Evaluation of the economic and environmental sustainability of high pressure processing of foods

A comparative evaluation of the environmental/economic performance of High Pressure Processing (HPP) technology for food processing is made using Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodologies. Thermal pasteurization (TP), in the form of indirect system (with energy recovery) and of retort process, and modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), are taken as benchmark during the evaluation, as traditional food processing technologies typically used to process orange juice (TP) and sliced Parma ham (MAP). Primary data on costs and consumption of HPP, TP and MAP plants were obtained from companies. Secondary data for LCA analysis was retrieved from the Ecoinvent 3.4 database and from available scientific literature.As a result of the assessment, HPP appears as more expensive than both TP processes, but turns out to have a lower environmental impact in almost all impact categories. Compared to MAP, HPP is less expensive and also has a lower impact in most of the impact categories, as MAP requires a significant amount of packaging materials and food gases. Industrial relevance: High pressure processing (HPP) is a well-known non-thermal technology, which since its introduction has had limited use, mainly due to the high cost of the electricity required for the process. Nowadays, however, new technologies in the food processing and new food product applications could make it more widely used. To correctly evaluate whether HPP technology is actually cost-effective and has low impact on the environment, detailed economic and environmental analyses have been carried out in this paper. Results are expected to enhance the use of HPP technology in industry.     

Why and how should we assess occupational health impacts in integrated product policy?

Integrated product policy (IPP) and life cycle assessment (LCA), one of the analytic tools used in IPP, focus traditionally on environmental impacts. However, in an attempt to consider other sustainability criteria and to avoid a shift from environmental health impacts to occupational health impacts one may want to include occupational health in IPP. Should and can occupational health impacts be included in LCA and IPP? Using published and unpublished occupational health data for injuries and illnesses and an economic input-output model of the United States, we provide attributional occupational health impacts measured in disability adjusted life years per dollars output for 491 industry sectors including supply chain impacts. Estimates for the "true" number of United States occupational health impacts suggest that this initial analysis underestimates the total impact 3-7-fold. A comparison suggests that United States occupational health impacts are about 10 times smaller than environmental health impacts and are, relatively speaking, important only for sectors with hazardous working environments but low environmental impacts. A consequential rather than attributional view suggests that a method to assess true consequences on long-term health impacts by product policies needs to be able to predict effects from present-day work place exposure and to account for likely changes in the labor market, including changes in unemployment rates and other substitution mechanisms.     

产品生命周期评价体系研究

为更好地用量化的数据来判断产品的绿色程度，以利于产品生命周期评价，建立了由产品层次维、生命周期维、指标维构成的生命周期评价的三维集成体系结构以及由环境属性指标、资源属性指标、能源属性指标和经济性指标构成的生命周期评价指标体系，并针对评价过程中生命周期权重的确定，产品环境属性数据库的建立以及环境影响因子的确定，给出了有效的解决方法。     

LCA法在木本生物柴油清洁生产评估方面的应用研究

生命周期评价(LCA)作为一种能全程评估产业链和产品环境影响、资源消耗、净能效率的重要方法,近年来得到了越来越多的关注,也开始被用于生物柴油清洁生产领域,能为产业可持续提供决策依据。对木本生物柴油的LCA体系、评估模型与方法、国内外木本生物柴油LCA研究现状进行了综述。结果显示:木本生物柴油在燃烧阶段相比石化柴油具有清洁排放的优点,但整个生命周期的排放未必清洁,主要与我国燃煤发电、化肥和辅料生产排放有关;木本生物柴油产业作为低碳产业,温室效应和能源消耗均低于石化柴油,整个生命周期中以种植和生产阶段的排放和消耗最大并针对性提出改进措施;未来我国木本生物柴油生命周期评价应通过建设产业标准数据库、更多注重不同原料不同工艺的对比评估、兼顾经济性和生态服务功能的评估进一步拓展木本生物柴油研究的深度和广度。     

