Mike Berners-Lee posts on the Guardian his findings. As it turns out riding a bike is about 1/10th the carbon footprint driving a car when taking into consideration the full life cycle of both transporation choices.
Mike presents a nice discussion on the points to consider when making this comparison, such as, differences in quality of life. The full blog post can be found here on The Guardian website:http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/08/carbon-footprint-cycling
The California Redwood Association claims that “Across the board, wood outperforms plastics, steel and concrete. Using concrete instead of wood, for example, can generate 80 percent more greenhouse gases and require about 40 percent more energy. With LCA, science clearly shows that using wood can save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Details of the study can be found HERE
Do you agree? Send us a note by selecting the read more button and entering your comments in the comment field.
The Care to Air Design Challenge seeks the world’s most innovative, covetable, and sustainable air-drying solution for clothing. At stake? $10,000 in prize money from Levi Strauss & Co., the challenge sponsor – to be distributed among the finalists – in addition to an audience with our distinguished panel of eco-innovators.
A complete third party lifecycle assessment on a pair of Levi’s® 501® jeans revealed that, on average, almost 60% of the climate impact comes during the consumer phase. Nearly 80% of that is due to the energy intensive method we choose for drying. Levi Strauss & Co. is taking strides to bring its carbon footprint down to zero and build sustainability into everything they do – but the LCA revealed that the company needs help from consumers to make the biggest difference.
“The most effective way to reduce the climate impact of a pair of jeans is to air dry, yet the average US household chooses a dryer. Some communities have even banned clotheslines, calling them unsightly. Well Levi Strauss & Co. would like to challenge that point of view by finding clothesline designs or other innovative air drying solutions that are undeniably stylish, sustainable and effective.”
The so-called right-to-dry movement has been growing in the United States, according to Alexander Lee, executive director of Project Laundry List, an advocacy group based in Concord, N.H., that promotes cold-water washing as well as air drying.
To find out more details about entrance requirements and the judging criteria, visit the Care to Air Design Challenge on myoo website: http://myoocreate.com/challenges/care-to-air-design-challenge
ARLINGTON, VA, May 25, 2010 (News Release) – The Aluminum Association posted today a comprehensive and transparent life-cycle analyses (LCA) of aluminum cans.
Major findings include:
“The data shows that we are using significantly less material and less energy to produce same-size beverage cans as compared with 17 years ago,” said Steve Larkin, president of the Aluminum Association. “The aluminum industry has made tremendous gains in sustainability. The aluminum can is more sustainable than ever.”
The study is publicly available at www.aluminum.org/lca.
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 December 2010
Special Issue Editor
Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Matthias Finkbeiner
Chair of Sustainable Engineering, Department of Environmental Technology, Technische Universität Berlin, Office Z1, Strasse des 17. Juni 135, D-10623 Berlin, Germany
Website: http://www.see.tu-berlin.de/
E-Mail: matthias.finkbeiner “at” tu-berlin.de
Interests: sustainable engineering; life cycle assessment; carbon footprinting; water footprinting; resource efficiency; eco-efficiency; life cycle costing; social LCA; life cycle management; sustainability assessment; sustainable production and consumption
Published Papers
No papers have been published in this special issue yet.
Special Issue Information
Letter from the editor:
Dear Colleagues,
Sustainability is nowadays accepted by all stakeholders as a guiding principle for both public policy making and corporate strategies. However, the biggest challenge for most organisations remains in the real and substantial implementation of the sustainabilty concept. At the core of the implementation challenge is the question, how sustainability can be measured, especially for products and processes. As long as these questions are not answered, there will be no consistent development towards sustainability and the use of the term remains arbitrary.
My hypothesis is, that the systems or life cycle approach has to be applied for all sustainability dimensions (environmental, economical, social) in order to achieve reliable and robust results. This can be put in the conceptual formula based on Klöpffer:
LCSA = LCA + LCC + SLCA
LCSA -= Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment
LCA -= Environmental Life Cycle Assessment
LCC -= LCA-type Life Cycle Costing
SLCA -= Social Life Cycle Assessment
This special issue seeks to demonstrate the important role that life cycle approaches can play for measuring sustainability. It is intended to provide a forum for scientific progress on both the overall concept of life cycle sustainability assessment as well as the individual tools supporting it.
Prof. Dr. Matthias Finkbeiner
Guest Editor
Submission
All manuscripts should be submitted to sustainability “at” mdpi.org with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Article Processing Charges (APC) for publication in this Open Access journal are 300 CHF (Swiss Francs) per accepted Paper. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.
Keywords
•life cycle sustainability assessment
•life cycle assessment
•life cycle costing
•social lca
The Aluminum Association has issued a public challenge to the recent PET Resin Assocation LCA study. A key aspect is the use of 1995 aluminum production data from the US LCI database versus more up-to-date information production information and recycling data that is publicly available.
The main position by the Aluminum Association regarding appropriate use of LCA is as follows:
“Also at issue with the PET study is the use of an LCA study to make comparative analyses of other materials, which is not the standard use of an LCA. LCA studies are traditionally used for self-education and to look for opportunities to increase efficiency within a product stream and not to look comparatively across products.”
“Traditionally, LCA studies have not been used to attack other products, since that’s not the intent of an LCA. We’d like to see the LCA study continue to be used as a tool for self-improvement, not for PR stunts. After our initial review, we do not believe that this study will withstand scrutiny from LCA practitioners.” Steve Larkin, Aluminum Association President concluded.
Details of the Aluminum Association challenge can be found on their website HERE.
The Aluminum Association will be hosting a teleconference and webinar to discuss the Life Cycle Analysis of the aluminum can on May 25th at 10 AM EDT.
Details to attend the teleconference can be found HERE.
