Material, energy and environmental performance of technological and social systems under a Life Cycle Assessment perspective

Ulgiati, Sérgio; Ascione, Marco; Bargigli, Silvia; Cherubini, Francesco; Franzese, Pier Paolo; Raugei, Marco; Viglia, Silvio; Zucaro, Amalia

doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2010.09.005

Cited by 51 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A final note regarding UM-LCA modeling is the utilization of process-based LCA, which is methodologically simple, but does not account for the interdependences amongst industries and therefore potentially underestimates IPs [66]. Economic input-output LCA (EIO-LCA) can account for inter-industry relationships using national economic inventories; however, they rest on the basic assumption that all manufacturing occurs within the country modeled, which is clearly at odds with the globalized nature of trade.…”

Section: Appraisal Of the Um-lca Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantification of urban metabolism through coupling with the life cycle assessment framework: concept development and case study

Goldstein

Birkved

Quitzau

et al. 2013

Environ. Res. Lett.

165

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Appraisal Of the Um-lca Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantification of urban metabolism through coupling with the life cycle assessment framework: concept development and case study

Goldstein

Birkved

Quitzau

et al. 2013

Environ. Res. Lett.

165

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…As pointed out by Ulgiati et al (2006Ulgiati et al ( , 2011b, a multicriteria approach should always be adopted -to the largest possible extent -when dealing with sustainability issues of goods and services, within which emergy accounting plays a special role.…”

Section: Environmental Performance Biophysical Indicators At the Globmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multicriteria cost–benefit assessment of tannery production: The need for breakthrough process alternatives beyond conventional technology optimization

Giannetti

Agostinho

Moraes

et al. 2015

Environmental Impact Assessment Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Sustainability assessment may be conducted at a range of scales, from local to global as shown in Figure 8. Essentially, as we increase the scale of assessment from local to global, we are extending the boundary of the system of interest within which the behaviour of activities is interpreted (Ulgiati et al, 2011). For example, let us return to the context of agriculture, and consider the activity of crop production with a sustainability goal to "minimise non-renewable resource (NRR) consumption."…”

Section: Sustainability Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…ecosystem services), e.g. the actual raw materials extracted from non-renewable stocks such as oil fields to produce petrol and oil (Ulgiati et al, 2011). With each increase in scale, the boundary of the system of interest is extended to include inputs originating from more activities and resource stocks than were considered at the previous scale.…”

Section: Sustainability Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sustainability Cycle and Loop: Models for a more unified understanding of sustainability

Hay

Duffy

Whitfield

2014

Journal of Environmental Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In spite of the considerable research on sustainability, reports suggest that we are barely any closer to a more sustainable society. As such, there is an urgent need to improve the effectiveness of human efforts towards sustainability. A clearer and more unified understanding of sustainability among different people and sectors could help to facilitate this. This paper presents the results of an inductive literature investigation, aiming to develop models to explain the nature of sustainability in the Earth system, and how humans can effectively strive for it. The major contributions are two general and complementary models, that may be applied in any context to provide a common basis for understanding sustainability: the Sustainability Cycle (S-Cycle), and the Sustainability Loop (S-Loop). Literature spanning multiple sectors is examined from the perspective of three concepts, emerging as significant in relation to our aim. Systems are shown to provide the context for human action towards sustainability, and the nature of the Earth system and its sub-systems is explored. Activities are outlined as a fundamental target that humans need to sustain, since they produce the entities both needed and desired by society. The basic behaviour of activities operating in the Earth system is outlined. Finally, knowledge is positioned as the driver of human action towards sustainability, and the key components of knowledge involved are examined. The S-Cycle and S-Loop models are developed via a process of induction from the reviewed literature. The S-Cycle describes the operation of activities in a system from the perspective of sustainability. The sustainability of activities in a system depends upon the availability of resources, and the availability of resources depends upon the rate that activities consume and produce them. Humans may intervene in these dynamics via an iterative process of interpretation and action, described in the S-Loop model. The models are briefly applied to a system described in the literature. It is shown that the S-Loop may be used to guide efforts towards sustainability in a particular system of interest, by prescribing the basic activities involved. The S-Cycle may be applied complementary to the S-Loop, to support the interpretation of activity behaviour described in the latter. Given their general nature, the models provide the basis for a more unified understanding of sustainability. It is hoped that their use may go some way towards improving the effectiveness of human action towards sustainability.

show abstract

Material, energy and environmental performance of technological and social systems under a Life Cycle Assessment perspective

Cited by 51 publications

References 16 publications

Quantification of urban metabolism through coupling with the life cycle assessment framework: concept development and case study

Quantification of urban metabolism through coupling with the life cycle assessment framework: concept development and case study

Multicriteria cost–benefit assessment of tannery production: The need for breakthrough process alternatives beyond conventional technology optimization

The Sustainability Cycle and Loop: Models for a more unified understanding of sustainability

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About