Journal of Industrial Ecology最新文献

The shift in industrial paradigms toward achieving global carbon neutrality and strengthening national material security may initially appear unrelated; however, both domains share a crucial intermediary: critical minerals. Despite global initiatives aimed at securing critical minerals through established supply chains, persistent challenges have arisen owing to resource depletion, geopolitical instability, and intricate international dynamics. Eco-industrial parks (EIPs) are instrumental in mitigating these challenges by facilitating the recycling of resources embedded within waste and by-products. This strategy is essential to minimize resource consumption and foster resilient domestic supply chains, particularly in resource-scarce nations. This study evaluates the recovery potential of nickel, a critical material for green technologies, within a closed-loop system utilizing an industrial symbiosis development framework with public and open-source data of industry. This approach enhances supply- and demand-matching schemes within industrial symbiosis networks, specifically focusing on nickel recovery technologies within the Korean EIP project. The findings revealed that these networks within industrial complexes encompassed 86% of the manufacturing industry, thus establishing a cohesive framework for the development of a nickel integration network. Notably, among the 190 companies across 74 industrial complexes, 135 of the 27 designated EIPs participated in the recycling network. This indicates that EIPs could serve as a viable alternative for resource recovery to secure critical minerals. The implementation of such networks in concentrated industrial complexes with diverse manufacturing sectors is expected to significantly enhance critical mineral self-sufficiency in high-demand countries.

The environmental impacts of exporting second-hand electric vehicles (SH EVs) to lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are increasingly relevant as electric vehicle (EV) adoption rises in high-income countries. This study uses a regionally expanded life cycle assessment model to evaluate the lifecycle environmental performance of SH EV exports, their net benefits to LMICs, and their role in the global transition to electric mobility. The model integrates expert elicitation to capture informal practices in vehicle repair, dismantling, and recycling in LMICs, focusing on the US–Mexico second-hand vehicle trade relationship. Key findings reveal that export timing significantly influences life cycle performance, particularly regarding battery degradation, replacement, and recycling. Compared to retention in the United States, exporting an SH EV under average use conditions increases global warming potential (GWP) by 16%, non-carcinogenic human toxicity potential (HTP-NC) by 74%, and terrestrial ecotoxicity potential (TEP) by 16%. In contrast, while established second-hand internal combustion engine vehicle exports have historically shifted environmental burdens to LMICs—increasing Mexico's operational emissions by 107% relative to its average vehicle—SH EVs reduce operational emissions by 82% (GWP), 96% (HTP-NC), and 97% (TEP), particularly as electricity grids decarbonize. Despite these advantages, limited end-of-life battery management systems in LMICs raise concerns about toxicity risks. The study underscores the need for cross-border cooperation to establish common regulatory frameworks and develop recycling capacity in LMICs, preventing environmental burden shifting and advancing critical mineral circularity. These insights provide policymakers a foundation to ensure SH EV trade supports a just, sustainable transition to electric mobility.

In contrast to municipal waste, the much larger quantities of industrial waste are less frequently addressed, both in legislation and in life cycle assessment (LCA). However, LCA studies can identify opportunities to reduce national environmental impacts by improving the management of industrial waste, and they can inform legislation that brings us closer to a net-zero, circular economy. This study analyzes the impact mitigation potential of 10 industrial waste categories in a case study of the Czech Republic. By adopting consequential, fraction-specific LCA modeling of current waste management practices, we clarified their hierarchy and quantified maximum transport distances from the environmental perspective. We further linked the environmental impacts with material flow analysis of these waste categories in the Czech Republic and compared the current situation with a potential scenario based on legislation targets and the maximum demand for recycled materials. The results indicate a potential to mitigate approximately 2.3% of the current environmental impacts for the Czech Republic and reduce primary energy resource consumption by about 1.7%. The highest potential was attributed to ferrous metal waste, where an increased recycling rate could additionally substitute up to 942 kt of primary steel, resulting in substantial environmental savings. The second highest potential was reported for coal combustion fly ash utilized in concrete production. The findings indicate that these materials, which are currently underemphasized in public policies, deserve greater attention.

