the main part of total carbon emissions, accounting for 85%–88% of total carbon emission, and industrial inputs (fertilizers and pesticides) are the main cause of carbon emissions. (2) The total carbon emissions per hectare in 2016 (6550.73 kgce/hm2) rose relative to the 2015 data (5617.92 kgce/hm2 at least in 2014) (5729.64 kgce/hm2). The output value of mulberry in spring was greater than that in summer and autumn, and the production efficiency of mulberry carbon in spring was higher than that in summer and autumn. The ecological environment of the mulberry production industry can be improved by increasing the resources of carbon sequestration and reducing the source of production input. (3) In general, the photosynthetic carbon sink of mulberry is greater than the total carbon emission and presents a positive externality to the ecological environment.

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3978 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaohu Lin ◽  
Jie Ren ◽  
Jingcheng Xu ◽  
Tao Zheng ◽  
Wei Cheng ◽  
...  

In recent years, China has been vigorously carrying out the planning and implementation of Sponge City. Since the implementation of Sponge City projects involves substantial materials and energy consumption, it is significant to account corresponding carbon emissions and sinks. The existed studies about carbon emission of stormwater management measures, however, are not able to take the whole life cycle and different facilities into consideration. Therefore, this study develops a comprehensive accounting model based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines and life cycle assessment (LCA) method to predict carbon emissions and carbon sinks of Sponge City projects more comprehensively and accurately. The model is applied to an actual residential community in Shanghai as a case study. Results show that the total indirect carbon emission is estimated to be 774,277 kg CO2 eq during a 30-year lifespan, among which carbon emissions from operation and maintenance phases are 2570 kg CO2 eq/year and 7309 kg CO2 eq/year, respectively, both directly proportional to the service life of the facilities. Three kinds of achievable carbon sinks are carbon sequestration in green space (5450 kg CO2 eq/year), carbon sink from rainwater utilization (15,379 kg CO2 eq/year) and carbon sink from runoff pollutant removal (19,552 kg CO2 eq/year). Carbon neutrality is expected to be reached after approximately 19 years. The established carbon emission accounting model can contribute to better planning and construction of Sponge City in China and enhance further energy conservation and carbon emission reduction.


2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zaid Alwan ◽  
Paul Jones

Purpose – The construction industry has focused on operational and embodied energy of buildings as a way of becoming more sustainable, however, with more emphasis on the former. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the impact that embodied energy of construction materials can have on the decision making when designing buildings, and ultimately on the environment. This is an important aspect that has often been overlooked when calculating a building's carbon footprint; and its inclusion this approach presents a more holistic life cycle assessment. Design/methodology/approach – A building project was chosen that is currently being designed; the design team for the project have been tasked by the client to make the facility exemplary in terms of its sustainability. This building has a limited construction palette; therefore the embodied energy component can be accurately calculated. The authors of this paper are also part of the design team for the building so they have full access to Building Information Modelling (BIM) models and production information. An inventory of materials was obtained for the building and embodied energy coefficients applied to assess the key building components. The total operational energy was identified using benchmarking to produce a carbon footprint for the facility. Findings – The results indicate that while operational energy is more significant over the long term, the embodied energy of key materials should not be ignored, and is likely to be a bigger proportion of the total carbon in a low carbon building. The components with high embodied energy have also been identified. The design team have responded to this by altering the design to significantly reduce the embodied energy within these key components – and thus make the building far more sustainable in this regard. Research limitations/implications – It may be is a challenge to create components inventories for whole buildings or for refurbishments. However, a potential future approach for is application may be to use a BIM model to simplify this process by imbedding embodied energy inventories within the software, as part of the BIM menus. Originality/value – This case study identifies the importance of considering carbon use during the whole-life cycle of buildings, as well as highlighting the use of carbon offsetting. The paper presents an original approach to the research by using a “live” building as a case study with a focus on the embodied energy of each component of the scheme. The operational energy is also being calculated, the combined data are currently informing the design approach for the building. As part of the analysis, the building was modelled in BIM software.