Environmental impacts of products in china

As the Chinese economy has become an integral part of the global supply chain, quantifying the environmental impacts by Chinese industry is indispensible to understanding the environmental performance of products in general. Comprehensive and consistent environmental data infrastructure, however, is lacking in China, hindering such an understanding. In this paper, we demonstrate a simplified method for assembling and harmonizing various data sources to develop a sectoral environmental database for input-output life cycle assessment (IO-LCA). We first identified key substances by analyzing previous normalization studies and other countries' sectoral environmental databases. Data for priority substances were compiled and then adjusted and validated. The database created from this process was then used to analyze the direct and indirect environmental impacts generated by Chinese rural and urban consumptions. Expenditures on food and other basic household needs like heating and cooking were found to play a dominant role in generating environmental impacts in China, while previous studies of industrialized countries also highlighted the importance of transportation. This database provides background information for LCA through, for example, the hybrid approach, and is also conducive to ongoing efforts to develop generic life cycle inventory databases in China.     

Environmental effects of interstate power trading on electricity consumption mixes

Although many studies of electricity generation use national or state average generation mix assumptions, in reality a great deal of electricity is transferred between states with very different mixes of fossil and renewable fuels, and using the average numbers could result in incorrect conclusions in these studies. We create electricity consumption profiles for each state and for key industry sectors in the U.S. based on existing state generation profiles, net state power imports, industry presence by state, and an optimization model to estimate interstate electricity trading. Using these "consumption mixes" can provide a more accurate assessment of electricity use in life-cycle analyses. We conclude that the published generation mixes for states that import power are misleading, since the power consumed in-state has a different makeup than the power that was generated. And, while most industry sectors have consumption mixes similar to the U.S. average, some of the most critical sectors of the economy--such as resource extraction and material processing sectors--are very different. This result does validate the average mix assumption made in many environmental assessments, but it is important to accurately quantify the generation methods for electricity used when doing life-cycle analyses.     

Life- cycle assessment in pesticide product development: methods and case study on two plant-growth regulators from different product generations

Environmental assessments in pesticide product development are generally restricted to plant uptake and emissions of active ingredients. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) enables a more comprehensive evaluation by additionally assessing the impacts of pesticide production and application (e.g. tractor operations). The use of LCA in the product development of pesticides, in addition to the methods commonly applied, is therefore advisable. In this paper a procedure for conducting LCA in early phases of product development is proposed. In a case study, two plant-growth regulators from different product generations were compared regarding their application in intensive production of winter wheat. The results showed thatthe reduced emissions from active ingredients of the newer pesticide were compensated by higher impacts from the production process. The authors draw the conclusion that it is important to consider environmental objectives in the procurement of precursors, in addition to the classical goals of increasing the efficacy and reducing the nontarget effects of pesticides. Moreover, the case study showed that decisions based on uncertain results in early stages of product development may need to be revised in later stages, e.g. based on investigations of pesticides' effects on crop yield.     

Estimates of embodied global energy and air-emission intensities of Japanese products for building a Japanese input-output life cycle assessment database with a global system boundary

To build a life cycle assessment (LCA) database of Japanese products embracing their global supply chains in a manner requiring lower time and labor burdens, this study estimates the intensity of embodied global environmental burden for commodities produced in Japan. The intensity of embodied global environmental burden is a measure of the environmental burden generated globally by unit production of the commodity and can be used as life cycle inventory data in LCA. The calculation employs an input-output LCA method with a global link input-output model that defines a global system boundary grounded in a simplified multiregional input-output framework. As results, the intensities of embodied global environmental burden for 406 Japanese commodities are determined in terms of energy consumption, greenhouse-gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, and their summation), and air-pollutant emissions (nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide). The uncertainties in the intensities of embodied global environmental burden attributable to the simplified structure of the global link input-output model are quantified using Monte Carlo simulation. In addition, by analyzing the structure of the embodied global greenhouse-gas intensities we characterize Japanese commodities in the context of LCA embracing global supply chains.     

