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With circular economy being high on governmental agendas, there is an increasing request from governing bodies for circularity measurements. Yet, currently existing macro-level monitoring frameworks are widely criticized for not being able to inform the decision-making. The criticism includes, among others, a lack of consensus on terminologies and definitions among scholars, politicians, and practitioners, a lack of supporting data and tools and, consequently, a lack of transparency and trustworthiness. To address those needs, a bottom-up approach to build a shared terminology is suggested as a starting point for monitoring development. The government, data providers, and tool developers are involved in the process of formal ontology development and alignment. The experiment builds upon a use case of the Amsterdam Circular Economy Monitor (2020). First, four ontology development approaches are used to create a theory-centered, a user-centered, a tool-centered, and a data-centered ontology. The ontologies are later compared, merged, and aligned to arrive at one single ontology which forms the basis of the circular economy monitor. The notes taken during the process have revealed that next to a material flow model, typical of socioeconomic metabolism analysis, policy makers are concerned with actors (i.e., institutions, companies, or groups of people) who participate in the analyzed processes and services. Furthermore, a number of terms used by the decision-makers lack clear definitions and references to be directly associated with the available data. Finally, a structured terminology alignment process between monitor users, developers, and data providers helps in exposing terminology conflicts and ambiguities.

Producción Científica, Input–output tables (IOTs) provide a relevant picture of economic structure as they represent the composition and interindustry relationships of an economy. The technical coefficients matrix (A matrix) is considered to capture the technological status of an economy; so, it is of special relevance for the evaluation of long-term, structural transformations, such as sustainability transitions in integrated assessment models (IAMs). The A matrix has typically been considered either static or exogenous. Endogenous structural change has rarely been applied to models. The objective of this paper is to analyze energy intensity, a widely used variable in IAMs, and its role as a driver of structural change. We therefore identify the most relevant technical coefficients in the IOTs time series and estimate an econometric model based on the energy intensity of five different final end-use energy sources. The results of this analysis show that energy intensity has a significant influence on the evolution of the A matrix and should therefore be taken into consideration when analyzing endogenous structural change in models., Ministerio de Asuntos Económicos y Transformación Digital, project MODESLOW (grant ECO2017-85110-R), European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. Project “Low Carbon society: An enhanced modelling tool for the transition to sustainability (LOCOMOTION) grant award H2020-LC-CLA-01-2018, n. 821105

Battery storage systems (BSSs) are popular as a means to increase the self-consumption rates of residential photovoltaics. However, their environmental impact is under discussion, given the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the production and the efficiency losses during operation. Against this background, we carry out a holistic environmental assessment of residential BSSs by combining a partial life cycle assessment for the production phase with a detailed simulation of 162 individual German households for the operational phase. As regards the production phase, we only find small differences between the carbon footprints of different cell chemistries. Moreover, we can show that the balance of plant components have a comparable impact on the global warming potential as the cell modules. In terms of the operational phase, our simulations show that BSSs can compensate at least parts of their efficiency losses by shifting electricity demand from high-emission to low-emission periods. Under certain conditions, the operational phase of the BSSs can even overcompensate the emissions from the production phase and lead to a positive environmental impact over the lifetime of the systems. As the most relevant drivers, we find the exact emissions at the production stage, the individual household load patterns, the system efficiency, and the applied operational strategy.

Decarbonizing the national energy system by increasing the amount of non‐conventional renewable resources (NCRRs) is one of the strategies of the Colombian government to meet the compromises declared in the last conference of the parties (COP 26) (Glasgow 2021). Concretely, it is expected that at the end of 2023, the shares of NCRRs in the power grid will increase from

