Pub Date : 2024-11-09DOI: 10.1016/j.spc.2024.11.008
Venkat Roy , Mariappan Parans Paranthaman , Fu Zhao
The burgeoning electric vehicle (EV) sector in the United States (US) is expected to drive up the demand for lithium, a critical element for EV batteries. Lithium-rich clays in the Nevada desert emerge as a prospective US-based domestic source. This study employs Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to examine the environmental aspects of extracting lithium from this source. Among the two evaluated routes, acid leaching was more energy-efficient (35 MJ/kg LCE (Lithium Carbonate Equivalent) than roasting (200 MJ/kg LCE), based on pilot plant data. When compared to conventional methods like spodumene-based extraction, acid leaching shows reductions across almost every category, with notable decreases in high-magnitude impacts like Global Warming (48 %), Freshwater Ecotoxicity (15 %), and Smog (69 %). Water consumption is the only category that increases, rising by 79 %. Insights from this study on upstream impacts of lithium from clay could help inform sourcing decisions downstream, in the battery and EV sector.
{"title":"Lithium from clay: Assessing the environmental impacts of extraction","authors":"Venkat Roy , Mariappan Parans Paranthaman , Fu Zhao","doi":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.11.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.11.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The burgeoning electric vehicle (EV) sector in the United States (US) is expected to drive up the demand for lithium, a critical element for EV batteries. Lithium-rich clays in the Nevada desert emerge as a prospective US-based domestic source. This study employs Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to examine the environmental aspects of extracting lithium from this source. Among the two evaluated routes, acid leaching was more energy-efficient (35 MJ/kg LCE (Lithium Carbonate Equivalent) than roasting (200 MJ/kg LCE), based on pilot plant data. When compared to conventional methods like spodumene-based extraction, acid leaching shows reductions across almost every category, with notable decreases in high-magnitude impacts like Global Warming (48 %), Freshwater Ecotoxicity (15 %), and Smog (69 %). Water consumption is the only category that increases, rising by 79 %. Insights from this study on upstream impacts of lithium from clay could help inform sourcing decisions downstream, in the battery and EV sector.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48619,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Production and Consumption","volume":"52 ","pages":"Pages 324-332"},"PeriodicalIF":10.9,"publicationDate":"2024-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142654247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Carbon absorption in growing trees is an important element of a carbon-neutral society, and the long-term storage of carbon stocks is a crucial sustainability challenge. Previous studies have focused on either live-biomass carbon stocks in plantation forests or anthropogenic carbon stocks in man-made objects. For a comprehensive nature-based climate solution, an analytical framework, dataset, and scenario setup for modeling the interrelationship between timber supply and demand are required. This study developed an interlinked material flow analysis model in which the timber demand for wooden houses is connected with timber supply from managed plantation forestry. We demonstrate the model by quantifying both live-biomass and anthropogenic carbon stocks and their potentials in Japan. We compared multiple scenario-runs of the model for wooden house demands estimated by population change with varying combinations of house types, structures, and lifespans. Our results show that carbon stocks will reach a maximum amount of 1.1 billion t-C by 2050 in a scenario of high demand for wooden detached houses with lifespan extensions. On the other hand, we also found that the aging of plantation forests and their reduced carbon-stocking capacities appear inevitable in any scenario owing to the limited demand for timber. Notably, despite the widely different settings of the various scenarios, our results exhibited narrow variances in future potential carbon storage in Japan. This can be explained by the unique population characteristics and building demographics of Japan. These counterintuitive findings highlight the need for interrelated modeling of the forestry and construction sectors. Our model and its scope are versatile and applicable to other case study areas, estimation periods, and target materials.