System boundary selection in life-cycle inventories using hybrid approaches

Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a method for evaluating the environmental impacts of products holistically, including direct and supply chain impacts. The current LCA methodologies and the standards by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) impose practical difficulties for drawing system boundaries; decisions on inclusion or exclusion of processes in an analysis (the cutoff criteria) are typically not made on a scientific basis. In particular, the requirement of deciding which processes could be excluded from the inventory can be rather difficult to meet because many excluded processes have often never been assessed by the practitioner, and therefore, their negligibility cannot be guaranteed. LCA studies utilizing economic input-output analysis have shown that, in practice, excluded processes can contribute as much to the product system under study as included processes; thus, the subjective determination of the system boundary may lead to invalid results. System boundaries in LCA are discussed herein with particular attention to outlining hybrid approaches as methods for resolving the boundary selection problem in LCA. An input-output model can be used to describe at least a part of a product system, and an ISO-compatible system boundary selection procedure can be designed by applying hybrid input-output-assisted approaches. There are several hybrid input-output analysis-based LCA methods that can be implemented in practice for broadening system boundary and also for ISO compliance.     

Environmental Performance of the Poultry Meat Chain – LCA Approach

This review aims to give an overview of published environmental assessments using the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. LCA was deployed in terms of five main subsystems in the poultry meat chain: poultry farm, slaughterhouse, meat processing plant, retail and household use. This review revealed that 15 different environmental potentials are used as environmental indicators for estimating environmental performance of the poultry meat chain. General finding is that further research should use the LCA approach to assess the environmental performance of an overall poultry meat chain, focusing on the global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential and ozone layer depletion.     

Life cycle environmental assessment of lithium-ion and nickel metal hydride batteries for plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles

This study presents the life cycle assessment (LCA) of three batteries for plug-in hybrid and full performance battery electric vehicles. A transparent life cycle inventory (LCI) was compiled in a component-wise manner for nickel metal hydride (NiMH), nickel cobalt manganese lithium-ion (NCM), and iron phosphate lithium-ion (LFP) batteries. The battery systems were investigated with a functional unit based on energy storage, and environmental impacts were analyzed using midpoint indicators. On a per-storage basis, the NiMH technology was found to have the highest environmental impact, followed by NCM and then LFP, for all categories considered except ozone depletion potential. We found higher life cycle global warming emissions than have been previously reported. Detailed contribution and structural path analyses allowed for the identification of the different processes and value-chains most directly responsible for these emissions. This article contributes a public and detailed inventory, which can be easily be adapted to any powertrain, along with readily usable environmental performance assessments.     

Decision support for green supply chain operations by integrating dynamic simulation and LCA indicators: diaper case study

As the issue of environmental sustainability is becoming an important business factor, companies are now looking for decision support tools to assess the fuller picture of the environmental impacts associated with their manufacturing operations and supply chain (SC) activities. Lifecycle assessment (LCA) is widely used to measure the environmental consequences assignable to a product. However, it is usually limited to a high-level snapshot of the environmental implications over the product value chain without consideration of the dynamics arising from the multitiered structure and the interactions along the SC. This paper proposes a framework for green supply chain management by integrating a SC dynamic simulation and LCA indicators to evaluate both the economic and environmental impacts of various SC decisions such as inventories, distribution network configuration, and ordering policy. The advantages of this framework are demonstrated through an industrially motivated case study involving diaper production. Three distinct scenarios are evaluated to highlight how the proposed approach enables integrated decision support for green SC design and operation.     

Thermodynamic accounting of ecosystem contribution to economic sectors with application to 1992 U.S. economy

