Development of impact assessment methodologies for environmental sustainability

The greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions from land-use change are of particular concern for land-based biofuels. Emissions avoided by substituting fossil fuels with biofuels may be offset by emissions from direct and indirect land-use changes (LUC). There is an urgent need to investigate what impact land-use change emissions may have on the expansion of bioenergy and biofuels, in the context of EU mitigation policies. This paper focuses on Ireland, which faces a number of challenges in delivering its renewable energy and GHG reduction targets. The Irish TIMES energy systems model was used to assess the impact of a range of land-use change emissions' levels on the evolution of Ireland's low-carbon energy system. A reference scenario was developed where LUC is ignored and Ireland achieves a least-cost low-carbon energy system by 2050. If high indirect land-use change (ILUC) emissions are included, this results in a decrease by 30 % in bioenergy and a 68 % increase in marginal abatement costs by 2050. Hydrogen is used instead of bioenergy in the freight sector in this scenario, while private cars are fuelled by renewable electricity. If GHG emissions from ILUC were considered less severe, indigenous grass biomethane becomes the key biofuel representing 31 % of total bioenergy consumption. This is in line with recent research in Ireland of the key role that grass biomethane can play.

Section: State Of the Art In Land-use Change Associated With Bioenergymentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of including land-use change emissions from biofuels on meeting GHG emissions reduction targets: the example of Ireland

Czyrnek-Delêtre

Chiodi

Murphy

et al. 2016

“…Process integration methods play a crucial role in green engineering as it defines better options for energy and mass integration (El-Halwagi 2011). Life cycle considerations and commercial afterlife are also included in this decision making (Bakshi and Fiksel 2003;Bare 2014). These bring in other impacts extending the boundary of the design further.…”

Section: Extending Boundariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perspective on pursuit of sustainability: challenges for engineering community

Diwekar

2015

Sustainability is a keyword commonly used by researchers and practitioners globally. However, even defining the goals of sustainability is fraught with difficulties and hence attaining it is nearly impossible. Since sustainability is a property of the entire system, engineering sustainability requires the boundaries of the system greatly expanded. The thinking of sustainability also brings in larger time scales. In this article, I present a perspective on journey toward sustainability using systems analysis approaches from various disciplines.

“…Sustainability impact assessment methodologies should take into consideration the appropriate level of spatial scale (Bare 2014). Spatial analysis extracts or creates new information from spatial data.…”

Section: Spatial Analysis In Current Sustainable Building Assessmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial life cycle sustainability assessment: a conceptual framework for net-zero buildings

Hossaini

Hewage

Sadiq

2015

The building sector has a huge impact on the environment; it consumes 30-40 % of global natural resources and 40 % of energy. The impacts of the building sector can be reduced drastically by implementing a netzero approach in both design and sustainability management of buildings. Net-zero building is a building system that uses sustainable materials and produces its needed energy and water throughout its life cycle. Unlike green buildings, there is a limited number of sustainability rating systems for net-zero buildings (e.g., Living Building Challenge). Despite the importance of geographical characteristics and local environmental conditions, spatial consideration in green and net-zero buildings is largely lacking in the literature. Considering the variability of environmental behavior around the globe and its significant effects on energy, water demands, and availability of construction materials, it is a major shortcoming to ignore the role of geography in net-zero buildings. This paper discusses a new methodology in the assessment of net-zero buildings by integrating regional characteristics and life cycle sustainability assessment. The methodology outlined in this paper can assist in sustainability design and decision making of net-zero buildings.