{"title":"An interlinked dynamic model of timber and carbon stocks in Japan's wooden houses and plantation forests","authors":"Naho Yamashita , Tomer Fishman , Chihiro Kayo , Hiroki Tanikawa","doi":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.11.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.11.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Carbon absorption in growing trees is an important element of a carbon-neutral society, and the long-term storage of carbon stocks is a crucial sustainability challenge. Previous studies have focused on either live-biomass carbon stocks in plantation forests or anthropogenic carbon stocks in man-made objects. For a comprehensive nature-based climate solution, an analytical framework, dataset, and scenario setup for modeling the interrelationship between timber supply and demand are required. This study developed an interlinked material flow analysis model in which the timber demand for wooden houses is connected with timber supply from managed plantation forestry. We demonstrate the model by quantifying both live-biomass and anthropogenic carbon stocks and their potentials in Japan. We compared multiple scenario-runs of the model for wooden house demands estimated by population change with varying combinations of house types, structures, and lifespans. Our results show that carbon stocks will reach a maximum amount of 1.1 billion t-C by 2050 in a scenario of high demand for wooden detached houses with lifespan extensions. On the other hand, we also found that the aging of plantation forests and their reduced carbon-stocking capacities appear inevitable in any scenario owing to the limited demand for timber. Notably, despite the widely different settings of the various scenarios, our results exhibited narrow variances in future potential carbon storage in Japan. This can be explained by the unique population characteristics and building demographics of Japan. These counterintuitive findings highlight the need for interrelated modeling of the forestry and construction sectors. Our model and its scope are versatile and applicable to other case study areas, estimation periods, and target materials.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48619,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Production and Consumption","volume":"52 ","pages":"Pages 314-323"},"PeriodicalIF":10.9,"publicationDate":"2024-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142654246","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
With the introduction of the European Green Deal, companies must increasingly report the environmental impacts of their products using life cycle assessment methodology. Since the number of products in a company's portfolio can include thousands of different products, there is an urgent need for faster ways to estimate impact hotspots and to ultimately obtain adequate inventories. In recent years machine learning (ML) has emerged as a promising strategy to tackle cost- and resource-prohibitive accounting practices. However, to be practically applied, new concepts must not only be built on a large data basis allowing to predict diverse products with varying reference flows, but they must also ensure high data quality by reflecting different types of uncertainties. Therefore, in this publication we pursued three distinct objectives: building on digitized environmental product declarations, we first predicted life cycle environmental impacts with artificial neural networks (ANN) and second performed an in-depth characterization of uncertainty and sensitivity analysis methods to identify which methods can analyze what uncertainty types. Based on this analysis, we chose residual Gaussian Process Regression (rGPR) as suitable uncertainty analysis method and employed, in a third step, an advanced ANN-rGPR hybrid model to quantify associated model uncertainties. While our final model derived high prediction performances and low model uncertainties across a large impact range, we conclude that the practical use of ML-based predictions remains limited, as long as reported product disclosures lack critical modeling specifications. However, if future reporting requirements comprehensively demanded such information, ML models could conceptually incorporate this information, thereby not only substantially improving the data quality but also the feasibility of practical implementation.
随着欧洲绿色交易的推出，企业必须越来越多地使用生命周期评估方法报告其产品对环境的影响。由于公司产品组合中的产品数量可能包括数千种不同产品，因此迫切需要更快的方法来估计影响热点，并最终获得足够的库存。近年来，机器学习（ML）已成为解决成本和资源限制型会计实践的一种有前途的策略。然而，新概念要得到实际应用，不仅必须建立在大量数据的基础上，允许预测具有不同参考流量的各种产品，而且还必须通过反映不同类型的不确定性来确保较高的数据质量。因此，在本出版物中，我们追求三个不同的目标：在数字化环境产品声明的基础上，我们首先利用人工神经网络（ANN）预测生命周期对环境的影响，其次对不确定性和敏感性分析方法进行深入分析，以确定哪些方法可以分析哪些不确定性类型。在此分析基础上，我们选择了残差高斯过程回归（rGPR）作为合适的不确定性分析方法，并在第三步中采用了先进的 ANN-rGPR 混合模型来量化相关模型的不确定性。虽然我们的最终模型在较大的影响范围内具有较高的预测性能和较低的模型不确定性，但我们得出的结论是，只要报告的产品披露缺乏关键的建模规范，基于 ML 的预测的实际应用仍然有限。不过，如果未来的报告要求全面要求此类信息，那么 ML 模型就可以在概念上纳入这些信息，从而不仅大幅提高数据质量，而且提高实际实施的可行性。
{"title":"Predicting product life cycle environmental impacts with machine learning: Uncertainties and implications for future reporting requirements","authors":"Julian Baehr , Anish Koyamparambath , Eduardo Dos Reis , Steffi Weyand , Carsten Binnig , Liselotte Schebek , Guido Sonnemann","doi":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.11.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.11.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>With the introduction of the European Green Deal, companies must increasingly report the environmental impacts of their products using life cycle assessment methodology. Since the number of products in a company's portfolio can include thousands of different products, there is an urgent need for faster ways to estimate impact hotspots and to ultimately obtain adequate inventories. In recent years machine learning (ML) has emerged as a promising strategy to tackle cost- and resource-prohibitive accounting practices. However, to be practically applied, new concepts must not only be built on a large data basis allowing to predict diverse products with varying reference flows, but they must also ensure high data quality by reflecting different types of uncertainties. Therefore, in this publication we pursued three distinct objectives: building on digitized environmental product declarations, we first predicted life cycle