In order to mitigate global warming, it is important to decrease the climate impact from the building stock, which accounts for 39% of the GHG emissions in Europe. An extensive portion of these emissions are generated from the heating of buildings, but emissions also occur from the production of building materials. It is therefore important to find building design solutions that consider both production and operation and maintenance in order to minimise the climate impact of a building during its entire lifetime. At the same time, the production of buildings has to be cost-efficient. In the design of buildings, both climate impact and cost must be evaluated in order to make well-supported decisions. The overall aim of this study was to develop a procedure to facilitate using life cycle studies as decision support for building design. The presented approach will provide a structured means to manage choice and parameter uncertainty when life cycle studies are used as decision support in order to optimise building design. There are many uncertainties in the design phase of buildings, and the approach is demonstrated here in a case study of insulation thickness in the building envelope. The results can be used to support decisions on where to effectively make improvements when subjective choices and parameter uncertainties are considered in the study. The suggested approach will lessen the problem of false certainty in the conclusions drawn, and at the same time provide strong decision support.

To establish a circular economy in society, it is crucial to incorporate life-cycle studies, such as life-cycle assessment (LCA), in the design process of products in order to mitigate the well-recognized problem of the design paradox. The aim of the study was to provide means in a structured way to highlight choice uncertainty present in LCA when used as decision support, as well as to mitigate subjective interpretations of the numerical results leading to arbitrary decisions. The study focused on choices available when defining the goal and scope of a life-cycle assessment. The suggested approach is intended to be used in the early design phases of complex products with high levels of uncertainty in the product life-cycle. To demonstrate and evaluate the approach, a life-cycle assessment was conducted of two design options for a specific building. In the case study two types of building frameworks were compared from an environmental perspective by calculating the global warming potential, eutrophication potential, acidification potential, stratospheric ozonedepletion potential and photochemical oxidants creation potential. In the study, a procedure named the Decision Choices Procedure (DCP) was developed to improve LCA as an effective tool for decision support concerning design alternatives when less information is available. The advantagesand drawbacks of the proposed approach are discussed to spur further improvements in the use of LCA as a decision-support tool.

Symbiotic linkages in industry clusters in the form of interconnected materials, energy and information flows, and close proximity provide unique opportunities to develop efficient environmental strategies. The purpose of our study is to examine the practical potential of applying a life cycle approach in strategy evaluations, as the environmental impact caused by industrial symbiosis systems outside the company gates has been scarcely addressed. This is done by evaluating two strategies for an industry cluster in Sweden: (1) to replace a share of the fossil feedstock used in the industry cluster with forest-based feedstock and (2) to improve energy efficiency through thermal energy integration. The environmental impact reduction potential of the strategies is evaluated using life cycle assessment. The ratio between investment cost and reduced global warming potential is used as an indicator to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the strategies. Results demonstrate the importance of applying a life cycle perspective as the assessment outcome depends heavily on whether only on-site consequences are assessed or if upstream and downstream processes are also included. 20% of the greenhouse gas emission reduction of the energy integration strategy occurs off-site, whereas the forest strategy has the largest reduction potential off-site, >80%.

A variety of climate mitigation strategies is available to mitigate climate impacts of buildings. Several studies evaluating the effectiveness of these strategies have been performed at the building stock level, but do not consider the technological change in building material manufacturing. The objective of this study is to evaluate the climate mitigation effects of increasing the use of biobased materials in the construction of new residential dwellings in Sweden under future scenarios related to technological change. A model to estimate the climate impact from Swedish new dwellings has been proposed combining official statistics and life cycle assessment data of seven different dwelling typologies. Eight future scenarios for increased use of harvested wood products are explored under different pathways for changes in the market share of typologies and in energy generation. The results show that an increased use of harvested wood products results in lower climate impacts in all scenarios evaluated, but reductions decrease if the use of low-impact concrete expands more rapidly or under optimistic energy scenarios. Results are highly sensitive to the choice of climate impact metric. The Swedish construction sector can only reach maximum climate change mitigation scenarios if the low-impact building typologies are implemented together and rapidly.