2012 ◽  
Vol 262 ◽  
pp. 577-580
Author(s):  
Ya Bo Fu ◽  
Wen Cai Xu ◽  
Yan Ru Jiang ◽  
Ge Zhou

The increasing concern on low carbon and environment protection has aroused a broader awareness of the sustainable development issues to be given to the environmental impacts of packaging products through the whole life cycle. The research of carbon footprint takes the high lights among these studies. The calculation of carbon emissions on commodities has shown many advantages on estimation of global greenhouse gas emissions. In this work, glass bottle liquor packaging was selected as the researching object, its equivalent carbon emissions were investigated by hybrid life cycle method. Through the carbon emissions research of the processes during the whole life cycle including raw materials’ production, packaging process, transportation, consumption and recycling, the carbon footprint on liquor packaging was calculated. The results indicated that the transportation and production of glass bottle contribute the most parts of total carbon emissions, which provides a case support for energy conservation and the development of green packaging.


2013 ◽  
Vol 869-870 ◽  
pp. 826-831
Author(s):  
Shuang Jian Jiao ◽  
Long Fei Li ◽  
Yan Wei Li

The CO2 emissions of highway transportation industry are huge. There are many factors which are affecting highway carbon emission. To reduce vehicle emissions, and improve the design, construction, operation and management of highway, which was the main purpose of the study. The whole life cycle of highway was divided into construction stage and operation stage. Factors which affected carbon emissions of different highway stages were discussed, and they were artificial carbon emissions, energy consumption of machinery and equipment, building materials, pavement types, low carbon management, types and carbon emission coefficients, running speed, radius of curvature of horizontal curve, road roughness, gradient of longitudinal curve, traffic volumes, plant carbon sink. Put forward the highway carbon emissions accounting methods, and established the carbon accounting models. The research will be helpful to reduce carbon emissions of highway transportation industry.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 1810
Author(s):  
Kaitong Xu ◽  
Haibo Kang ◽  
Wei Wang ◽  
Ping Jiang ◽  
Na Li

At present, the issue of carbon emissions from buildings has become a hot topic, and carbon emission reduction is also becoming a political and economic contest for countries. As a result, the government and researchers have gradually begun to attach great importance to the industrialization of low-carbon and energy-saving buildings. The rise of prefabricated buildings has promoted a major transformation of the construction methods in the construction industry, which is conducive to reducing the consumption of resources and energy, and of great significance in promoting the low-carbon emission reduction of industrial buildings. This article mainly studies the calculation model for carbon emissions of the three-stage life cycle of component production, logistics transportation, and on-site installation in the whole construction process of composite beams for prefabricated buildings. The construction of CG-2 composite beams in Fujian province, China, was taken as the example. Based on the life cycle assessment method, carbon emissions from the actual construction process of composite beams were evaluated, and that generated by the composite beam components during the transportation stage by using diesel, gasoline, and electric energy consumption methods were compared in detail. The results show that (1) the carbon emissions generated by composite beams during the production stage were relatively high, accounting for 80.8% of the total carbon emissions, while during the transport stage and installation stage, they only accounted for 7.6% and 11.6%, respectively; and (2) during the transportation stage with three different energy-consuming trucks, the carbon emissions from diesel fuel trucks were higher, reaching 186.05 kg, followed by gasoline trucks, which generated about 115.68 kg; electric trucks produced the lowest, only 12.24 kg.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-49
Author(s):  
Anukram Sharma ◽  
Khem N Poudyal ◽  
Nawraj Bhattarai

Study of carbon footprint is an emerging field which provides statistical analysis about the contribution of an activity on global climate change. Every human activity in daily life is achieved at the expense of those substances which directly or indirectly contribute to global warming. In this era of global communication, humans are habitual to know about the ongoing changes in the world. Newspapers are one of the reliable sources for getting updated about the global information. Paper-based newspapers come at the cost of greenhouse gas emissions. So, this article based upon an analysis of carbon footprint of Nepal’s national daily newspaper provides evaluation of each of the following: carbon emission during the manufacturing of raw materials, carbon emission from fuel consumption during transportation of raw materials, carbon emissions during the printing of newspaper and carbon emission from the fuel consumption during the transportation of printed newspaper. During the study period of 2019 A.D., the result shows that the total carbon emission of Gorkhapatra newspaper was found to be 2308.5 kg CO2e per ton. The upshot of this study provides not only thorough information about carbon emissions but also builds a foundation for calculation of carbon emissions from paper used in various sectors.


