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Sustainable and informed resource consumption is the key to make everyday living sustainable for entire populations. An intelligent and strategic way of addressing the challenges related with sustainable development of the everyday living of consumers is to identify consumption-determined hotspots in terms of environmental and health burdens, as well as resource consumptions. Analyzing consumer life styles in terms of consumption patterns in order to identify hotspots is hence the focus of this study. This is achieved by taking into account the entire value chain of the commodities consumed in the context of environmental and human health burdens, as well as resource consumptions. A systematic commodity consumption, commodity disposal, and life style survey of 1281 persons living in urbanized Danish areas was conducted. The findings of the survey showed new impact dimensions in terms of Personal Metabolism (PM) patterns of residents living in urbanized areas of Denmark. Extending the PM analysis with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) provided a clear picture of the per capita environmental and human health burdens, as well as resource consumptions, and the exact origin hereof. A generic PM-LCA Model for all the 1281 persons was set-up in Gabi 6. The assessment results obtained applying the model on all 1281 personal consumption scenarios yielded the 1281 Personal Impact Profiles (PIPs). Consumption of food and energy (electricity and thermal energy) proved to be the primary impact sources of PM, followed by transport. The PIPs further revealed that behavioral factors (e.g. different diets, use of cars, household size) affect the profiles. Hence, behavioral changes are one means out of many that humanity will most likely have to rely on during the sustainable development process. The results of this study will help the Danish and other comparable populations to identify and prioritize the steps towards reducing their environmental, human health, and resource consumption burdens.

Summary This study investigates the prevailing practice of obtaining single scores in life cycle assessment (LCA) and identifies potential lacunas in impact assessment methodology related to the results of aggregation into endpoints and single scores. In order to conduct this investigation, a detailed approach was adopted to facilitate identification of three main problems related to the single‐score calculation approach. The prevailing ReCiPe single‐score calculation method does not account for either the effect of so‐called dominating alternatives (i.e., alternatives having high values across all endpoints) or the interdependency of the indicators being aggregated. It was also found that the simple linear weighted sum method, presently used for obtaining single scores, is not capable of accounting for the effect of weighting schemes and thus cannot realistically represent stakeholders’ perspectives. Finally, we propose a distance‐based multiple attribute decision‐making method for use in obtaining single scores. This method was found to be more suitable, given that it takes into account the weighting schemes and types of indicators in the process of estimating single scores. The new single‐score calculation method proposed here is considered ideal for environmental decision‐making problems in the context of life cycle sustainability assessment. Thus, it is also ideal for situations in which more‐complex decision‐making situations will emerge by combining LCA indicators (midpoints or endpoints) with other indicators representing the performance of a system from economic and social perspectives.

Keywordsactivated sludge process; constructed wetlands; life cycle assessment; sequencing batch reactor; up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor-facultative aerobic lagoon; wastewater treatment plant. Correspondence AbstractFour municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in India based on different technologies are compared by conducting Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) using field data. CML 2 baseline 2000 methodology is adopted in which eight impact categories are considered. SBRs ranked highest in energy consumption and global warming potential (GWP) but also produced the best effluent with respect to organics and nutrients. Constructed wetlands have negligible energy consumption and negative GWP because of carbon sequestration in the macrophytes. Emissions associated with electricity production required to operate the WWTPs, emissions to water from treated effluent and heavy metal emissions from waste sludge applied to land are identified as main contributors for overall environmental impacts of WWTPs. This comparison of technologies suggests that results from LCA can be used as indicators in a multicriteria decision-making framework along with other sustainability indicators.Wastewater treatment technology assessment: LCA P. P. Kalbar et al.

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