In Sweden, the current dominant valorization of food waste is the production of biogas. However, as current production has low profitability, other options are sought to find more valuable uses of food waste, e.g. as the feedstock for bio-based chemicals. One example is the use of food waste in the production of bio-based succinic acid. In this paper, a LCA study is presented in order to highlight whether biogas production or the production of succinic acid has the lowest environmental impact as valorization option for mixed food waste, and if mixed food waste could be an environmentally preferable feedstock to succinic acid production. The LCA study shows that the environmental results depend on the perspective. From a valorization perspective, food waste has the lowest environmental impact the biogas production. From a feedstock perspective, mixed food waste is an environmentally preferable feedstock to succinic acid production. Although many uncertainties exist because production processes are still being developed, it can be concluded that mixed food waste seems to be a promising feedstock for bio-based chemicals from an environmental point of view, and is of interest to be included in future assessments of bio-based chemicals for the emerging bio-economy. © 2018

Bioplastics are gaining attention as a means of reducing fossil resource dependence. Most bioplastics differ from fossil-based plastics in molecular structure, and therefore in terms of properties and durability. Still, the life cycle environmental performance of bioplastics has attracted limited attention in research. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine the importance of applying a life cycle perspective and identify key considerations in the environmental evaluation of bioplastics and bioplastic products under development.

The climate impact of the life cycle of an engine component storage box currently made of the fossil-based plastic acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) is compared to a hypothetical case study, based on laboratory observations, of the same box produced from a blend of polycarbonate and the bioplastic polylactic acid (PC/PLA) and a box made of biopolyamide (PA1010). The comparison is conducted with a cradle-to-grave attributional life cycle assessment. The functional unit of the study is five years of service life, which reflects the required function of the storage box.

Whereas the climate impact of the production of the different plastic materials differ only slightly, the PC/PLA engine component storage box was found to have a significantly higher climate impact that the ABS and PA1010 boxes when the whole life cycle is taken into account. The dominant contributor to climate impact is premature material deterioration due to humidity and heat during service life, which prevents the product from fulfilling the required function. Two other influential aspects are the possibility of material reuse and the share of fossil or biogenic carbon in the product. Production of plastic materials and boxes, and transport distances, are of less importance.

Results demonstrate the high significance of including service life and potential material deterioration when bioplastics and fossil-based plastics are compared. Our findings underline the importance of applying a life cycle perspective and taking into account the intended application and function of bioplastics as part of their development and environmental assessment.

Within the current political and industrial transition to a bio-based

economy, food waste can be an alternative resource for biobased chemicals. This

chapter describes a case study that evaluates the prospect for Swedish production of

biobased chemicals such as succinic acid from food waste. The evaluation is

addressed from multiple systems perspectives. From a technical and resource

system perspective, the results of the case study show that production seems possible.

However, from a social system perspective succinic acid production currently

lacks institutional support and actor commitment and alignment for realizing

development in Sweden. From an environmental and life cycle perspective, the

scoping of the analysis is decisive for the results. The study shows that multiple

perspectives complement each other when seeking a nuanced evaluation of technical

innovation and give insights for the intended value chain.

In order to demonstrate the sustainability of the novel process for the production of TMPi that will benefit the environment and human health, a number of different analysis were performed within the EU Life project TRIALKYL, such as the health assessment for hazardous materials and environmental impact assessment based on life cycle assessment.The objective of this Socio-Economic Analysis (SEA) is to determine whether the benefits of continuing using a continuous tertiary amine (TEA) process for the production of TMPi outweighs the risks to human health and the environment. The purpose is also to compare the risks and benefits of the two alternative TMPi production processes.In this SEA study, the existing TEA production process is compared with the new TRIALKYL process for the production of TMP. The current evaluation is based on laboratory data and design of the pilot line, while the final evaluation will be based on industrial data on pilot line.

Socio-economic analysis (SEA) is a methodology developed for chemical risk management and decision making derived from tools like the Cost benefit analysis, or the Multi-criteria analysis by the OECD 2002 and 2006 [3,4]. Since the latest ECHA guideline for SEA in 2011 [1], a number of studies have been performed, while seldom with a life cycle perspective and seldom on production processes.This socio-economic analysis is based on an earlier Life cycle assessment on the production process of trimethyl phosphite (TMPi) [6]. Besides economic, health, environmental and social impacts, this socio-economic analysis is also including the risk of fire/explosion and life lost.Trialkyl phosphites are important intermediates in the chemical industry in a large variety of applications, including crop protection, flame-retardants and plastics production. Among the existing technologies for the production process of TMP there are the tertiary amine process (TEA) and the transesterification process. Among the new innovative technologies, there are the TRYALKYL process, part of this comparison and the EU Life project TRIALKYL in 2014 [2].

