Evaluating the environmental performance of producing soil and surfaces through industrial symbiosis

Martin, Michael

doi:10.1111/jiec.12941

Cited by 15 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…As the life cycle assessment followed the approach for employing LCA to review the environmental performance of IS networks, employing the physical allocation method as outlined in [32], the results could be sensitive to this choice. For example, many previous studies have employed the system expansion approach as outlined in [32]; see e.g., [19,35,42]. However, this study, due to the magnitude of the materials being employed, employs only the physical allocation method.…”

Section: Influence Of Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gardening soil is employed as the growing medium in the baseline case [31]. Data for the materials and environmental impacts of gardening soil from the Swedish market were obtained from [35]. The fertilizer used for the hydroponic system is blended into the water bath and recirculated.…”

Section: Baseline (Current Production System)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Peat). This was done as conventional gardening soils contain larger shares of peat than what is used in the case studied [35]. Furthermore, as Circular B and D had a large share of BSG (i.e., 80%), the sensitivity to the share of BSG was also reviewed by assuming it could be increased to 100%.…”

Section: Growing Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring the Environmental Performance of Urban Symbiosis for Vertical Hydroponic Farming

2019

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Vertical farming has emerged in urban areas as an approach to provide more resilient food production. However, a substantial share of the material requirements come from outside their urban environments. With urban environments producing a large share of residual and waste streams, extensive protential exists to employ these material and energy streams as inputs in urban farming systems to promote more circular economy approaches. The aim of this article is to assess the environmental performance of employing residual material flows for vertical hydroponic farming in urban environments in order to support more circular, resilient, and sustainable urban food supply. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is used to assess replacing conventional growing media and fertilizers with urban residual streams. Paper, compost, and brewers’ spent grains were assessed for replacements to conventional gardening soil employed in the studied system. Biogas digestate was also assessed as a replacement for conventional fertilizers used in the recirculating water bath. The results suggest that large environmental performance benefits are illustrated when conventional growing media is replaced. Although not as significant, employing fertilizers from residual urban streams also leads to large potential benefits, suggesting the two residual streams have the potential for more circular hydroponic systems.

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Section: Influence Of Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Baseline (Current Production System)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring the Environmental Performance of Urban Symbiosis for Vertical Hydroponic Farming

2019

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“…The sensitivity to employing more conventional blends with higher shares of peat and no industrial by-products was reviewed (labeled Gardening Soil-Incr. Peat), employing data from [27], as no other studies on gardening soil impacts were identified; see Figure 7. As the results suggest, the GHG emissions would increase by over 1000 kg for each scenario utilizing gardening soil with more peat.…”

Section: Data Choicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The growing media was shown to have a significant contribution to the environmental performance of the system. While this study also employed soil with less peat than conventional gardening soil based on [27], a larger share of peat would substantially increase the emissions, as shown in the sensitivity analysis above. Replacing conventional soil with other media was shown to reduce the environmental impacts greatly.…”

Section: Growing Medium and Packagingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Assessment of an Urban Vertical Hydroponic Farming System in Sweden

Martin

Molin

2019

Sustainability

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With an expanding population and changing dynamics in global food markets, it is important to find solutions for more resilient food production methods closer to urban environments. Recently, vertical farming systems have emerged as a potential solution for urban farming. However, although there is an increasing body of literature reviewing the potential of urban and vertical farming systems, only a limited number of studies have reviewed the sustainability of these systems. The aim of this article was to understand the environmental impacts of vertical hydroponic farming in urban environments applied to a case study vertical hydroponic farm in Stockholm, Sweden. This was carried out by evaluating environmental performance using a life cycle perspective to assess the environmental impacts and comparing to potential scenarios for improvement options. The results suggest that important aspects for the vertical hydroponic system include the growing medium, pots, electricity demand, the transportation of raw materials and product deliveries. By replacing plastic pots with paper pots, large reductions in GHG emissions, acidification impacts, and abiotic resource depletion are possible. Replacing conventional gardening soil as the growing medium with coir also leads to large environmental impact reductions. However, in order to further reduce the impacts from the system, more resource-efficient steps will be needed to improve impacts from electricity demand, and there is potential to develop more symbiotic exchanges to employ urban wastes and by-products.

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Energy-based industrial symbiosis: a literature review for circular energy transition

Fraccascia

Yazdanpanah

Capelleveen

et al. 2020

Environ Dev Sustain

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Nowadays, industrial symbiosis (IS) is recognized as a key strategy to support the transition toward the circular economy. IS deals with the (re)use of wastes produced by a production process as a substitute for traditional production inputs of other traditionally disengaged processes. In this context, this paper provides a systematic literature review on the energy-based IS approach, i.e., IS synergies aimed at reducing the amount of energy requirement from outside industrial systems or the amount of traditional fuels used in energy production. This approach is claimed as effective aimed at reducing the use of traditional fuels in energy production, thus promoting a circular energy transition. 682 papers published between 1997 and 2018 have been collected, and energy-based IS cases have been identified among 96 of these. As a result of the literature review, three categories of symbiotic synergies have been identified: (1) energy cascade; (2) fuel replacement; and (3) bioenergy production. Through the review, different strategies to implement energybased IS synergies are highlighted and discussed for each of the above-mentioned categories. Furthermore, drivers, barriers, and enablers of business development in energy-based IS are discussed from the technical, economic, regulatory, and institutional perspective. Accordingly, future research directions are recommended.

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Evaluating the environmental performance of producing soil and surfaces through industrial symbiosis

Cited by 15 publications

References 36 publications

Exploring the Environmental Performance of Urban Symbiosis for Vertical Hydroponic Farming

Exploring the Environmental Performance of Urban Symbiosis for Vertical Hydroponic Farming

Environmental Assessment of an Urban Vertical Hydroponic Farming System in Sweden

Energy-based industrial symbiosis: a literature review for circular energy transition

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