Regional resilience is important for addressing the complex challenges faced by regions in the current era of globalization, climate change, and rapid technological transformation. The study of regional resilience provides critical insights into sustainable development and long-term prosperity. This study presents a framework for evaluating the spatiotemporal evolution of regional resilience by integrating multidimensional indicators and spatial analysis techniques. The resilience in regions of China from 2000 to 2022 was measured, and temporal and spatial evolution characteristics were explored via econometric models. The results revealed significant variation in resilience across provinces, with both temporal and spatial heterogeneity observed. According to the evaluation from 31 provinces, resilience did not develop in isolation on a unified path. Beijing, Guangdong, and Shanghai exhibit high levels of resilience and are located in economically developed areas. Changes in resilience to varying degrees were observed at the regional level, with Central South China, Northwest China, and Central China in the first tier, North China and Northeast China in the second tier, and Southwest China in the third tier. Most provinces with high resilience and high concentration are located in the southeastern coastal region, whereas most low-low-agglomeration cities are located in the northwestern region. The spatiotemporal evolution of provincial resilience reflects the complementarity and differences in development between regions. This study provides a comprehensive framework for understanding and increasing resilience in different regions. The insights provided by this study offer practical guidance for policymakers and planners seeking to promote sustainable development.

Using lightweight materials in aircraft structures, especially carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP), can be an option for achieving aviation's ambitious emission reduction goals. However, using CFRP can be associated with adverse environmental and economic impacts, which can relativize its potential benefits. Nevertheless, the extent of the potential advantages and disadvantages of the increased use of CFRP in the entire airframe is still uncertain, as existing studies relate to specific airframe components or estimated weight savings. This article aims to close this gap by developing detailed life cycle inventories (LCIs) for aircraft with CFRP structures and analyzing the environmental and economic impacts during aircraft production and use. Furthermore, potential reinforcement effects from using sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) in such aircraft are investigated to determine the overall environmental and economic impacts. For this purpose, three aircraft configurations with different CFRP content are modeled using the aircraft design program “Preliminary Aircraft Design and Optimization”. Afterward, detailed LCIs are developed, and life cycle assessment and environmental life cycle costing are applied. Subsequently, an analysis is conducted where SAFs replace fossil kerosene to investigate the potential for further reductions of environmental and economic impacts. The results of the analysis indicate that increasing the CFRP content in the airframe reduces environmental impacts during production and use. Despite higher production costs, more cost-effective flight operations are possible. Additionally, there is a reinforcement effect through using SAFs in aircraft with increased CFRP content, which can further reduce climate-damaging emissions by several magnitudes more compared to lightweight materials alone.

Nebel, A., Kling, A., Willamowski, R., & Schell, T. (2023). Recalibration of limits to growth: An update of the World3 model. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 28, 87–99.

The last paragraph of the abstract reads: “The parameters with the largest relative changes are those related to industrial capital lifetime, pollution transmission delay, and urban-industrial land development time.” The default parameter of alic1 was inserted incorrectly in the evaluation of the simulation results. The text should have read:

“The parameters with the largest relative changes are those related to pollution transmission delay and urban-industrial land development time.”

In the fifth paragraph of the section “Recalibration23” the text “The parameter average lifetime of industrial capital 1” (alic1) has the highest relative change. The improved value is more than six times the default value. The value changes from 2 year to 15.24 years. The second highest relative change has the persistent pollution transmission delay (pptd). “This parameter increases from 20 years to 111.8 years.” is incorrect, due to an error in evaluation of the simulation results. The default parameter of alic1 was inserted incorrectly in the evaluation. The text should have read: “The parameter persistent pollution transmission delay” (pptd) has the largest relative change. The improved value is almost five times the default value. The value changes from 20 years to 116.38 years. The second highest relative change occurs in the urban-industrial land development time (uildt). “This parameter decreases from 10 years to 0.53 years.”

In addition, table two “Parameters with improved and default values and relative change of Recalibration23” the default value of the parameter “alic1” (average lifetime of industrial capital 1) was 2. It should be 14. The relative change [%] was 662.1. It should be 8.86. Since the table is sorted by the relative change, the first entry was the alic1 parameter. It should have been between the “imef” (industrial material toxic index) and “pl” (processing loss) parameters.

This is the current table 2:

The table should be:

We apologize for this error.

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) provide valuable insights into the cement industry's future trends while ensuring scenario consistency on a global and economy-wide scale. However, IAMs often have a low technological resolution, omitting a wide range of abatement options currently under development for the cement industry, only focusing on potential improvements to energy efficiency of the kiln and the adoption of a single, often unspecified, carbon capture and storage technology. This study investigates how the inclusion of these technologies would impact the cement producers' investment decisions and contribute to emission reductions. An econometric model that is soft-linked with an IAM is used to integrate the abatement options in the scenarios while ensuring consistency with the underlying assumptions is maintained. For clinker production, this study evaluates full and partial carbon capture technologies, as well as novel heating options, applicable to new kilns or as retrofits. For cement production, the study determined investments in limestone calcined clay cement, a novel ternary cement blend. The model is applied to the EU, United States, and Canada for the SSP2-baseline and RCP2.6 and RCP1.9 scenarios. Results indicate that investors are likely to invest in a wide range of the omitted abatement options. Key factors influencing investment decisions are energy prices, carbon tax, and alternative fuel supply. Finally, a prospective consequential life cycle assessment was conducted to determine the environmental impact of these investment strategies. The impact assessment showed substantial reductions in global warming potential across all scenarios, with reductions of up to sevenfold the original value. This article met the requirements for a gold-gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges.