environmental impacts with artificial neural networks (ANN) and second performed an in-depth characterization of uncertainty and sensitivity analysis methods to identify which methods can analyze what uncertainty types. Based on this analysis, we chose residual Gaussian Process Regression (rGPR) as suitable uncertainty analysis method and employed, in a third step, an advanced ANN-rGPR hybrid model to quantify associated model uncertainties. While our final model derived high prediction performances and low model uncertainties across a large impact range, we conclude that the practical use of ML-based predictions remains limited, as long as reported product disclosures lack critical modeling specifications. However, if future reporting requirements comprehensively demanded such information, ML models could conceptually incorporate this information, thereby not only substantially improving the data quality but also the feasibility of practical implementation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48619,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Production and Consumption","volume":"52 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":10.9,"publicationDate":"2024-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142704615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-11-06DOI: 10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.026
Hazem Eltohamy , Lauran van Oers , Julia Lindholm , Marco Raugei , Kadambari Lokesh , Joris Baars , Jana Husmann , Nikolas Hill , Robert Istrate , Davis Jose , Fredrik Tegstedt , Antoine Beylot , Pascal Menegazzi , Jeroen Guinée , Bernhard Steubing
It is widely acknowledged that unharmonized methodological and data choices in life cycle assessments (LCAs) can limit comparability and complicate decision-making, ultimately hindering their effectiveness in guiding the rapid transition to electric mobility in Europe. The electric mobility sector aims to harmonize these assumptions and choices to improve comparability and better support decision-making. To support these efforts, this article aims to review the LCA practices across various sources in order to identify where key differences in assumptions, methodological approaches, and data selection occur in relevant LCA topics. In addition to this primary objective, we highlight certain practices that could serve as starting points for ongoing harmonization attempts, pointing out topics where it is challenging to do so. Our results showed that cradle-to-grave system boundary is the most commonly adopted in vehicle and traction battery LCAs, with maintenance and capital goods often excluded. The distance-based functional unit is dominant. Choices in Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) showed the greatest diversity and need for harmonization. Data quality and availability vary significantly by life cycle stage, with no standardized data collection approach in place. A lack of primary data is most prominent in the raw material acquisition and end of life (EoL) life cycle stages. Electricity consumption is a key topic in the EV sector, with major debates surrounding location-based versus market-based and static versus dynamic modeling. Multifunctionality problems are vaguely defined and resolved in the literature. For EoL multifunctionality, cut-off and avoided burden are prevalent, while allocation is common upstream. Impact assessments primarily follow the ReCiPe and CML-IA methods, with climate change, acidification, photochemical ozone formation, and eutrophication being the most reported impact categories. Systematic uncertainty propagation is rare in interpretations, with sensitivity analyses typically focusing on energy consumption, total mileage, and battery recycling rates. Overall, the review showed a big variation in assumptions and choices in EV LCA studies, particularly in the LCI stage. Among the discussed topics, we identified multifunctionality and electricity modeling as particularly contentious.
{"title":"Review of current practices of life cycle assessment in electric mobility: A first step towards method harmonization","authors":"Hazem Eltohamy , Lauran van Oers , Julia Lindholm , Marco Raugei , Kadambari Lokesh , Joris Baars , Jana Husmann , Nikolas Hill , Robert Istrate , Davis Jose , Fredrik Tegstedt , Antoine Beylot , Pascal Menegazzi , Jeroen Guinée , Bernhard Steubing","doi":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.026","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.026","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>It is widely acknowledged that unharmonized methodological and data choices in life cycle assessments (LCAs) can limit comparability and complicate decision-making, ultimately hindering their effectiveness in guiding the rapid transition to electric mobility in Europe. The electric mobility sector aims to harmonize these assumptions and choices to improve comparability and better support decision-making. To support these efforts, this article aims to review the LCA practices across various sources in order to identify where key differences in assumptions, methodological approaches, and data selection occur in relevant LCA topics. In addition to this primary objective, we highlight certain practices that could serve as starting points for ongoing harmonization attempts, pointing out topics where it is challenging to do so. Our results showed that cradle-to-grave system boundary is the most commonly adopted in vehicle and traction battery LCAs, with maintenance and capital goods often excluded. The distance-based functional unit is dominant. Choices in Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) showed the greatest diversity and need for harmonization. Data quality and availability vary significantly by life cycle stage, with no standardized data collection approach in place. A lack of primary data is most prominent in the raw material acquisition and end of life (EoL) life cycle stages. Electricity consumption is a key topic in the EV sector, with major debates surrounding location-based versus market-based and static versus dynamic modeling. Multifunctionality problems are vaguely defined and resolved in the literature. For EoL multifunctionality, cut-off and avoided burden are prevalent, while allocation is common upstream. Impact assessments primarily follow the ReCiPe and CML-IA methods, with climate change, acidification, photochemical ozone formation, and eutrophication being the most reported impact categories. Systematic uncertainty propagation is rare in interpretations, with sensitivity analyses typically focusing on energy consumption, total mileage, and battery recycling rates. Overall, the review showed a big variation in assumptions and choices in EV LCA studies, particularly in the LCI stage. Among the discussed topics, we identified multifunctionality and electricity modeling as particularly contentious.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48619,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Production and Consumption","volume":"52 ","pages":"Pages 299-313"},"PeriodicalIF":10.9,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142654311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-11-04DOI: 10.1016/j.spc.2024.11.002