In the course of the energy transition, storage technologies are required for the fluctuating and intermittently occurring electrical energy. The vanadium flow battery (VFB) is an especially promising electrochemical battery type for megawatt applications due to its unique characteristics. This work is intended as a benchmark for the evaluation of environmental impacts of a VFB, providing transparency and traceability. It considers the requirements for an industrial VFB from the technical and electrochemical point of view. The system design is based on a net capacity of 8 MWh and a net power of 1 MW. This ex ante study is a cradle‐to‐grave life cycle assessment (LCA) for a VFB to identify, analyze, and evaluate the environmental impacts for a lifetime of 20 years. Moreover, potential environmental impacts of several subsequent life cycles of the emission‐intensive and long‐lasting vanadium electrolyte are evaluated. With a focus on the electrolyte, the extraction process of vanadium pentoxide is studied in detail for the first time. Consequently, recommendations for the design of the life cycle of VFBs and for comparative LCAs with other energy storage technologies can be derived. Based on this work, more detailed work can follow, which helps to estimate the recycling potentials and emissions more precisely. This article met the requirements for a gold‐gold JIE data openness badge described at https://jie.click/badges, German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action

By using resources more efficiently, resource users help to overcome the inherent resource scarcity on “spaceship earth.” One strategy in this context is to close resource loops and to use resources circularly. With fewer resources wasted, a more circular use of resources should also increase the efficiency of resource use and create more value. However, when resource users aim for a greater degree of efficiency, inadvertently they might contribute to resources being used less rather than more circularly and, consequently, less instead of more efficiently. We show how to assess the value that is created by the efficient use of resources for the case of linear and circular resource use. This allows us to identify three distinct types of positive externalities related to the circular use of resources: (1) systemic static externalities; (2) idiosyncratic dynamic externalities; and (3) systemic dynamic externalities. We describe how the value created by these externalities can be assessed and argue that they need to be considered when evaluating environmental resource use.

Multi-regional input–output (MRIO) models are widely used to analyze the economic interdependencies between regions in the context of global trade and environmental research. MRIO tables enable us to teleconnect the sectors in different regions along the supply chain and track both direct and indirect impacts of global production. Yet emerging economies—despite reshaping international trade patterns and playing an increasingly important role in the world economy—are not adequately represented in existing MRIO databases, which lack key detail on countries and sectors. To bridge this gap, our study presents EMERGING: Up-to-date and full-scale MRIO tables covering 135 sectors in 245 economies over the period from 2015 to 2019. We describe in detail the steps in the development of the database and reconciliation and validation of bilateral trade data and national statistics. The EMERGING database is also designed to incorporate more official and publicly available data from national statistical institutes to ensure a high level of data quality, especially for these economies. We compare both national production-based and consumption-based value added generated from the EMERGING MRIO with the results from four major MRIO databases. Although global value-added accounts are similar across databases, we find significant discrepancies at the level of individual countries and sectors concerning conflicting benchmark data.

A comprehensive data inventory of the current materials cycle in industry and society is crucial for an informed discussion and for decision-making on the supply of raw materials. Particularly, it is key to understand how these materials are functionally and nonfunctionally recycled, and enable the assessment of recycling indicators needed for the monitoring of circular economy. In this context, a material system analysis (MSA) of cobalt for the European Union (EU) from 2012 to 2016 is presented and discussed. Detailed results are provided for the year 2016, and the evolution of the flows over time is presented from 2012 to 2016. In addition, six indicators are calculated to characterize the cobalt cycle. In 2016, the EU28 embedded around 24,000 metric tons (t) of cobalt in manufactured products, and 33,700 t were put into use. The main losses of the system are due to nonselective collection of postconsumer waste (disposed), and nonfunctional recycling of old scrap. From the years analyzed, it was possible to detect a shift in the imports; the import of primary material decreased more than 99% between 2012 and 2016, and the import of semiprocessed and processed materials increased around 31% in the same period. This indicates that after 2012, the EU became more dependent on imports in downstream stages of the supply chain. One way to decrease this dependency is to establish higher collection targets, and to establish recycling targets based on the recovery of single materials, in order to decrease the amount dissipated through nonfunctional recycling.

