Attributional and consequential life cycle assessments in a circular economy with integration of a quality indicator: A case study of cascading wood products

Tanguay, Xavier; Essoua, Gatien Geraud Essoua; Amor, Ben

doi:10.1111/jiec.13167

Cited by 16 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…260 Endof-life design is important to the life-cycle results of wood products. 261 Niu et al conducted a literature review and a streamlined LCA and concluded that prolonging the lifetime of structural materials such as wood by reusing and cascading helps combat climate change and reduce environmental burdens. 262 The second phase, LCI analysis, collects LCI data (e.g., mass and energy balances, and environmental emissions) based on the goal and scope defined in the first phase.…”

Section: Basics Of Lca On Engineered Wood Productsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emerging Engineered Wood for Building Applications

et al. 2022

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The building sector, including building operations and materials, was responsible for the emission of ∼11.9 gigatons of global energy-related CO2 in 2020, accounting for 37% of the total CO2 emissions, the largest share among different sectors. Lowering the carbon footprint of buildings requires the development of carbon-storage materials as well as novel designs that could enable multifunctional components to achieve widespread applications. Wood is one of the most abundant biomaterials on Earth and has been used for construction historically. Recent research breakthroughs on advanced engineered wood products epitomize this material’s tremendous yet largely untapped potential for addressing global sustainability challenges. In this review, we explore recent developments in chemically modified wood that will produce a new generation of engineered wood products for building applications. Traditionally, engineered wood products have primarily had a structural purpose, but this review broadens the classification to encompass more aspects of building performance. We begin by providing multiscale design principles of wood products from a computational point of view, followed by discussion of the chemical modifications and structural engineering methods used to modify wood in terms of its mechanical, thermal, optical, and energy-related performance. Additionally, we explore life cycle assessment and techno-economic analysis tools for guiding future research toward environmentally friendly and economically feasible directions for engineered wood products. Finally, this review highlights the current challenges and perspectives on future directions in this research field. By leveraging these new wood-based technologies and analysis tools for the fabrication of carbon-storage materials, it is possible to design sustainable and carbon-negative buildings, which could have a significant impact on mitigating climate change.

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Section: Basics Of Lca On Engineered Wood Productsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emerging Engineered Wood for Building Applications

et al. 2022

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“…Fundamentally, both Approaches 3a (road surfacing) and 3b (brick and tile making) preclude further recycling of the plastics contained within, effectively consigning them to a single material cascade. This finality is classed by LCA protagonists as ‘open-loop recycling’ or widely elsewhere as ‘downcycling’ ( Borrello et al, 2020 ; Tanguay et al, 2021 ). Both terms enable navigation of material circularity by a wide, often non-specialist audience.…”

Section: Approach 3: Mineral–polymer Compositesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaling up resource recovery of plastics in the emergent circular economy to prevent plastic pollution: Assessment of risks to health and safety in the Global South

2022

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Over the coming decades, a large additional mass of plastic waste will become available for recycling, as efforts increase to reduce plastic pollution and facilitate a circular economy. New infrastructure will need to be developed, yet the processes and systems chosen should not result in adverse effects on human health and the environment. Here, we present a rapid review and critical semi-quantitative assessment of the potential risks posed by eight approaches to recovering value during the resource recovery phase from post-consumer plastic packaging waste collected and separated with the purported intention of recycling. The focus is on the Global South, where there are more chances that high risk processes could be run below standards of safe operation. Results indicate that under non-idealised operational conditions, mechanical reprocessing is the least impactful on the environment and therefore most appropriate for implementation in developing countries. Processes known as ‘chemical recycling’ are hard to assess due to lack of real-world process data. Given their lack of maturity and potential for risk to human health and the environment (handling of potentially hazardous substances under pressure and heat), it is unlikely they will make a useful addition to the circular economy in the Global South in the near future. Inevitably, increasing circular economy activity will require expansion towards targeting flexible, multi-material and multilayer products, for which mechanical recycling has well-established limitations. Our comparative risk overview indicates major barriers to changing resource recovery mode from the already dominant mechanical recycling mode towards other nascent or energetic recovery approaches.

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“…Hereto, LCA and SEA results can be compared [14], or SEA could be integrated directly into LCA. Regarding integration: in LCA quality change due to, e.g., recycling, is modelled in the end-of-life multifunctionality formulations [53]. However, by comparing entropy scores of cascade graphs, relative entropy scores could be formed, which could be used as an additional quality factor in the end-of-life multifunctionality formulations.…”

Section: Product System Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Circularity and LCA - material pathways: cascade potential and cascade environmental impact of an in-use building product

Schaubroeck

Dewil

Allacker

2022

IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci.

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Improving circularity in the building sector entails ensuring greater material efficiency to avoid virgin material extraction. To assist stakeholders in decisions regarding salvaging an in-use building product, requires to predict and assess the potential further productive uses of that product and its materials. The range of possible cascade material paths originating from the in-use building product X and their assessments comprise the cascade potential of product X. Method: To determine the cascade potential and impact, we work further on existing efforts done in the field of circularity and life cycle assessment (LCA). This entails discussing scenario models to predict cascade material pathways over time, and multifunctionality solutions to assess those pathways. Due to the fact that the environment is a complex system and long term forecasting is required, the cascade potential can never be exactly determined. Therefore, we first set up conceptual formulas and then discuss steps to make these formulas feasible. Furthermore, the effort to generate the cascade paths originating from a product, can also be used to form circular systems that adhere to carbon mitigation pathways.

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Attributional and consequential life cycle assessments in a circular economy with integration of a quality indicator: A case study of cascading wood products

Cited by 16 publications

References 49 publications

Emerging Engineered Wood for Building Applications

Emerging Engineered Wood for Building Applications

Scaling up resource recovery of plastics in the emergent circular economy to prevent plastic pollution: Assessment of risks to health and safety in the Global South

Circularity and LCA - material pathways: cascade potential and cascade environmental impact of an in-use building product

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