Nannan Wang, Junlin Hao, Minghui Liu, Naixiao Cui
Sustainable energy transition is essential for global climate change mitigation, requiring substantial amounts of metals to support clean energy technologies. However, a key challenge is ensuring the stable metals mining operations while achieving economic viability, social benefits, and environmental responsibilities. Through a comprehensive literature review, this study identifies 30 risks impeding sustainable energy transition related to metals mining at two levels: the micro level risk and the macro level risk. A cross-evaluation method, by considering literature analysis and expert assessments, is proposed to develop a framework of 15 key risks. The findings reveal inappropriate classification in current literature, as the causes, consequences, and certain objective facts of risk events have been categorized as risks by academics. Additionally, there exist conflicting opinions between academics and practitioners on the key risks. Based on the findings, a multi-stakeholder governance approach is proposed to effectively mitigate these key risks and ensure the sustainable energy transition.
{"title":"Risks impeding sustainable energy transition related to metals mining","authors":"Nannan Wang, Junlin Hao, Minghui Liu, Naixiao Cui","doi":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.11.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.11.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sustainable energy transition is essential for global climate change mitigation, requiring substantial amounts of metals to support clean energy technologies. However, a key challenge is ensuring the stable metals mining operations while achieving economic viability, social benefits, and environmental responsibilities. Through a comprehensive literature review, this study identifies 30 risks impeding sustainable energy transition related to metals mining at two levels: the micro level risk and the macro level risk. A cross-evaluation method, by considering literature analysis and expert assessments, is proposed to develop a framework of 15 key risks. The findings reveal inappropriate classification in current literature, as the causes, consequences, and certain objective facts of risk events have been categorized as risks by academics. Additionally, there exist conflicting opinions between academics and practitioners on the key risks. Based on the findings, a multi-stakeholder governance approach is proposed to effectively mitigate these key risks and ensure the sustainable energy transition.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48619,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Production and Consumption","volume":"52 ","pages":"Pages 228-238"},"PeriodicalIF":10.9,"publicationDate":"2024-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142654309","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-11-04DOI: 10.1016/j.spc.2024.11.001
Sogand Shahmohammadi, Marianne Pedinotti-Castelle, Ben Amor
There is an urgent need to mitigate carbon emissions in the building sector, particularly from existing buildings. The existing literature focuses predominantly on technological strategies such as low-carbon materials. This prompts the question: Can technological strategies alone drive the decarbonization of buildings, or are non-technological strategies also essential? Although recent research considers the benefits of the latter, studies assessing the potential of non-technological strategies for decarbonization of buildings are lacking because of the challenges involved in evaluating the indirect impacts and potential trade-offs associated with these strategies such as their ripple effects on mobility. This study pioneers a comparative assessment to evaluate the environmental mitigation potential of non-technological strategies (adaptation, a subset of the sharing economy, and behavioral changes) against technological strategies (low-carbon materials, retrofitting, and recycled materials) to ascertain the effectiveness of non-technological approaches. Through life cycle assessment, this study extends beyond solely evaluating the GHG reduction potential to assess the overall environmental mitigation capacity. A single-family house in Montreal was used as a reference scenario. With significant mitigation potential observed from a non-technological perspective, the results robustly reveal that the adaptation scenario surpasses all scenarios, including retrofitting, which is the primary mitigation strategy for existing buildings, by up to 50 % and 41 % at the midpoint and damage levels, respectively. Furthermore, the adaptation scenario potentially provides sufficiency by saving considerable amounts of material and energy, thereby alleviating the environmental impact of the production and use stages by up to 27 % and 15 %, respectively. This study also evaluates the combined effects of adaptation and retrofitting for existing buildings, revealing by up to 8 % greater environmental benefits at the midpoint and damage levels than in the adaptation scenario individually. These results highlight the potential of non-technological strategies that are currently overlooked in the building sector. However, their implementation requires fewer resources and less energy than technological changes. Therefore, further investigation is warranted to explore how adopting these strategies, along with technological ones, is advantageous.
