Personal Metabolism (PM) coupled with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) model: Danish Case Study

Abstract

Sustainable and informed resource consumption is the key to make everyday living sustainable for entire populations. An intelligent and strategic way of addressing the challenges related with sustainable development of the everyday living of consumers is to identify consumption-determined hotspots in terms of environmental and health burdens, as well as resource consumptions. Analyzing consumer life styles in terms of consumption patterns in order to identify hotspots is hence the focus of this study. This is achieved by taking into account the entire value chain of the commodities consumed in the context of environmental and human health burdens, as well as resource consumptions. A systematic commodity consumption, commodity disposal, and life style survey of 1281 persons living in urbanized Danish areas was conducted. The findings of the survey showed new impact dimensions in terms of Personal Metabolism (PM) patterns of residents living in urbanized areas of Denmark. Extending the PM analysis with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) provided a clear picture of the per capita environmental and human health burdens, as well as resource consumptions, and the exact origin hereof. A generic PM-LCA Model for all the 1281 persons was set-up in Gabi 6. The assessment results obtained applying the model on all 1281 personal consumption scenarios yielded the 1281 Personal Impact Profiles (PIPs). Consumption of food and energy (electricity and thermal energy) proved to be the primary impact sources of PM, followed by transport. The PIPs further revealed that behavioral factors (e.g. different diets, use of cars, household size) affect the profiles. Hence, behavioral changes are one means out of many that humanity will most likely have to rely on during the sustainable development process. The results of this study will help the Danish and other comparable populations to identify and prioritize the steps towards reducing their environmental, human health, and resource consumption burdens.

Weighting and Aggregation in Life Cycle Assessment: Do Present Aggregated Single Scores Provide Correct Decision Support?

“…The present study is based on the results from the personal metabolism (PM)–LCA model presented and described in Kalbar and colleagues (). The PM‐LCA model in Kalbar and colleagues () was applied to assess the life cycle impacts of resource consumption of urban Danish residents. All the details about how the data set for the study was derived are presented in supporting information S1 available on the Journal's website.…”

The absolute environmental performance of buildings

“…the aggregated person impact profile as known from e.g. [24], should be less than the annual person equivalent carrying capacity, , . The results from equation 1.1 are unable to provide any information on the building's performance relative to the share of the carrying capacity available to the service of accommodation, and therefore the building as such, in an absolute sustainable scenario.…”

“…In the following, we evaluate the effect of a range of measures aiming at minimizing environmental impacts of the contemporary dwelling: minimizing impacts from building construction, reducing energy consumption during use phase, and reducing the living area per person by building smaller apartments/houses or increasing the household size in accordance with the results presented by Kalbar et al [24].…”

58. Eating to save wild-life: is a truly conservation-minded zoo/aquarium a vegan zoo/aquarium?

“…As presented by Kalbar et al (2016) the contribution from food consumption to the overall impact pattern from consumption among Danish citizens ranges across the 18 covered impacts categories between 0.3 and 94.6% of the total consumption related impact profiles on person level. The results presented by Kalbar et al (2016) indicate that food consumption may be a significant segment to consider when trying reducing the overall environmental burden resulting from consumption.…”

“…As presented by Kalbar et al (2016) the contribution from food consumption to the overall impact pattern from consumption among Danish citizens ranges across the 18 covered impacts categories between 0.3 and 94.6% of the total consumption related impact profiles on person level. The results presented by Kalbar et al (2016) indicate that food consumption may be a significant segment to consider when trying reducing the overall environmental burden resulting from consumption. For global warming, food consumption accounts on average for 16.4% of the burden resulting from consumption (covering impacts related to consumption of food, various transport forms, accommodation and various energy carriers), and food is hence in the top 3 of the consumption segments with the largest global warming contributions.…”