According to the waste hierarchy, waste prevention is environmentally superior to recycling or recovery, hence its inclusion in government policy. The assessment and prioritization of waste prevention strategies are impeded, inter alia, by ambiguous definitions and the lack of a sound environmental assessment method. In this study, a systematic approach to the environmental assessment of waste prevention activities (WPAs), covering the whole life cycle of products, was developed. The approach combines material flow analysis and life cycle assessment with a sustainable circular system design framework whilst giving special consideration to pivotal factors such as diffusion factor (share of population engaging in WPA), substitutability (degree to which a new product is replaced), effects on use-phase impacts, and rebound effects. The application of the approach to the case studies of clothing and household furniture in Switzerland revealed lower impact saving potential than assumed initially, due to lack of participation, low substitutability, or high rebounds. For example, reusing clothing locally, instead of exporting it to low-income countries, as currently done, displayed no or even negative impact savings since secondhand clothing in high-income countries is often consumed in addition to new clothing. Drastic scenarios for clothes led to only moderate impact reductions of less than 15%, whereas a take-back scheme for furniture reduced impacts by 70%. Concluding, the four factors (diffusion rate, substitutability, effects on use-phase impacts, and rebounds) proved crucial in the assessment of waste prevention strategies and the approach presented was able to pinpoint improvement potentials of the waste prevention scenarios investigated., Journal of Industrial Ecology, 26 (4), ISSN:1088-1980, ISSN:1530-9290

This study proposes a new framework for estimating the effects of changes in the physical lifespan (PHL) of cars and the possession lifespan (POL) of new and used cars on stock, flow, and carbon footprint (CF). Applying this framework to all new and used cars registered in Japan from 1990 to 2016 showed that a 10% extension of the PHL of cars reduced the CF of cars by 30.7 Mt, while a 10% extension of the POL of new cars reduced the CF of cars by 26.4 Mt, and a 10% extension of the POL of used cars produced a 5.2 Mt CF reduction. On the other hand, a 10% lifetime reduction in the three cases increased CF by 42.2 Mt, 29.4 Mt, and 6.0 Mt, respectively. These results indicate that increasing the lifetime of new and used cars could contribute significantly to the mitigation of global warming. To achieve a large reduction in life cycle emissions, car designers should focus on ways to extend vehicle lifetimes.

Over the past years, an increasing number of scholarly papers have used the planetary boundaries (PBs) within life cycle assessment (LCA) to determine if the life cycle impacts of a product system fit within those PBs and thereby establish the absolute sustainability of the product system. This type of LCA is nowadays coined as LCA-based Absolute Environmental Sustainability Assessment (AESA). “Absolute” thereby refers to methods enabling the comparison of environmental impacts of products, companies, nations, and so on, with an assigned share of environmental carrying capacity for various impact categories. A recent review of LCA-based AESA methods and their applications characterized 47 studies “according to their intended application, impact categories, basis of carrying capacity estimates, spatial differentiation of environmental model and principles for assigning carrying capacity.” However, the review and the majority of studies reviewed did not, or only to a limited extent, discuss potential temporal issues of assigning carrying capacity to product systems. Several of the carrying capacity estimates have a time dimension while LCA results lack a time dimension. In this article, we show that assigning PBs to product systems is only technically possible when adopting several fundamental though unrealistic assumptions, and conclude that even product LCA-based AESA is relative. This should not withhold scholars from developing approaches applying the PBs in LCA, but it should prevent them from claiming and using the term “absolute.”.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) will play a crucial role in achieving decarbonization and reducing greenhouse gases. If the EU wants to be competitive in the global market of LIBs, it has to ensure a sustainable and secure supply of the raw materials needed for the manufacturing of these batteries. Limited understanding of how the battery material cycles are linked with raw materials supply chains may hinder policy measures targeting the set-up of a domestic supply chain in the EU since no precise information on where to intervene will be available. The novelty of this work lies in a multilayer system approach developed to reveal interlinkages between the flows of five raw materials contained in LIBs (cobalt, lithium, manganese, natural graphite, and nickel) in the EU. This was achieved by aligning material system analysis datasets of raw materials contained in LIBs with datasets on stocks and flows of this type of batteries in the EU. The results demonstrate the EU's strong import dependency on LIBs and battery raw materials. The EU recycling of lithium and natural graphite is low/nonexistent hindering the sustainable supply of these materials. The results also show that the majority of battery materials are increasingly accumulated in use or hoarding stocks. The proposed approach is designed to help identify bottlenecks and possible solutions to increase the efficiency of the EU LIB system, which could go unnoticed if each material supply chain were examined individually. This study also highlights how the lessons learned can support EU resource-management policies.