{"title":"Unveiling the potential for decarbonization of the building sector: A comparative study of technological and non-technological low-carbon strategies","authors":"Sogand Shahmohammadi, Marianne Pedinotti-Castelle, Ben Amor","doi":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.11.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.11.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>There is an urgent need to mitigate carbon emissions in the building sector, particularly from existing buildings. The existing literature focuses predominantly on technological strategies such as low-carbon materials. This prompts the question: Can technological strategies alone drive the decarbonization of buildings, or are non-technological strategies also essential? Although recent research considers the benefits of the latter, studies assessing the potential of non-technological strategies for decarbonization of buildings are lacking because of the challenges involved in evaluating the indirect impacts and potential trade-offs associated with these strategies such as their ripple effects on mobility. This study pioneers a comparative assessment to evaluate the environmental mitigation potential of non-technological strategies (adaptation, a subset of the sharing economy, and behavioral changes) against technological strategies (low-carbon materials, retrofitting, and recycled materials) to ascertain the effectiveness of non-technological approaches. Through life cycle assessment, this study extends beyond solely evaluating the GHG reduction potential to assess the overall environmental mitigation capacity. A single-family house in Montreal was used as a reference scenario. With significant mitigation potential observed from a non-technological perspective, the results robustly reveal that the adaptation scenario surpasses all scenarios, including retrofitting, which is the primary mitigation strategy for existing buildings, by up to 50 % and 41 % at the midpoint and damage levels, respectively. Furthermore, the adaptation scenario potentially provides sufficiency by saving considerable amounts of material and energy, thereby alleviating the environmental impact of the production and use stages by up to 27 % and 15 %, respectively. This study also evaluates the combined effects of adaptation and retrofitting for existing buildings, revealing by up to 8 % greater environmental benefits at the midpoint and damage levels than in the adaptation scenario individually. These results highlight the potential of non-technological strategies that are currently overlooked in the building sector. However, their implementation requires fewer resources and less energy than technological changes. Therefore, further investigation is warranted to explore how adopting these strategies, along with technological ones, is advantageous.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48619,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Production and Consumption","volume":"52 ","pages":"Pages 268-282"},"PeriodicalIF":10.9,"publicationDate":"2024-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142654245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-11-03DOI: 10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.025
Hongru Yi, Laijun Zhao, Youfeng Cheng, Ke Wang, Juntao Zhen, Chenchen Wang
Trade-induced CO2 transfers have increased the pressure on global carbon emission and may trigger carbon leakage. Understanding the peak status of these transfers is crucial for expediting global peaking process. This study investigates global CO2 transfer peaks across production (transfers-in CO2, TIC), intermediate processing (transmission CO2, TRC), and consumption (transfers-out CO2, TOC) during 2000–2019, and identifies main drivers. Our findings reveal a sustained increase in CO2 transfers, particularly TRC (47.8 %). Meanwhile, discernible patterns emerge, with TIC and TRC rising in Global South but declining in Global North. TOC demonstrates a pattern marked by augmentation in both North and South. Furthermore, the results indicate that a minority of economies have already reached their peak in CO2 transfers, with three economies peaking in TIC, six peaking in TRC, and two peaking in TOC. Further analysis reveals that production structure would be the primary driver of mitigating transfers. Additionally, carbon intensity in both power and non-power sectors can also contribute to mitigation. This is exemplified by the dampening effect exerted by carbon intensity of power sector on China's TIC during 2014–2019 (−8.5 Mt). Conversely, the international final trade scale propels CO2 transfers in non-peaked economies. International cooperation in production technology and environmental cost are recommended to facilitate the peak of international trade-induced CO2 transfers. These findings are valuable for global synergistic governance of trade-induced CO2 transfers across production, processing, and consumption stages, as well as for mitigating carbon leakage.
