Journal of Industrial Ecology最新文献

Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) metabolism is becoming an increasingly complex process during urbanization due to increasing rates of consumption and emission worldwide. Understanding the urban N and P metabolism helps identifying production capacity, consumption demand, and the impact of N and P emissions on the environment, providing a scientific basis for decision-making in sustainable utilization of N and P resources. Quantifying and mapping the source, path, and sinks of N and P in an urban system is the premise of controlling emissions. In this paper, we used the substance flow analysis (SFA) method to describe the N and P metabolism processes in the urban system of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) in 2017, and used the scenario-based analysis method to understand the impact of different N and P metabolisms on potentially recoverable N and P sources by 2030. The results showed that the urban system of Dar es Salaam receives a total input flow of 28,101.8 tN/year and 3,379 tP/year, with a total output flow of 18,859.6 tN/year and 1,849.3 tP/year with net stock changes of 9,242.2 t/year for N and 1,529.7 t/year for P, respectively. We noticed that increased human activities largely represented the city's waste released after the household consumption, and would become the main causes of N and P emissions. In addition to this, 59.38%, 31.25%, and 9.38% of N flow quantification quality were at high, medium, and low levels, respectively, while 74.07%, 11.11%, and 14.81% of P flow quantification quality were at high, medium, and low levels, respectively. Our results suggest that implementing integrated nutrient management measures, such as changes in people's diets and the use of washing products, and improved management and technologies of manure, sewage, and landfill leachate treatment, would be the most effective approach to resolve the urban nutrient emissions in Dar es Salaam.

This study explores the prospects of urban mining for a steadily developing city “Thane,” located in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region of India, through building material stock accounting (BMSA). A novel bottom-up approach for stock accounting was developed for the cities with limited data availability, through the integration of geodata spatial analysis, archetype identification through statistical modeling, and regional building design assessment for material intensity calculation. This study is the first of its kind in the Indian context and focuses on the stock estimation of the most common building materials: concrete, reinforcement steel, and masonry bricks within the boundaries of a typical Indian urban area. The results showed that the total built-up stock in Thane city in 2018 amounts to 84.7 million metric ton (MT) by weight; concrete 57.7%, bricks 40.4%, steel 1.9%. Such reservoirs of raw material can be harnessed to fulfill the future material requirements of the construction industry through proposed circular economy interventions such as material bank creation, local recycling facilities, and development of a secondary material market. The material stock estimated in this study was 46.1 MT/capita for permanent building dwellers and with potential infrastructural developments underway, urban mining application can be ensured by redefining design and demolition strategies and multi-level collaboration for generating alternative material sources for the construction sector. This work of BMSA intends to provide meaningful insights into exploring the potentials of urban mining and help chart the future roadmaps of sustainable construction in India.

Environmental sustainability boundaries can be used as references in evaluations of the absolute sustainability of activities and for developing policy targets and strategies. Recent literature has applied boundaries for climate change in different ways in life cycle assessment and there is a need for a systematic overview of these approaches, their compatibility with different types of assessments, and their effects on assessment results. This paper addresses that need by identifying and contrasting five approaches to operationalizing the climate change boundary and applying these approaches to a common case of the EU27 + UK consumption footprint in 2019. The identified operationalization approaches are found to be either static or dynamic. Static approaches enable comparison with a boundary which is constant through time, while dynamic approaches interpret the environmental sustainability boundary as a trajectory toward reaching net-zero emissions at the right time. When applying the five operationalization approaches to the 2019 consumption footprint of the EU27 + UK, we find that emissions reduction should be more ambitious than the current European Green Deal targets. For policymaking, the static approaches can offer a highly ambitious ideal reference aiding immediate action but can lack adaptability to evolving conditions. Dynamic approaches better address long-term goals and evolving knowledge but are more complex. This study contributes to the literature on absolute sustainability assessment by unravelling model choices and their implications for assessment results and policymaking.

Currently used sharing principles (grandfathering and final consumption expenditure) do not align with the purpose of Absolute Environmental Sustainability Assessments (AESAs)—enabling all to meet basic needs within the planetary limits. This discrepancy, though niche within life cycle engineering, demands attention due to the integration of the sharing principles in the widely adopted Science Based Targets initiative, embraced by 4000+ companies, representing over a third of the global economy. This paper suggests operationalizing sufficientarianism as a fair sharing principle for AESAs guaranteeing a minimum threshold of well-being for all. The theory of human needs is highlighted to distinguish luxuries from necessities. This is vital when assigning shares to products/companies, as there's no room for luxuries (products for someone which cause others to fall short), given the extremely limited individual safe operating space, regardless of the sharing approach. This paper argues that sufficientarian-based sharing principles must overlook historically skewed material welfare distributions to ensure no one falls below the minimum threshold. It underscores the need for an interdisciplinary approach to sharing principles, acknowledging and discussing diverse value perspectives on equal grounds. The focus is to inform and discuss the development of new sharing principles, which introduces initial steps toward a sufficientarian-based approach. The paper concludes that recognizing embedded values is paramount in sharing principle development. Failing to do so risks letting quantifiable metrics dictate the values integrated into AESAs without open discourse.

