Consumers and their behavior: state of the art in behavioral science supporting use phase modeling in LCA and ecodesign

Sorrentino, Eugenia Polizzi di; Woelbert, Eva; Sala, Serenella

doi:10.1007/s11367-015-1016-2

Cited by 82 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 123 publications

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“…included in LCAs because these are generally aimed at quantifying the average impact of a process or a product rather than the full extent of possible outcomes like in environmental risk assessment methods. This has been identified as a key gap in LCA (Polizzi di Sorrentino et al 2016;Hellweg and Milà i canals 2014). According to a study on 38 countries, clothes washing (excluding tumble drying and ironing) is among the major energy-demanding household activities, accounting for up to 17% (in Turkey) of the total domestic energy consumption (Pakula and Stamminger 2010).…”

Section: Responsible Editor: Serenella Salamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantifying drivers of variability in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of consumer products—a case study on laundry washing in Europe

Shahmohammadi

Steinmann

Clavreul

et al. 2017

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Purpose Variability in consumer behaviour can significantly influence the environmental performance of products and their associated impacts and this is typically not quantified in life cycle assessments. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate how consumer behaviour data can be used to understand and quantify the variability in the greenhouse gas emissions from domestic laundry washing across Europe. Methods Data from a pan-European consumer survey of product usage and washing habits was combined with internal company data on product format greenhouse gas (GHG) footprints and in-home measurement of energy consumption of laundry washing as well as literature data to determine the GHG footprint of laundry washing. The variability associated with four laundry detergent product formats and four wash temperature settings in washing machines were quantified on a per wash cycle basis across 23 European countries. The variability in GHG emissions associated with country electricity grid mixes was also taken into account. Monte Carlo methods were used to convert the variability in the input parameters into variability of the life cycle GHG emissions. Rank correlation analysis was used to quantify the importance of the different sources of variability. Results and discussion Both inter-country differences in background electricity mix as well as intra-country variation in consumer behaviour are important for determining the variability in life cycle GHG emissions of laundry detergents. The average GHG emissions related to the laundry washing process in the 23 European countries in 2014 was estimated to be 5 × 10 2 g CO 2 − eq/wash cycle, but varied by a factor of 6.5 between countries. Intra-country variability is between a factor of 3.5 and 5.0 (90% interval). For countries with a mainly fossil-based electricity system, the dominant source of variability in GHG emissions results from consumer choices in the use of washing machines. For countries with a relatively low-carbon electricity mix, variability in life cycle GHG emissions is mainly determined by laundry product-related parameters.Conclusions The combination of rich data sources enabled the quantification of the variability in the life cycle GHG emissions of laundry washing which is driven by a variety of consumer choices, manufacturer choices and infrastructural differences of countries. The improved understanding of the variability needs to be balanced against the cost and challenges of assessing of consumer habits.

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Section: Responsible Editor: Serenella Salamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An understanding of variability and uncertainty is critical for decision-making but often poorly addressed in many LCA studies which tend to be deterministic (Ascough et al 2008;Polizzi di Sorrentino et al 2016). In this study, we simulated the variability in the GHG footprint of a typical household activity (i.e.…”

Section: Variability and Uncertaintymentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying drivers of variability in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of consumer products—a case study on laundry washing in Europe

Shahmohammadi

Steinmann

Clavreul

et al. 2017

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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“…Consumer behaviour during the product use phase has been identified as an important driver for the overall environmental impact of many products (Polizzi di Sorrentino et al 2016). The use phase of food products is not only relevant with regard to the amount of food waste (as described above) but contributes significantly to the energy and water use of private households.…”

Section: Food Transport Storage and Preparation By Householdsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The environmental impact of packaging in food supply chains—does life cycle assessment of food provide the full picture?