Incorporation of ecological considerations in decision-making is essential for sustainable development, but is hindered by inadequate appreciation of the role of ecosystems, and lack of scientifically rigorous techniques for including their contribution. This paper develops a novel thermodynamic accounting framework for including the contribution of natural capital via thermodynamic input-output analysis. This framework is applied to the 1992 US economy comprising 91 industry sectors, resulting in delineation of the myriad ways in which sectors of the US economy rely on ecosystem products and services. The contribution of ecosystems is represented via the concept of ecological cumulative exergy consumption (ECEC), which is related to emergy analysis but avoids any of its controversial assumptions and claims. The use of thermodynamics permits representation of all kinds of inputs and outputs in consistent units, facilitating the definition of aggregate metrics. Total ECEC requirement indicates the extent to which each economic sector relies directly and indirectly on ecological inputs. The ECEC/money ratio indicates the relative monetary versus ecological throughputs in each sector, and indicates the relationship between the thermodynamic work needed to produce a product or service and the corresponding economic activity. This ratio is found to decrease along economic supply chains, indicating industries that are higher up in the economic food chain price ecosystem contribution more than the basic infrastructure industries such as mining and manufacturing. The ratio of CEC with and without inclusion of ecosystems indicates the extent to which conventional thermoeconomic analysis underestimates the contribution of ecosystems. Such ratios, made available for the first time, provide unique insight into the importance of natural capital, and are especially useful in hybrid thermodynamic life cycle analysis of industrial systems. The approach, data compiled in this work, and the resulting insight provide a more ecologically conscious tool for environmental decision-making, and has potential applications at micro as well as macro scales.     

Environmental costs of freshwater eutrophication in England and Wales

Eutrophication has many known consequences, but there are few data on the environmental and health costs. We developed a new framework of cost categories that assess both social and ecological damage costs and policy response costs. These findings indicate the severe effects of nutrient enrichment and eutrophication on many sectors of the economy. We estimate the damage costs of freshwater eutrophication in England and Wales to be $105-160 million yr(-1) (pound 75.0-114.3 m). The policy response costs are a measure of how much is being spent to address this damage, and these amount to $77 million yr(-1) pound 54.8 m). The damage costs are dominated by seven items each with costs of $15 million yr(-1) or more: reduced value of waterfront dwellings, drinking water treatment costs for nitrogen removal, reduced recreational and amenity value of water bodies, drinking water treatment costs for removal of algal toxins and decomposition products, reduced value of nonpolluted atmosphere, negative ecological effects on biota, and net economic losses from the tourist industry. In common with other environmental problems, it would represent net value (or cost reduction) if damage was prevented at source. A variety of effective economic, regulatory, and administrative policy instruments are available for internalizing these costs.     

Life cycle assessment of an ionic liquid versus molecular solvents and their applications

Ionic liquids (ILs) have been claimed as "greener" replacements to molecular solvents. However, the environmental impacts of the life cycle phases and comparison with alternative methods have not been studied. Such a life cycle assessment (LCA) is essential before any legitimate claims of "greenness" can be made and is the subject of this paper. The model IL selected is 1-butyl-3-methyl-imidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([Bmim][BF4]) and its use as a solvent for the manufacture of cyclohexane and in a Diels-Alder reaction was assessed. These uses are compared with more conventional synthesis methods. The results indicate that processes that use IL are highly likely to have a larger life cycle environmental impact than more conventional methods. Sensitivity analysis shows that the result is robust to errors and variation in the data. For cyclohexane synthesis, the industrial gas phase process is the greenest, but the three solvents compared for the Diels-Alder reaction showed comparable life cycle impact. Although ILs are not the most attractive alternatives, the result may change if their separation efficiency, stability and recyclability are improved. Because there are many kinds of ILs, with many applications, two examples are not enough to reach any general conclusions about the greenness of all ILs. However, the life cycle data and approach of this study can be used for evaluating the greenness of more kinds of solvents, processes, and emerging technologies.     

Should we pretreat solid waste prior to anaerobic digestion? An assessment of its environmental cost

Many studies have shown the effectiveness of pretreatments prior to anaerobic digestion of solid wastes, but to our knowledge, none analyzes their environmental consequences/costs. In this work, seven different pretreatments applied to two types of waste (kitchen waste and sewage sludge) have been environmentally evaluated by using life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. The results show that the environmental burdens associated to the application of pretreatments prior to anaerobic digestion cannot be excluded. Among the options tested, the pressurize-depressurize and chemical (acid or alkaline) pretreatments could be recommended on the basis of their beneficial net environmental performance, while thermal and ozonation alternatives require energy efficiency optimization to reduce their environmental burdens. Reconciling operational, economic and environmental aspects in a holistic approach for the selection of the most sustainable option, mechanical (e.g., pressurize-depressurize) and chemical methods appear to be the most appropriate alternatives at this stage.     