The independent study of aluminum cans was peer-reviewed and undertaken in part to respond to Wal-Mart’s packaging scorecard.
Press Release: A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) recently commissioned by Lexmark International, Inc. (NYSE: LXK) to better understand the environmental impact of its toner cartridges has shown just how significant the benefit to the environment can be by recycling a used toner cartridge. The Lexmark LCA cartridge study demonstrates that sending a used Lexmark toner cartridge back to Lexmark for recycling, as opposed to discarding it in a landfill, reduces the overall carbon footprint of that cartridge by up to 60 percent.
“Printer users need to first understand the impact of their current practices on the environment before they can assess what behaviors need to be changed,” said Marty Canning, Lexmark vice president and president of its Printing Solutions and Services Division. “Lexmark has made it a priority to educate its customers on what steps they can take to implement responsible printing practices, such as printing less and recycling, to reduce the negative impact to the environment.”
The full text of the press release can be found HERE.
The Corrugated Packaging Alliance (CPA) recently commissioned the first-ever U.S. corrugated-industry life-cycle assessment (LCA) measuring and documenting the cradle-to-cradle environmental impact of corrugated packaging.
The LCA study demonstrates that the carbon footprint for production, use and EoL management (cradle-to-cradle life cycle) of a 1 kg U.S. industry-average corrugated product is approximately 1 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents.
Information about the results is available here: http://corrugated.theresponsiblepackage.org/
The Natural Step (TNS) and Forum for the Future have developed an SLCA tool based on the TNS system conditions for sustainability set against the life cycle stages of a product. As a rapid, but arguably not a rigorous alternative to LCA, the SLCA tool provides very high level directional information. Caution is warranted when using this approach as an external communication tool.
It identifies the major issues in relation to a product or process in a qualitative manner, allowing key aspects identified to be strategically explored in greater quantified detail as necessary using a more traditional LCA approach. The authors of the tool claim that it is:
All true, however the SLCA method is neither ISO compliant, nor a substitute for more rigorous traditional LCA approach. It may provide directional information for designers and environmental professionals to assess the possibility of a more truly sustainable product innovation, however the process is highly subjective.
More information on the methodology can be found here: http://www.forumforthefuture.org/projects/streamlined-life-cycle-analysis
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized revisions to the National Renewable Fuel Standard program (commonly known as the RFS program). This rule makes changes to the Renewable Fuel Standard program as required by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA). The revised statutory requirements establish new specific annual volume standards for cellulosic biofuel, biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel, and total renewable fuel that must be used in transportation fuel. The revised statutory requirements also include new definitions and criteria for both renewable fuels and the feedstocks used to produce them, including new greenhouse gas emission (GHG) thresholds as determined by lifecycle analysis. The regulatory requirements for RFS will apply to domestic and foreign producers and importers of renewable fuel used in the U.S.
PRESS RELEASE KEY ISSUES (http://www.epa.gov/otaq/renewablefuels/420f10007.htm)
This final action lays the foundation for achieving significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions from the use of renewable fuels, reductions of imported petroleum and further development and expansion of our nation’s renewable fuels sector.
This action is also setting the 2010 RFS volume standard at 12.95 billion gallons (bg). Further, for the first time, EPA is setting volume standards for specific categories of renewable fuels including cellulosic, biomass-based diesel, and total advanced renewable fuels. For 2010, the cellulosic standard is being set at 6.5 million gallons (mg); biomass based diesel standard is being set at 1.15 bg, (combining the 2009 and 2010 standards as proposed).
In order to qualify for these new volume categories, fuels must demonstrate that they meet certain minimum greenhouse gas reduction standards, based on a lifecycle assessment, in comparison to the petroleum fuels they displace.
For its final determinations, EPA used the best available models and has incorporated updated information based on:
For the fuel pathways modeled, the following meet or exceed the respective required minimum GHG reduction standards:
Fuels derived from cellulosic materials meet, and generally significantly exceed, the minimum GHG reduction standard.
COMPLIANCE BASED ON LCA
Compliance with each threshold requires a comprehensive evaluation of renewable fuels, as well as the baseline for gasoline and diesel, on the basis of their lifecycle emissions. As mandated by EISA, the greenhouse gas emissions assessments must evaluate the aggregate quantity of greenhouse gas emissions (including direct emissions and significant indirect emissions such as significant emissions from land use changes) related to the full lifecycle, including all stages of fuel and feedstock production, distribution and use by the ultimate consumer.
EPA’s lifecycle methodology required breaking new scientific ground and using analytical tools in new ways. Throughout the development of EPA’s lifecycle analysis, the Agency employed a collaborative, transparent, and science-based approach. EPA recognizes that as the state of scientific knowledge continues to evolve in this area, the lifecycle GHG assessments for a variety of fuel pathways are likely to be updated.
Therefore, while EPA is using its current lifecycle assessments to inform the regulatory determinations for fuel pathways in this final rule, as required by the statute, the Agency is also committing to further reassess these determinations and lifecycle estimates.
Based on the Agency’s current modeling of specific fuel pathways, which incorporated comments received through the third-party peer review process, and data and information from new studies and public comments, EPA has determined that:
In addition to finalizing a threshold compliance determination for those pathways shown above that were specifically modeled, the EPA’s technical judgment indicates certain other pathways are likely to be similar enough to modeled pathways that they are also assured these similar pathways qualify. Further, for other fuels, the EPA is establishing a process whereby a biofuel producer can petition the Agency to consider whether their product would be eligible for use in complying with an EISA standard. For additional information on the lifecycle GHG emissions methodology and results for renewable fuel pathways, and details on the petition process, please refer to the Lifecycle GHG Analysis Fact Sheet, EPA420-F-10-006 or the RFS2 preamble on the EPA website here: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/renewablefuels/index.htm