Metallurgical recycling processes: Sustainability ratios and environmental performance assessment

Jamali-Zghal, Nadia; Lacarrière, Bruno; Corre, Olivier Le

doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2015.02.010

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Exergy, on the other hand, is defined as the maximum usable energy of a material and can be computed for both combustible and non-combustible materials (Jamali-Zghal et al, 2015). Some researchers have suggested that exergy could be a relevant metric to assess circularity (Huysman et al, 2017), as this method has the advantage of accounting for the thermodynamic limits of circularity (Abadías Llamas et al, 2019).…”

Section: Emergy and Exergymentioning

confidence: 99%

Do We Need a New Sustainability Assessment Method for the Circular Economy? A Critical Literature Review

Walzberg¹,

Lonca²,

Hanes³

et al. 2021

Front. Sustain.

101

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The goal of the circular economy (CE) is to transition from today's take-make-waste linear pattern of production and consumption to a circular system in which the societal value of products, materials, and resources is maximized over time. Yet circularity in and of itself does not ensure social, economic, and environmental performance (i.e., sustainability). Sustainability of CE strategies needs to be measured against their linear counterparts to identify and avoid strategies that increase circularity yet lead to unintended externalities. The state of the practice in quantitatively comparing sustainability impacts of circular to linear systems is one of experimentation with various extant methods developed in other fields and now applied here. While the proliferation of circularity metrics has received considerable attention, to-date, there is no critical review of the methods and combinations of methods that underlie those metrics and that specifically quantify sustainability impacts of circular strategies. Our critical review herein analyzes identified methods according to six criteria: temporal resolution, scope, data requirements, data granularity, capacity for measuring material efficiency potentials, and sustainability completeness. Results suggest that the industrial ecology and complex systems science fields could prove complementary when assessing the sustainability of the transition to a CE. Both fields include quantitative methods differing primarily with regard to their inclusion of temporal aspects and material efficiency potentials. Moreover, operations research methods such as multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) may alleviate the common contradictions which often exist between circularity metrics. This review concludes by suggesting guidelines for selecting quantitative methods most appropriate to a particular research question and making the argument that while there are a variety of existing methods, additional research is needed to combine existing methods and develop a more holistic approach for assessing sustainability impacts of CE strategies.

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Section: Emergy and Exergymentioning

confidence: 99%

Do We Need a New Sustainability Assessment Method for the Circular Economy? A Critical Literature Review

Walzberg¹,

Lonca²,

Hanes³

et al. 2021

Front. Sustain.

101

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Some versions of LCA based on both donor-and user-side perspectives (e.g., emergy combined with exergy in Sustainability Ratios by [82]) evaluate materials by referring to all previous processes that generated materials.…”

Section: Projects For Environmental Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Four Sustainability Paradigms for Environmental Management: A Methodological Analysis and an Empirical Study Based on 30 Italian Industries

Zagonari

2016

Sustainability

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This paper develops an empirical methodology to consistently compare alternative sustainability paradigms (weak sustainability (WS), strong sustainability (SS), a-growth (AG), and de-growth (DG)) and different assessment approaches (LCA, CBA, and MCA) within alternative relationship frameworks (economic general equilibrium (EGE) and ecosystem services (ESS)). The goal is to suggest different environmental interventions (e.g., projects vs. policies) for environmental management at national, regional, or local levels. The top-down methodology is then applied to 30 interdependent industries in Italy for three pollutants and four resources during two periods. The industries were prioritized in terms of interventions to be taken to diminish pollution damage and resource depletion, whereas sustainability paradigms were compared in terms of their likelihood (i.e., WS > AG = DG > SS), robustness (i.e., AG > SS > DG > WS), effectiveness (i.e., SS > AG > DG > WS), and feasibility (i.e., SS > DG > WS > AG). Proper assessment approaches for projects are finally identified for situations when policies are infeasible (e.g., LCA in WS and SS, MCA in DG and SS within ESS, CBA in WS, and AG within EGE), by suggesting MCA in WS within ESS once ecological services are linked to sustainability criteria.

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“…Some versions of LCA based on both donor-and user-side perspectives (e.g., emergy combined with exergy in Sustainability Ratios by Jamali-Zghal et al, 2015) evaluate materials by referring to all previous processes that generated materials.…”

Section: Projects For Nature Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Economic General Equilibrium to Ecological System Services for Nature Conservation and Management: A Methodological Analysis and an Empirical Study Based on 30 Italian Industries

Zagonari

2015

SSRN Journal

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In this paper, I develop an operational methodology to consistently compare alternative sustainability paradigms (weak sustainability [WS] [ESS]). The goal is to suggest different environmental interventions (e.g., projects vs. policies) for nature management and guide decisions to achieve nature conservation, defined here as reducing environmental pressures to preserve the future environment and its functioning over time. I then apply the methodology to 30 interdependent industries in Italy for three pollutants (greenhouse-effect gases, polluted rain, and air pollution) and four resources (water, minerals, fossil fuels, biomass) during two periods (from 1990 to 2007 and from 1990 to 2012). The industries were prioritised in terms of interventions to be taken to diminish pollution damage and resource depletion (e.g., fishing and non-energy mining for any sustainability paradigm), whereas sustainability paradigms are compared in terms of their likelihood (i.e., WS > AG = DG > SS), robustness (i.e., AG > SS > DG > WS), effectiveness (i.e., SS > AG > DG > WS), and feasibility (i.e., SS > DG > WS > AG). Proper assessment approaches for projects are finally identified for situations when policies are infeasible (e.g., LCA in WS and SS, MCA in DG and SS within ESS, CBA in WS and AG within EGE), by suggesting MCA in WS within ESS once ecological services are linked to sustainability criteria.

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Metallurgical recycling processes: Sustainability ratios and environmental performance assessment

Cited by 11 publications

References 30 publications

Do We Need a New Sustainability Assessment Method for the Circular Economy? A Critical Literature Review

Do We Need a New Sustainability Assessment Method for the Circular Economy? A Critical Literature Review

Four Sustainability Paradigms for Environmental Management: A Methodological Analysis and an Empirical Study Based on 30 Italian Industries

From Economic General Equilibrium to Ecological System Services for Nature Conservation and Management: A Methodological Analysis and an Empirical Study Based on 30 Italian Industries

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