Raw materials form an industrial base to provide the wide range of products and services demanded by industry and society. In particular, manganese, nickel, and natural graphite are examples of materials having a globally consolidated supply chain with interlinked use in steelmaking and essential role in clean energy systems and e-mobility. A stable material supply chain is hence a priority for import-dependent regions like the EU and builds upon quantitative system understanding. To this aim, the EU Material System Analysis is applied to analyze the anthropogenic cycle of manganese, nickel, and natural graphite from 2012 to 2016. We provide a detailed characterization of their material stocks, flows, and changes in selected performance indicators including end-of-life recycling rate (51% +/- 3%, 49% +/- 8%, and 8% +/- 0% for manganese, nickel, and natural graphite, respectively), self-sufficiency potential (40% +/- 3%, 32% +/- 5%, and 5% +/- 1%), old scrap ratio (31% +/- 0%, 22% +/- 2%, and 90% +/- 1%), recycling input rate (25% +/- 1%, 38% +/- 2%, and 3% +/- 0%), recycling process efficiency rate (84% +/- 2%, 85% +/- 6%, and 48% +/- 3%), and pre-consumer losses rate (83% +/- 3%, 5% +/- 1%, and 24% +/- 2%). The achieved results may inform decision-makers engaged with raw materials recovery and recycling as well as the strategic securement of a reliable material supply to the EU for resilient industrial ecosystems.

The use of Semantic Web and linked data increases the possibility of data accessibility, interpretability, and interoperability. It supports cross-domain data and knowledge sharing and avoids the creation of research data silos. Widely adopted in several research domains, the use of the Semantic Web has been relatively limited with respect to sustainability assessments. A primary barrier is that the framework of the principles and technologies required to link and query data from the Semantic Web is often beyond the scope of industrial ecologists. Linking of a dataset to Semantic Web requires the development of a semantically linked core ontology in addition to the use of existing ontologies. Ontologies provide logical meaning to the data and the possibility to develop machine-readable data format. To enable and support the uptake of semantic ontologies, we present a core ontology developed specifically to capture the data relevant for life cycle sustainability assessment. We further demonstrate the utility of the ontology by using it to integrate data relevant to sustainability assessments, such as EXIOBASE and the Yale Stocks and Flow Database to the Semantic Web. These datasets can be accessed by the machine-readable endpoint using SPARQL, a semantic query language. The present work provides the foundation necessary to enhance the use of Semantic Web with respect to sustainability assessments. Finally, we provide our perspective on the challenges toward the adoption of Semantic Web technologies and technical solutions that can address these challenges.

The extensive disposal of plastic components into the environment requires an economically and ecologically feasible solution for the proper treatment or new uses for plastic waste. This study compares the environmental and mechanical performance of a sandwich panel based on disposed bottle caps core with different eco-friendly skins and adhesive. A cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment compares the environmental impacts of the manufacture of six-bottle cap panel designs with various skin (aluminum, recycled PET, and flax laminates) and adhesive types (epoxy vs. biopolymer) by calculating their ReCiPe midpoint impact indicators. An eco-mechanical indicator is additionally proposed to measure the efficiency of designs with greater strength/stiffness and less environmental footprint. The bio-based skin on the sandwich panel significantly reduces environmental damage between 32% and 87% compared to metallic skins. Recycled skin promotes the lowest impacts, while considerably reducing mechanical performance. The bio-based adhesive has emissions up to 15% lower than epoxy. The eco-mechanical balance showed up to 630% higher efficiency for bottle cap panel designs based on bio-based polymer, flax-based skins, and/or less adhesive depending on the mechanical response. Promising environmental performance with superior mechanical strength highlights the potential of bottle caps as an eco-friendly honeycomb for secondary construction and transport structures.