{"title":"Global peak of international trade-induced CO2 transfers and drivers: From multiple perspectives","authors":"Hongru Yi, Laijun Zhao, Youfeng Cheng, Ke Wang, Juntao Zhen, Chenchen Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.025","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.025","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Trade-induced CO<sub>2</sub> transfers have increased the pressure on global carbon emission and may trigger carbon leakage. Understanding the peak status of these transfers is crucial for expediting global peaking process. This study investigates global CO<sub>2</sub> transfer peaks across production (transfers-in CO<sub>2</sub>, TIC), intermediate processing (transmission CO<sub>2</sub>, TRC), and consumption (transfers-out CO<sub>2</sub>, TOC) during 2000–2019, and identifies main drivers. Our findings reveal a sustained increase in CO<sub>2</sub> transfers, particularly TRC (47.8 %). Meanwhile, discernible patterns emerge, with TIC and TRC rising in Global South but declining in Global North. TOC demonstrates a pattern marked by augmentation in both North and South. Furthermore, the results indicate that a minority of economies have already reached their peak in CO<sub>2</sub> transfers, with three economies peaking in TIC, six peaking in TRC, and two peaking in TOC. Further analysis reveals that production structure would be the primary driver of mitigating transfers. Additionally, carbon intensity in both power and non-power sectors can also contribute to mitigation. This is exemplified by the dampening effect exerted by carbon intensity of power sector on China's TIC during 2014–2019 (−8.5 Mt). Conversely, the international final trade scale propels CO<sub>2</sub> transfers in non-peaked economies. International cooperation in production technology and environmental cost are recommended to facilitate the peak of international trade-induced CO<sub>2</sub> transfers. These findings are valuable for global synergistic governance of trade-induced CO<sub>2</sub> transfers across production, processing, and consumption stages, as well as for mitigating carbon leakage.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48619,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Production and Consumption","volume":"52 ","pages":"Pages 239-252"},"PeriodicalIF":10.9,"publicationDate":"2024-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142654239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-11-01DOI: 10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.023
Aimin Ji , Hongyan Guo , Ningzhou Li , Ning Zhang , Shikun Cheng , Jinghua Guan , Haiying Li , Xinting Hu , Zhenying Zhang
Over 50 % of pig stockpiling and slaughtering in China is attributed to medium and large piggeries. The diverse scales and distributions of these piggeries present significant challenges for the sustainable management of pig manure, with a research gap in assessing the environmental benefits of treatment technologies across different farm sizes. Therefore, the environmental and economic performances of ten pig manure treatment technologies for small, medium and large piggeries were evaluated via life cycle assessment and life cycle costing methods. The black membrane biogas pool (BMBP) technology for medium-scale piggeries demonstrates superior environmental performance, reducing emissions by 44.00 kg CO2 equivalent, 0.36 kg SO2 equivalent, and 0.05 kg PM2.5 equivalent per ton of dry pig manure treated. Additionally, the products generated from this process can offset 2.93 GJ of energy consumption and 0.25 tons of water consumption. Meanwhile, the ectopic microbial fermentation bed technology provides the best economic efficiency, at the cost of only $17.88 per ton. Significant disparities in the scale of piggeries and manure production across provinces necessitate region-specific policies. The estimated global warming potential (GWP) from pig manure treatment nationwide was 5.31 million tons of CO2 equivalent, with Henan, Sichuan, and Hunan provinces accounting for a combined 28.3 % of this total in 2020. Scenario analysis indicates that by 2025, achieving a pig manure utilization rate of 90 % could reduce GWP by 9.1 % (0.5 million tons of CO2 equivalent) compared to an 80 % utilization rate, with reductions ranging from 1.78 % to 22.36 % across other environmental indicators. Promoting technologies such as BMBP and transitioning 5 % of aerobic processes to anaerobic processes could reduce emissions by 2.9 %, while also lowering other environmental indicators by 12.8 % to 20.1 %. The utilization of anaerobic technology, coupled with enhanced utilization rates, can prove more efficacious in mitigating carbon emissions and pollutants.