The socio-economic analysis SEA includes mainly economic, health, environmental and social impacts in accordance to the latest ECHA guidelines for SEA.The results of the SEA analysis are economic benefits and risk presented as scenarios, such as the “non-use scenario” for the Trialkyl production process and the “applied for use scenario” for the TEA production process. The socio-economic benefits and risks/costs associated with the continued use of the TEA based process are summarised in key parameters including risk of fire/explosion and life lost presented in table 1. Further details can be found in the project report [5].The benefits of this continued use of the TEA based process are the costs which can be avoided when not adopting the Trialkyl process alternative. These benefits are estimated to be approximatively €7 082 420 and the cost of cost of continued use to be €20 Mill.Comparing the benefits and the costs it is evident that EU society benefits significantly from the shift to the Trialkyl process over the period considered.

In conclusion, the socio-economic analysis based on life cycle perspective are useful for the health and environmental assessment and beneficial for the understanding of chemical risk management and decision making. So far, the results have shown that despite the cost of a new production plant, the EU society benefits significantly from the shift to the Trialkyl process due to the improved benefits within human health and the environment.

[1] ECHA (2011). Guidance on the preparation of socio-economic analysis as part of an application for authorization. European Chemical Agency, ECHA, Finland.

[2] EU Life project TRIALKYL. 2014. LIFE-TRIALKYL - An innovative and sustainable continuous process for the development of high quality trimethyl phosphite. EU LIFE Program - Environment and Resource Efficiency (LIFE14/ENV/IT/000346).

[3] OECD. 2002. Technical Guidance Document on the use of Socio-Economic Analysis in Chemical Risk Management Decision Making, OECD 2002.

[4] OECD. 2006. Cost-Benefit Analysis, OECD 2006.

[5] Stahl S, Brunklaus B, Lorentzon K. 2017. Socio-economic impact scenarios report: analysis of an innovative and sustainable continuous process for the production of high quality trimethyl phosphite. EU Life Report, Action C2 (Draft version 07/2017, Final will be available on www.life-trialkyl.eu).

[6] Stahl S, Berlin J, Brunklaus B. 2017. LCA of an innovative and sustainable contious process for the development of high quality Trimethyl Phosphite. EU Life Report, Action C1 (Draft version 09/2017, Final will be available on www.life-trialkyl.eu).

Life cycle assessment and life cycle cost analysis are suitable tools in trying to minimize environmental impact and cost. To get reliable results it is crucial to set up correct system boundaries for the investigation, but it is often difficult to understand a complex products system because of the cascade effects of consequences that can be induced even by small changes. In this paper the effects and consequences evaluation (ECE) method is introduced to systematically identify and organize the effects and consequences for a design change of parts of a complex system. The method is applied in a case study of external wall insulation for a new building to investigate the importance of correct system boundaries. Using the methodical approach in identifying all significant consequences showed that unexpected unit processes can be important when deciding on the relevant system boundary. We also conclude that such processes can have a significant impact on the final results by calculating the change in global warming potential and life cycle cost for the processes affected by the design option.

The relative environmental impact from the building construction phase is increasing compared to the operation phase for new buildings. Therefore, it is important to consider the complete environmental life cycle of energy improvement measures. Many advanced optimization methods have been developed in recent years to assess building life cycle impact. However, these previous studies have not fully addressed the secondary effects, in other words, indirect effects outside the actual design option. This may lead to conclusions of optimization studies based on misleading calculation results. The main purpose this study was to highlight the relevance of including secondary effects in optimization of building design with respect to global warming potential and cost. This was done by conducting a parameter study of the building envelope insulation thickness with regard to global warming potential and life cycle costs, while considering secondary effects induced by the different design options. Findings from this study show that secondary effects influence the system boundary, algorithm architecture, results and the final conclusions of optimal building design. Omitting secondary effects can thus lead to incorrect decision on optimal solutions with regard to global warming potential and life cycle cost. Therefore, it is therefore important to take them into consideration when performing optimization studies of building design options.