Environmental dissipation is a novel approach to account for impacts from mineral resources. In contrast to all other resource-related life cycle impact assessment methods, which use data on extractions as input to calculation of indicator scores, environmental dissipation is characterized solely through emissions to the environment. Making environmental dissipation work as a viable resource use impact category in life cycle assessment requires, however, that truly dissipative emissions are differentiated from those anthropogenic releases which do not contribute to loss of accessibility of a given resource over the time frame considered. We present a new method that allows for this differentiation to be made for 65 metals and metalloids in a consistent way. It determines (1) whether an emission flow reported in a life cycle inventory actually contributes to loss of accessibility of a given element when environmental fate mechanisms are considered, and (2) whether the element comes from a source that would be considered as a mineral resource for any generation living between the present and the time frame of assessment. We apply the new method to four different emission inventories, and characterize the resulting list of truly dissipative emissions using recently proposed long-term environmental dissipation potentials (EDP). This highlights the need to differentiate dissipative emissions from other anthropogenic, potentially nondissipative emission flows of elements in metal resource impact assessment.

The use of Dutch dairy manure for biogas production is expected to increase from 10% in 2020 to 60% in 2030. Traditionally, manure is returned to fields as a source of nutrients and organic carbon. Since a share of manure carbon is converted into biogas, this practice impacts the organic carbon input to soil (OCIS) of the dairy farms. The magnitude of the impact depends on the magnitude of the other sources of organic carbon. This impact is not considered by current advocates for large-scale use of dairy manure for biogas while understanding it is essential because of the risk of decreasing carbon soil input. Therefore, a study of carbon flows of dairy farms that eventually contribute to the OCIS is required. In this paper, we use substance flow analysis to quantify the carbon flows on different Dutch dairy farms and investigate the impact of using manure for biogas production to their OCIS (kgC/year/ha). The farms differ in farming practices such as whether cows are grazed outside or not. The results show that about 40% of OCIS of a Dutch dairy farm comes from manure and the rest comes from its crop production. The organic carbon from manure to the soil is also limited by the need to export manure due to the Dutch nutrient regulations. The overall reduction in OCIS caused by biogas production is 10%–20%. The impact is largest in farms with no grazing. These findings provide insights into the possible trade-offs of using manure for biogas production.

The environmental benefits of low-carbon technologies, such as photovoltaic modules, have been under debate because their large-scale deployment will require a drastic increase in metal production. This is of concern because higher metal demand may induce ore grade decline and can thereby further intensify the environmental footprint of metal supply. To account for this interlinkage known as the “energy-resource nexus”, energy and metal supply scenarios need to be assessed in conjunction. We investigate the trends of future impacts of metal supplies and low-carbon technologies, considering both metal and electricity supply scenarios. We develop metal supply scenarios for copper, nickel, zinc, and lead, extending previous work. Our scenarios consider developments such as ore grade decline, energy-efficiency improvements, and secondary production shares. We also include two future electricity supply scenarios from the IMAGE model using a recently published methodology. Both scenarios are incorporated into the background database of ecoinvent to realize an integrated modeling approach, that is, future metal supply chains make use of future electricity and vice versa. We find that impacts of the modeled metal supplies and low-carbon technologies may decrease in the future. Key drivers for impact reductions are the electricity transition and increasing secondary production shares. Considering both metal and electricity scenarios has proven valuable because they drive impact reductions in different categories, namely human toxicity (up to −43%) and climate change (up to −63%), respectively. Thus, compensating for lower ore grades and reducing impacts beyond climate change requires both greener electricity and also sustainable metal supply. This article met the requirements for a Gold-Gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges.