{"title":"Scaling sustainable pig manure treatment: Life cycle assessments for small to large piggeries in China","authors":"Aimin Ji , Hongyan Guo , Ningzhou Li , Ning Zhang , Shikun Cheng , Jinghua Guan , Haiying Li , Xinting Hu , Zhenying Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.023","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.023","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Over 50 % of pig stockpiling and slaughtering in China is attributed to medium and large piggeries. The diverse scales and distributions of these piggeries present significant challenges for the sustainable management of pig manure, with a research gap in assessing the environmental benefits of treatment technologies across different farm sizes. Therefore, the environmental and economic performances of ten pig manure treatment technologies for small, medium and large piggeries were evaluated via life cycle assessment and life cycle costing methods. The black membrane biogas pool (BMBP) technology for medium-scale piggeries demonstrates superior environmental performance, reducing emissions by 44.00 kg CO<sub>2</sub> equivalent, 0.36 kg SO<sub>2</sub> equivalent, and 0.05 kg PM<sub>2.5</sub> equivalent per ton of dry pig manure treated. Additionally, the products generated from this process can offset 2.93 GJ of energy consumption and 0.25 tons of water consumption. Meanwhile, the ectopic microbial fermentation bed technology provides the best economic efficiency, at the cost of only $17.88 per ton. Significant disparities in the scale of piggeries and manure production across provinces necessitate region-specific policies. The estimated global warming potential (GWP) from pig manure treatment nationwide was 5.31 million tons of CO<sub>2</sub> equivalent, with Henan, Sichuan, and Hunan provinces accounting for a combined 28.3 % of this total in 2020. Scenario analysis indicates that by 2025, achieving a pig manure utilization rate of 90 % could reduce GWP by 9.1 % (0.5 million tons of CO<sub>2</sub> equivalent) compared to an 80 % utilization rate, with reductions ranging from 1.78 % to 22.36 % across other environmental indicators. Promoting technologies such as BMBP and transitioning 5 % of aerobic processes to anaerobic processes could reduce emissions by 2.9 %, while also lowering other environmental indicators by 12.8 % to 20.1 %. The utilization of anaerobic technology, coupled with enhanced utilization rates, can prove more efficacious in mitigating carbon emissions and pollutants.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48619,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Production and Consumption","volume":"52 ","pages":"Pages 166-178"},"PeriodicalIF":10.9,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142593547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-10-31DOI: 10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.022
Michał Bączyk, Vivian Tunn, Ernst Worrell, Blanca Corona
Consumer engagement with circular business models can either foster sustainable consumption or drive circular economy rebound effects. Many studies assessing the environmental benefits of circular business models rely on assumptions about consumer behavior or do not explicitly address rebound effects. Consequently, the environmental benefits of circular business models might be overestimated. To consolidate current knowledge, we revisit 30 empirical case studies of business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer circular business models. To critically evaluate the overlap between circular and sustainable consumption, we assess consumer behavior from the perspective of conservation and rebound effects accounting for the contextual factors influencing consumer behavior, and we appraise the environmental impacts of circular consumption. We identify seven rebound mechanisms (consumption accumulation, income rebound, direct and indirect motivational rebound, respending, substitution rebound, and product care rebound) and four conservation mechanisms (consumption reduction, demand displacement, substitution, and product lifetime extension). The results of the environmental impact assessments are aligned with observations about consumer behavior, revealing cases in which circular consumption, compared to linear consumption, leads to both lower impacts despite rebound effects and higher impacts because of backfire effects. Rebound effects seem likely when the value proposition entails convenience or enables new forms of consumption, while conservation effects seem likely when business models promote sufficiency. Our findings emphasize that circular consumption is not inherently sustainable, highlighting the influence of the context of consumption and business model design on consumer behavior. We argue that the mitigation of consumer-level rebound effects should entail a user-centric business model design integrating sustainability principles, as well as consideration of potential rebound effects in a circular economy policy design. This study sheds light on the challenges and opportunities in achieving circular and sustainable consumption. We derive directions for future studies, calling for interdisciplinary approaches integrating psychological and sociological explanations of consumer behavior to identify and quantify rebound effects.
{"title":"Consumer behavior in circular business models: Unveiling conservation and rebound effects","authors":"Michał Bączyk, Vivian Tunn, Ernst Worrell, Blanca Corona","doi":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.022","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.022","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Consumer engagement with circular business models can either foster sustainable consumption or drive circular economy rebound effects. Many studies assessing the environmental benefits of circular business models rely on assumptions about consumer behavior or do not explicitly address rebound effects. Consequently, the environmental benefits of circular business models might be overestimated. To consolidate current knowledge, we revisit 30 empirical case studies of business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer circular business models. To critically evaluate the overlap between circular and sustainable consumption, we assess consumer behavior from the perspective of conservation and rebound effects accounting for the contextual factors influencing consumer behavior, and we appraise the environmental impacts of circular consumption. We identify seven rebound mechanisms (consumption accumulation, income rebound, direct and indirect motivational rebound, respending, substitution rebound, and product care rebound) and four conservation mechanisms (consumption reduction, demand displacement, substitution, and product lifetime extension). The results of the environmental impact assessments are aligned with observations about consumer behavior, revealing cases in which circular consumption, compared to linear