The application of eco-design principles in the building sector is considered a promising way to mitigate its substantial environmental impacts. However, quantitative evidence for this mitigation potential is lacking. The objective of this study was to quantify the environmental performance of diverse eco-design strategies when applied to the building sector. A macroscale model capable of simulating the future demand for housing and related material flows within the urban building stock was developed based on an existing building stock model. These material flows were used to build inventories for a consequential life cycle assessment and, in turn, to quantify the potential environmental consequences of introducing eco-design strategies in the building sector, assessed across 16 impact categories. Model outputs have a high level of uncertainty but are still useful for decision-making, given the model's simplicity and transparency. The main results show that impact reductions can be obtained from specific uses of wood and wooden products, for example, when used for the walls in high-rise buildings, whereas using hempcrete for partition walls increases the impact. Although the use of adaptability or disassembly strategies can reduce impacts, this pay-off can only be obtained after a long period of implementation. In summary, the present study provides new quantitative insights into the ability of eco-design strategies to mitigate environmental impacts in the building sector.

Climate change and its damaging consequences for ecology and humanity is advancing. Industry and its metals sector are responsible for most greenhouse gas emissions. Current costs of industrial goods do not reflect the true costs caused by the externalized climate damages of its production and thus offer no competitive incentive to decarbonize. Additionally, regional climate regulation can lead to competitive distortion. We therefore aim to investigate the impact of climate cost internalization on the metals industry. Using true-cost analysis for an exemplary and widely used metal product, the effects of climate true costs depending on production region, technology, and energy mix, CO₂e taxation and value chain are examined. Based hereon, the impact of internalizing climate true costs together with the introduction of a carbon-border tax on the carbon leakage problem, climate protection, and the cost situation for companies in global competition are investigated. The results of the study show that steel and wire production is responsible for most CO₂e emissions showing significant decarbonization effects by steel recycling whereas production location and logistics play a minor role. On a competitive level, cost internalization has hardly any effect on the product costs because of the currently low CO₂e-taxation rates. Thus, almost no incentive to produce or consume in a climate-protective way is generated, incentivizing production in pollution havens versus highly climate regulated regions. Instead, to realize emission efficiency gains and innovations leading to a competitive advantage of decarbonized products and value chains, a significant increase of CO₂e-taxation rates together with a carbon-border tax is necessary.

Construction materials accumulate in the built environment forming material stocks (MS) of buildings and infrastructure, providing various services to society that result in a nexus of human development and environmental impact. Meanwhile, unprecedented urbanization in the Global South is set to put significant demand on the resources required to ensure adequate standards of living in new and existing urban areas. This is particularly important within India; however, no study has yet explored MS within cities in India or within master-planned urban areas designed to accommodate urbanization and a high standard of living. The present study begins to fill these gaps and aims to investigate patterns of built-environment MS accumulation in Chandigarh, an exceptionally quickly developed city master planned to ensure universally high standards of living through a unique urban form. We adopt a bottom-up approach to quantify the residential building and road MS at the city and sub-city scale. The results reveal that the master plan, while enabling high standards of living, has resulted in a relative accumulation of road-to-building stock that is significantly larger than in other cities. This is shown to be environmentally detrimental as future urban development is limited and promotes the demolition of existing stocks, whose composition severely limits their potential as secondary resources. The study therefore provides empirical evidence to support the integration of material stock assessments into urban planning and development to ensure resource-efficient provisioning of key services.

Conducting benefit analyses used to be a controversial endeavor. In the absence of a consistent normative framework, indicators had to be determined on a case-by-case basis, requiring time-consuming stakeholder workshops. The 2030 Agenda provided the missing normative basis to enable the inclusion of benefit aspects in life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA). However, given the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their 169 targets, it has remained unclear which of these targets relate to products and services and should therefore be used as indicators in benefit analyses. Against this background, this paper presents a consistent and well-defined indicator framework for product-related benefit analyses, developed through a detailed alignment with the 2030 Agenda and comprising a set of 30 indicators. It also describes how benefit analysis can be integrated into the LCSA methodology to provide a sound, evidence-based framework for research and policy making: First, it outlines a sustainability self-assessment tool for corporate researchers and designers, embedded in a Stage-Gate process as a “voice-of-society” perspective. Second, it discusses approaches to improve regulatory impact assessment for policy making, particularly in the area of chemicals management. An illustrative case study shows how the developed benefit indicators can address current shortcomings in socio-economic analysis methodology, such as an unbalanced focus on the economic impacts and insufficient information on human and environmental impacts. Despite its limitations, such as the inherent focus on societal benefits and existing “blind spots” in the 2030 Agenda, the indicator set has the potential to enrich LCSA studies with previously neglected aspects.

Addressing the complexities of transitioning to a sustainable bioeconomy, this paper presents a novel approach for developing regional transformation pathways (RTPs) based on narratives derived from the shared socioeconomic pathways. The methodology emphasizes a comprehensive understanding of underlying perspectives and perceptions, incorporating socio-economic, environmental, and political dimensions. The developed indicator framework captures a balanced representation of diverse interests by integrating insights from stakeholder analyses. The case study in the Rheinisches Revier region, Germany, exemplifies the approach's applicability, providing valuable insights for decision-making processes in the context of regional transitions toward a low-carbon economy. The results consist of five developed RTPs, offering a multitude of potential future trajectories of possible directions for regional transformations. Understanding potential pathways and related consequences is crucial for informed decision-making concerning resource use optimization since transformations of that scale influence the composition of supply chains and resource networks. This informed approach contributes to strategic planning and helps ensure resources are utilized efficiently and sustainably. By emphasizing the crucial role of transparency and reflection of assumptions in addressing the complexities of societal transformation processes, our approach seeks to support the implementation of a sustainable and inclusive bioeconomy at the regional level.