Evaluating sustainable product alternatives by combining life cycle assessment with full-cost accounting: A highway guardrail case study

Abstract

Full-cost accounting techniques incorporate the environmental and societal burdens a product generates through its manufacture, use, and disposal into that product’s price. This research generates full-cost prices for functionally equivalent chromated copper arsenate (CCA) treated wood and galvanized steel guardrail posts by combining previously conducted life cycle inventory analyses results with secondary emission valuation data. Based on the analysis, both CCA-treated posts and galvanized steel posts have environmental damage costs associated with emissions generated through the product’s manufacturing, use, and disposal stages. After developing full-cost prices for product alternatives, CCA-treated wood guardrail posts were found to be a more economical and environmentally responsible alternative to galvanized steel. In addition to generating full-cost prices, this research uses Monte Carlo simulation to provide estimates of variability around CCA-treated wood and galvanized steel damage costs.

Informatization of Accounting System of Electric Power Enterprises Based on Sensor Monitoring and Cloud Computing

“…Scouse et al and others conducted in-depth research on the formal meaning of cloud computing and its advantages and disadvantages and believed that the technical level and scientific theoretical basis of cloud computing development are the reasons for ensuring that cloud computing can be used in enterprises and achieve good results [4]. Hein et al and others propose to serve the public with software, hardware, and postmaintenance, which can establish a new business management model and provide good development conditions for enterprises [5].…”

Optimisation Analysis of Enterprise Environmental Cost Accounting Based on Support Vector Machine Model

“…The serious decline of the ecological environment has not only greatly affected our lives but also made the economy, which humanity thought to promote by depriving itself of resources, eventually taste the unsustainable evil consequences. The wanton exploitation and consumption of resources by Chinese enterprises is inevitably linked to China's gratuitous depletion of resources and unmeasured environmental pollution and prevention [4][5]. It can be said that environmental degradation has become an important factor restricting China's economic development, affecting social stability, and endangering public health, and has even become a major problem for the survival and development of the Chinese nation, especially under the impact of waves of "low-carbon economy," "low-carbon technology," "low-carbon society," and "low-carbon city" at home and abroad [6][7].…”

Environmental evaluation of experimental heat-treated oriented strand board

“…There are numerous published studies that have assessed the environmental aspects of wood-based products applied as building materials in civil construction, such as roundwood (Dias and Arroja 2012;Kuka et al 2019;Dias et al 2022), structural engineered wood products (Hill and Dibdiakova 2016;Laurent et al 2016;Scouse et al 2020;Dias et al 2020Dias et al , 2021a, wooden floors (Dossche et al 2018;Dias et al 2021a,b) wooden doors (Deng et al 2023;Wang et al 2023), and different types of wood-based panels or products made with wood panels (Rivela et al 2007;Benetto et al 2009;González-García et al 2011;Silva et al 2013;Garcia and Freire 2014;Maoduš et al 2016;Ferro et al 2018;Li et al 2019;de Carvalho Araújo et al 2022;Farjana et al 2023).…”