consumption, leads to both lower impacts despite rebound effects and higher impacts because of backfire effects. Rebound effects seem likely when the value proposition entails convenience or enables new forms of consumption, while conservation effects seem likely when business models promote sufficiency. Our findings emphasize that circular consumption is not inherently sustainable, highlighting the influence of the context of consumption and business model design on consumer behavior. We argue that the mitigation of consumer-level rebound effects should entail a user-centric business model design integrating sustainability principles, as well as consideration of potential rebound effects in a circular economy policy design. This study sheds light on the challenges and opportunities in achieving circular and sustainable consumption. We derive directions for future studies, calling for interdisciplinary approaches integrating psychological and sociological explanations of consumer behavior to identify and quantify rebound effects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48619,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Production and Consumption","volume":"52 ","pages":"Pages 283-298"},"PeriodicalIF":10.9,"publicationDate":"2024-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142654250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-10-31DOI: 10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.020
Bao-Jun Tang , Rui Yan , Jun-Yu Chen , Chang-Jing Ji
The aviation industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors in terms of CO2 emissions and also one of the most challenging to decarbonize. China has become the world's second-largest aviation market. While a nationwide mandatory carbon reduction policy has yet to be introduced in China's aviation sector, it may be implemented in the coming years. The implementation of mandatory carbon reduction policies will inevitably raise questions about the distribution of additional costs. Therefore, air travelers' willingness to pay (WTP) and the factors influencing it are critical considerations for policymakers and airlines. However, there is a lack of research on the WTP of Chinese air travelers under mandatory carbon reduction policies. No studies have specifically focused on the regional differences in WTP among air travelers in China. Moreover, existing research on air travelers' WTP for carbon offsets rarely captures the impact of rational, emotional, and social interaction factors. Therefore, this study investigates the WTP of 3424 air travelers across 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China within the context of a carbon tax policy. Using the Heckman two-step model, the study analyzes the impact of rational, emotional, and social interactions on air travelers' WTP. The results indicate that, after removing biased samples, the average WTP among Chinese air travelers is 311.04 CNY ($44.14) per ton of CO2. The highest WTP is observed in the East China region at 341.20 CNY ($48.42) per ton of CO2, while the lowest is in the Northeast region at 263.19 CNY ($37.35) per ton of CO2. Epistemic performance expectancy, social performance expectancy, function performance expectancy, and anticipated pride positively influence WTP. In contrast, effort expectancy negatively impacts WTP. Additionally, social interaction can moderate the effects of certain rational and emotional factors on WTP. It is noteworthy that although anticipated guilt does not directly influence WTP, its positive impact on WTP can be moderated through social interactions. The results of this study can assist governments in formulating effective carbon emission reduction policies for the aviation industry. Moreover, these findings can provide valuable insights for airlines to adjust pricing strategies under mandatory carbon reduction policies, thus holding practical significance.
{"title":"Are air travelers willing to pay for mandatory carbon emission policies? Evidence from China","authors":"Bao-Jun Tang , Rui Yan , Jun-Yu Chen , Chang-Jing Ji","doi":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.020","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.10.020","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The aviation industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors in terms of CO<sub>2</sub> emissions and also one of the most challenging to decarbonize. China has become the world's second-largest aviation market. While a nationwide mandatory carbon reduction policy has yet to be introduced in China's aviation sector, it may be implemented in the coming years. The implementation of mandatory carbon reduction policies will inevitably raise questions about the distribution of additional costs. Therefore, air travelers' willingness to pay (WTP) and the factors influencing it are critical considerations for policymakers and airlines. However, there is a lack of research on the WTP of Chinese air travelers under mandatory carbon reduction policies. No studies have specifically focused on the regional differences in WTP among air travelers in China. Moreover, existing research on air travelers' WTP for carbon offsets rarely captures the impact of rational, emotional, and social interaction factors. Therefore, this study investigates the WTP of 3424 air travelers across 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China within the context of a carbon tax policy. Using the Heckman two-step model, the study analyzes the impact of rational, emotional, and social interactions on air travelers' WTP. The results indicate that, after removing biased samples, the average WTP among Chinese air travelers is 311.04 CNY ($44.14) per ton of CO<sub>2</sub>. The highest WTP is observed in the East China region at 341.20 CNY ($48.42) per ton of CO<sub>2</sub>, while the lowest is in the Northeast region at 263.19 CNY ($37.35) per ton of CO<sub>2</sub>. Epistemic performance expectancy, social performance expectancy, function performance expectancy, and anticipated pride positively influence WTP. In contrast, effort expectancy negatively impacts WTP. Additionally, social interaction can moderate the effects of certain rational and emotional factors on WTP. It is noteworthy that although anticipated guilt does not directly influence WTP, its positive impact on WTP can be moderated through social interactions. The results of this study can assist governments in formulating effective carbon emission reduction policies for the aviation industry. Moreover, these findings can provide valuable insights for airlines to adjust pricing strategies under mandatory carbon reduction policies, thus holding practical significance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48619,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Production and Consumption","volume":"52 ","pages":"Pages 111-123"},"PeriodicalIF":10.9,"publicationDate":"2024-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142578511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号