Buildings require substantial amounts of resources, as both construction materials and operational energy. In Norway, as buildings become more energy efficient due to advancements in construction, technology, and stricter regulations, the relative impact of construction and maintenance materials rises. However, there is a lack of comprehensive data on construction and material use, and consequently, their embodied emissions. While some studies explored the environmental impacts of Norwegian buildings, they often either focus on case-study buildings or only the operational emissions, due to limited data on embodied emissions; others rely on inconsistent statistical correlations between energy use and material composition. Bottom-up physics-based building archetypes offer a solution to fill this gap by providing structured data on energy use and material composition. This paper, therefore, introduces 21 archetypes of Norwegian residential buildings, categorized into three typologies and seven construction cohorts. Dynamic energy simulations were conducted, using DesignBuilder, for estimating space heating consumption, combined with the BuildME Python package for material estimation and aggregation. We found that load-bearing components drive building's material intensity, especially in wooden buildings with basements. Post-1991 multi-family houses (MFHs) have lower material intensity than single-family houses (SFHs) and apartment blocks (ABs), though ABs outperform them by lower space heating demand. Substitution of concrete slabs by wood and increasing occupancy to MFH's level can reduce the material intensity of ABs and SFHs, respectively. By establishing integrated energy and material demand models, archetypes provide a representative and scalable basis for further assessment of building stock's resource use, renovation impacts, and environmental studies.

Modern slavery laws are increasingly being adopted by countries, requiring companies to demonstrate human rights due diligence. Attempts at quantifying modern slavery across the world have played a crucial role in awareness raising, and locally rich data have been used to provide insights into supply chains for specific sectors and regions but is there a tool that businesses can use wherever they are? We investigate the possibility of developing a universal, global modern-slavery satellite account for footprinting and as a first step, carry out a comprehensive review of global modern slavery data, estimates, and potential proxies. In addition to data on confirmed cases being unrepresentative of the likely population, estimates risk high sampling errors and low reproducibility. We also analyze data that might be used as “slavery-like” indicators; however, none could be recommended. Such attempts at footprinting modern-day slavery are fraught because the identified supply-chain hotspots resulting from direct expenditure are based on these modern-slavery datasets that are not fit for such a purpose. Modern-slavery footprints may be misleading because the complexities and limitations of the data are not well-represented in a simple indicator, the underlying data are highly uncertain, and the results simply tend to reflect poverty. Although our research highlights that there is no simple way to produce reliable estimates of global modern slavery in supply chains, continued work to build up modern-slavery data worldwide should support critical, hybrid input–output lifecycle assessment studies, adding to the web of information globally to support ethical decision-making.

Material flow analyses (MFAs) provide insight into supply chain-level opportunities for resource efficiency. MFAs can be represented as networks with nodes that represent materials, processes, sectors, or locations. MFA network structure uncertainty (i.e., the existence or absence of flows between nodes) is pervasive and can undermine the reliability of the flow predictions. This article investigates MFA network structure uncertainty by proposing candidate node-and-flow structures and using Bayesian model selection to identify the most suitable structures and Bayesian model averaging to quantify the parametric mass flow uncertainty. The results of this holistic approach to MFA uncertainty are used in conjunction with the input-output (I/O) method to make risk-informed resource efficiency recommendations. These techniques are demonstrated using a case study on the US steel sector where 16 candidate structures are considered. The model selection highlights two networks as most probable based on data collected from the United States Geological Survey and the World Steel Association. Using the I/O method, we then show that the construction sector accounts for the greatest mean share of domestic US steel industry emissions while the automotive and steel products sectors have the highest mean emissions per unit of steel used in the end-use sectors. The uncertainty in the results is used to analyze which end-use sector should be the focus of demand reduction efforts under different appetites for risk. This article's methods generate holistic and transparent MFA uncertainty that accounts for structural uncertainty, enabling decisions whose outcomes are more robust to the uncertainty.