2014 ◽  
Vol 587-589 ◽  
pp. 536-540
Author(s):  
Lin Zeng ◽  
Tie Mao Shi ◽  
Yuan Man Hu

As the residential area is the basic functional unit in the city, its number is large and its construction project is huge; accordingly, the CO2 emission is also huge in the process of construction and use. On the basis of the LCP theory and method, the researchers in this paper propose a new approach used to calculate the carbon emissions in the urban residential area through comprehensively considering the CO2 emission and CO2 absorption of carbon sink-green space in the total life cycle of the urban community. In addition, taking the typical multi-story residential areas in Shenyang City as the sample, the researchers calculate the carbon emission and discuss the features of emission in the residential area as well as the method and potential of reducing the carbon emission. The calculation results show that, the carbon emissions in the process of operation an use account for the largest proportion for the total life cycle, up to 83.8%; the carbon emissions in the process of preparing the materials for construction account for 7.69%; the carbon emissions at the stage of building demolition account for 5.32%. The carbon emissions at the stage of construction are the smallest in amount, which can be basically negligible. According to the existing energy structure, construction specifications and technical level, 4.8% of the CO2 emissions in the residential area can be absorbed through the green space and that the carbon emissions in the residential area can be reduced through taking the energy conservation measures, using the renewable energy and increasing the area of carbon sinks.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6745
Author(s):  
Malka Nadeeshani ◽  
Thanuja Ramachandra ◽  
Sachie Gunatilake ◽  
Nisa Zainudeen

At present, the world is facing many hurdles due to the adverse effects of climate change and rapid urbanization. A lot of rural lands and villages are merged into cities by citizens, resulting in high carbon emission, especially in the built environment. Besides, the buildings and the construction sector are responsible for high levels of raw material consumption and around 40% of energy- and process-related emissions. Consequently, the interest in defining the carbon footprint of buildings and their components is on the rise. This study assesses the carbon footprint of a green roof in comparison to a conventional roof in a tropical climate with the aim of examining the potential carbon emission reduction by a green roof during its life cycle. A comparative case study analysis was carried out between an intensive green roof and a concrete flat roof located on two recently constructed commercial buildings in the Colombo district of Sri Lanka. Data were collected from interviews, project documents and past literature in addition to on-site data measurements and a comparison of life cycle carbon emissions of the two roof types was carried out. The results revealed that the operational phase has the highest contribution to the carbon footprint of both roof types. In the operational phase, the green roof was found to significantly reduce heat transfer by nearly 90% compared to the concrete flat roof and thereby contributed to an annual operational energy saving of 135.51 kWh/m2. The results further revealed that the life cycle carbon emissions of the intensive green roof are 84.71% lower compared to the conventional concrete flat roof. Hence, this study concludes that the use of green roofs is a suitable alternative for tropical cities for improving the green environment with substantial potential for carbon emission reduction throughout the life cycle of a building.


2021 ◽  
Vol 272 ◽  
pp. 01013
Author(s):  
Teng Li ◽  
Eryu Zhu ◽  
Haoran Liu

In this paper, carbon emissions of a monorail transit are calculated using the method of whole life cycle, which can be divided into four stages: material manufacturing stage, construction stage, operation stage and demolition stage. In the operation phase, the units are PKT (Passenger Kilometers Travelled) and VKT (Vehicle Kilometers Travelled), while in other three stages, the unit is 1 km. The results show that the carbon emissions from the 1km length monorail are 6271.204 tons. In addition, in the operation stage, it is found that the PKT index and VKT index of Chongqing monorail transportation are 0.07468 and 3.31933 respectively, far lower than those of subways in the same city. For PKT indicators of other rail transits, from small to large, they are light rail, tram, subway, APM and maglev. As for VKT indicators, from small to large, they are tram, light rail, subway, APM and maglev. The PKT index of Beijing subway is the lowest compared with that of other cities.


2013 ◽  
Vol 291-294 ◽  
pp. 1353-1358
Author(s):  
Ya Li Li ◽  
Yao Chen Qin

In order to explore the impact of the fossil energy consumption,industrial production and population on regional carbon cycle , this paper estimated the dynamic changes of carbon emissions from 2000 to 2009 in Zhengzhou based on the quantitative emission model proposed by IPCC and ORNL. The results show that the total carbon emissions in Zhengzhou was 48944.2 ×104t during 2000~ 2009, among which 83.3% came from fossil fuel combustion,7.7% from industrial production process and 9% came from population. The carbon emissions of fossil energy consumption and industrial production increases gradually.The carbon emission of coal was the highest among all kinds of fossil fuels,occupying 97.1% of the total emission of fossil fuel consumption. The carbon emissions increase progressively and surpass the national average level from 2000 to 2009 in China. And the carbon emissions for 100 million yuan GDP is increasing.Finally, some measures are proposed for the carbon emission reduction in Zhengzhou


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