Molina-Besch

Wikström

Williams

2018

Int J Life Cycle Assess

105

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Purpose Due to the urgency and the magnitude of the environmental problems caused by food supply chains, it is important that the recommendations for packaging improvements given in life cycle assessment (LCA) studies of food rest on a balanced consideration of all relevant environmental impacts of packaging. The purpose of this article is to analyse the extent to which food LCAs include the indirect environmental impact of packaging in parallel to its direct impact. While the direct environmental impact of food packaging is the impact caused by packaging materials' production and end-of-life, its indirect environmental impact is caused by its influence on the food product's life cycle, e.g. by its influence on food waste and on logistical efficiency. Methods The article presents a review of 32 food LCAs published in peer-reviewed scientific journals over the last decade. The steps of the food product's life cycle that contribute to the direct and indirect environmental impacts of packaging provide the overall structure of the analytical framework used for the review. Three aspects in the selected food LCAs were analysed: (1) the defined scope of the LCAs, (2) the sensitivity and/or scenario analyses and (3) the conclusions and recommendations. Results and discussion While in packaging LCA literature, there is a trend towards a more systematic consideration of the indirect environmental impact of packaging, it is unclear how food LCAs handle this aspect. The results of the review show that the choices regarding scope and sensitivities/scenarios made in food LCAs and their conclusions about packaging focus on the direct environmental impact of packaging. While it is clear that not all food LCAs need to analyse packaging in detail, this article identifies opportunities to increase the validity of packaging-related conclusions in food LCAs and provides specific recommendations for packaging-related food LCA methodology. Conclusions Overall, we conclude that the indirect environmental impact of packaging is insufficiently considered in current food LCA practice. Based on these results, this article calls for a more systematic consideration of the indirect environmental impact of packaging in future food LCAs. In addition, it identifies a need for more packaging research that can provide the empirical data that many food LCA practitioners currently lack. In particular, LCA practitioners would benefit if there were more knowledge and data available about the influence of certain packaging characteristics (e.g. shape, weight and type of material) on consumer behaviour.

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“…Survey-based use phases offer a good starting point for defining use phases in the SDR. However, surveys and statistics don't always measure actual consumer behavior, but more often intention [29]. The use phases used in the SDR are defined by aggregating survey and statistical data, to ensure the applied use phases are realistic and are representative of the average use scenario.…”

Section: Product Information Set Form and Data Schemamentioning

confidence: 99%

A Sustainable Design Repository for Influencing the Eco-Design of New Consumer Products

Ferrero¹,

Wisthoff²,

Huynh³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Engineering designers are constantly seeking ways to be more innovative, decisive, and informed of emerging technologies in the design of consumer products. Design tools, such as functional decomposition, morphology, and Pugh charts help stimulate the design process. However, many earlydesign-phase design tools require designers to have experiential or empirical design knowledge; many of these approaches are intractable for use by novice designers or designers with little experience designing for certain new objectives. In contrast to these current tools, using repositories to store product design information can provide additional and extensive design knowledge to the global design community. Using repository data-and resultant data-driven design approaches-in the design of new products can be especially impactful for DfX design objectives such as product sustainability, about which many engineering designers have limited knowledge. In this paper, we discuss the creation of a sustainable design repository -a collection of product data that includes environmental impact information. Through the initialization of a 47-product repository case study, we seek to create data-driven design processes that can influence designers to consider environmental sustainability. We found, for example, that in the first year of a product's life, 29-64% of the environmental impact occurs during the product's use phase, and that uncertainty in input data (such as component manufacturing location and disposal method) can significantly contribute to environmental impact variation. The creation of this sustainable design repository highlights the need for the consideration of input uncertainties when conducting environmental impact analysis. Additionally, the repository has also been used in tandem with machine learning to understand design decisions that lead to more sustainable products. This sustainable design repository enables subsequent data-driven design research in that it provides a large dataset on which machine learning approaches can operate.

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Consumers and their behavior: state of the art in behavioral science supporting use phase modeling in LCA and ecodesign

Cited by 82 publications

References 123 publications

Quantifying drivers of variability in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of consumer products—a case study on laundry washing in Europe

Quantifying drivers of variability in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of consumer products—a case study on laundry washing in Europe

The environmental impact of packaging in food supply chains—does life cycle assessment of food provide the full picture?

A Sustainable Design Repository for Influencing the Eco-Design of New Consumer Products

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