Application of hybrid life cycle approaches to emerging energy technologies--the case of wind power in the UK

Future energy technologies will be key for a successful reduction of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. With demand for electricity projected to increase significantly in the future, climate policy goals of limiting the effects of global atmospheric warming can only be achieved if power generation processes are profoundly decarbonized. Energy models, however, have ignored the fact that upstream emissions are associated with any energy technology. In this work we explore methodological options for hybrid life cycle assessment (hybrid LCA) to account for the indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of energy technologies using wind power generation in the UK as a case study. We develop and compare two different approaches using a multiregion input-output modeling framework - Input-Output-based Hybrid LCA and Integrated Hybrid LCA. The latter utilizes the full-sized Ecoinvent process database. We discuss significance and reliability of the results and suggest ways to improve the accuracy of the calculations. The comparison of hybrid LCA methodologies provides valuable insight into the availability and robustness of approaches for informing energy and environmental policy.     

A mixed-unit input-output model for environmental life-cycle assessment and material flow analysis

Materials flow analysis models have traditionally been used to track the production, use, and consumption of materials. Economic input-output modeling has been used for environmental systems analysis, with a primary benefit being the capability to estimate direct and indirect economic and environmental impacts across the entire supply chain of production in an economy. We combine these two types of models to create a mixed-unit input-output model that is able to bettertrack economic transactions and material flows throughout the economy associated with changes in production. A 13 by 13 economic input-output direct requirements matrix developed by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis is augmented with material flow data derived from those published by the U.S. Geological Survey in the formulation of illustrative mixed-unit input-output models for lead and cadmium. The resulting model provides the capabilities of both material flow and input-output models, with detailed material tracking through entire supply chains in response to any monetary or material demand. Examples of these models are provided along with a discussion of uncertainty and extensions to these models.     

Input-dependent life-cycle inventory model of industrial wastewater-treatment processes in the chemical sector

Industrial wastewater-treatment systems need to ensure a high level of protection for the environment as a whole. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) comprehensively evaluates the environmental impacts of complex treatment systems, taking into account impacts from auxiliaries and energy consumption as well as emissions. However, the application of LCA is limited by a scarcity of wastewater-specific life-cycle inventory (LCI) data. This study presents a modular gate-to-gate inventory model for industrial wastewater purification in the chemical and related sectors. It enables the calculation of inventory parameters as a function of the wastewater composition and the technologies applied. Forthis purpose, data on energy and auxiliaries' consumption, wastewater composition, and process parameters was collected from chemical industry. On this basis, causal relationships between wastewater input, emissions, and technical inputs were identified. These causal relationships were translated into a generic inventory model. Generic and site-specific data ranges for LCI parameters are provided for the following processes: mechanical-biological treatment, high-pressure wet-air oxidation, nanofiltration, and extraction. The input- and technology-dependent process inventories help to bridge data gaps where primary data are not available. Thus, they substantially help to perform an environmental assessment of industrial wastewater purification in the chemical and associated industries, which may be used, for instance, for technology choices.     

Confronting workplace exposure to chemicals with LCA: examples of trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene in metal degreasing and dry cleaning

Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) aims to assess all environmental impacts "from cradle to grave". Nevertheless, existing methods for Life-Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) generally do not consider impacts from chemical exposure at the workplace. This is a severe drawback, because neglecting occupational health effects may result in product or process optimizations at the expense of workers' health. We adapt an existing LCIA method to consider occupational health effects from the use of perchloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE) in dry cleaning and metal degreasing. The results show that, in applications such as metal degreasing and dry cleaning, long-term (steady-state) concentrations at the workplace are up to 6 orders of magnitude higher than ambient air levels. Legal threshold values may be exceeded, depending on machine technology, size, and surrounding working conditions. The impact from workplace exposure to the total human-toxicity potential of the complete life cycle of PCE and TCE (including use, production, and disposal) is accordingly high. We therefore conclude that occupational health effects need to be considered in LCA to prevent overlooking key environmental-health impacts in LCA.