A hybrid, heterogeneous model of urban design, ?New Industrial Urbanism? can facilitate dynamic, innovative and vibrant sectors of the city. Architect and urban planner Tali Hatuka, Head of the Laboratory of Contemporary Urban Planning and Design (LCUD) at Tel Aviv University, explores its contemporary societal, economic and technological context. She describes its impact on ideas of localism, skilling up the workforce and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Packaging is fundamental for food preservation and transportation but generates an environmental burden from its production and end-of-life management. This review evaluates packaging contribution to the environmental performance of seafood products. Life cycle assessment (LCA) studies were evaluated by both qualitative and quantitative analysis. The qualitative analysis assessed how direct (e.g., packaging material) and indirect impacts (e.g., influence on seafood loss and waste) have been considered, while the quantitative analysis evaluated packaging contribution to products’ weight and climate change impact. Qualitative analysis revealed that seafood LCAs focus mainly on direct environmental impacts arising from packaging materials, for which some articles conducted sensitivity analysis to assess materials substitution. Recycling was found to be the most common recommendation to diminish direct potential environmental impacts arising from packaging end-of-life. However, standardized recovery rates and other end-of-life options (e.g., reuse), should be considered. Quantitative analysis revealed that cans' production contributes significantly to the overall climate change impact for canned products. On average, it contributes to 42% of a product's climate change impact and 27% of a product's weight. Packaging has a lower contribution when considering freezing, chilling, and other post-harvesting processing. It represents on average less than 5% of a product's climate change impact (less than 1 kg CO2 eq/kg) and 6% of a product's weight. Packaging material production is more relevant to aluminum, tinplate, and glass than for plastic and paper. Therefore, it is essential to accurately include these materials and their associated processes in inventories to improve the environmental assessment of seafood products. This work was supported by the NEPTUNUS project (EAPA_576/2018). The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of Interreg Atlantic Area. Ana Cláudia Dias, Paula Quinteiro and Tamíris da Costa acknowledge FCT/MCTES for the financial support to CESAM (UIDB/50017/2020+UIDP/50017/2020), through national funds, and Ana Cláudia Dias and Paula Quinteiro to the research contracts CEECIND/02174/2017 and CEECIND/00143/2017, respectively. peer-reviewed 2022-08-24

The rapid urbanization and building boom in China in the past decades provided not only massive residential and nonresidential floor space, but also millions of jobs especially for migrants from rural areas. However, such high-speed growth of building stocks is not expected to continue forever and its dynamics, especially declining, may affect the job market of the construction sector and further China's social stability. Here, we extended a dynamic material flow analysis (dMFA) model that characterized the building stocks and flows to forecast the province-level direct labor demand in construction, installation, and decoration in mainland China from 1950 to 2050. We show that as China's per capita building stocks start to saturate in the next decades, building inflow will decrease with a speed of 2.6–2.7 billion m2/year, corresponding to a decrease of direct construction employment by 2–3 million by 2050. The flow of migrant workers from Central South and Southwestern China to construction in the Southeastern coast of China will remain until 2050. Our results exemplify the usefulness of dMFA for labor demand forecasting and call for proper governmental plans and policies in advance to train migrant workers for new labor markets and potential re-employment in face of the construction bubble and bust.

Around 40% of global raw materials that are extracted every year accumulate as in-use stocks in the form of buildings, infrastructure, transport equipment, and other durable goods. Material inflows to in-use stocks are a key component in the circularity transition, since the reintegration of those materials back into the economy, at the end of the stock's life cycle, means that less extraction of raw materials is required. Thus, understanding the geographical, material, and sectoral distribution of material inflows to in-use stocks globally is crucial for circular economy policies. Here we quantify the geographical, material, and sectoral distributions of material inflows to in-use stocks of 43 countries and 5 rest-of-the-world regions in 2011, using the global, multiregional hybrid units input-output database EXIOBASE v3.3. Among all regions considered, China shows the largest amount of material added to in-use stocks in 2011 (around 46% of global material inflows to in-use stocks), with a per capita value that is comparable to high income regions such as Europe and North America. In these latter regions, more than 90% of in-use stock additions are comprised of non-metallic minerals (e.g., concrete, brick/stone, asphalt, and aggregates) and steel. We discuss the importance of understanding the distribution and composition of materials accumulated in society for a circularity transition. We also argue that future research should integrate the geographical and material resolution of our results into dynamic stock-flow models to determine when these materials will be available for recovery and recycling. This article met the requirements for a Gold-Gold JIE data openness badge described in http://jie.click/badges