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Partitioning is often recommended as allocation procedure in attributional Life Cycle Assessments (a-LCAs). However, little guidance is available on how to apply partitioning to recycled products. This paper aims to demonstrate and discuss the application of the allocation procedure allocation at the point of substitution (APOS) via an evaluation of the impacts of the recycled phosphor yttrium europium oxide (YOX) from end-of-life fluorescent lamps. Starting from a multifunctional recycling process, APOS is applied by (1) identifying the products of the foreground sub-system, (2) identifying the origin of the recycled waste, (3) defining the boundaries of the production systems, and (4) applying economic allocation. It appears that recycled YOX is accountable for lower impacts than primary YOX for most impact categories. The largest contributor to the impacts of recycled YOX are the impacts related to the primary production of the fluorescent lamp, such as the use of mercury in the lamp tube. Even if this can be counter-intuitive to accept—as these impacts seem unrelated to YOX—these results provide useful information on whether the supply route of rare earth elements (REEs) from end-of-life fluorescent lamps is “future proof,” regarding potential (supply) risks due to environmental impacts upstream in the product supply chain. The application of APOS is demonstrated on the end-of-life recycling of rare earth elements. APOS provides the user of the recycled REE information about environmental impacts upstream in the product’s value chain. This could inform about the sustainability of the company’s operations—i.e., whether the future use or production of a material might be compromised due to (regulations to decrease) environmental impacts.

The dissipation of metals leads to potential environmental impacts, usually evaluated for product systems with life cycle assessment. Dissipative flows of metals become inaccessible for future users, going against the common goal of a more circular economy. Therefore, they should be addressed in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) in the area of protection “Natural Resources.” However, life cycle inventory databases provide limited information on dissipation as they only track emissions to the environment as elementary flows. Therefore, we propose two LCIA methods capturing the expected dissipation patterns of metals after extraction, based on dynamic material flow analysis data. The methods are applied to resource elementary flows in life cycle inventories. The lost potential service time method provides precautionary indications on the lost service due to dissipation over different time horizons. The average dissipation rate method distinguishes between the conservation potentials of different metals. Metals that are relatively well conserved, including major metals such as iron and aluminum, have low characterization factors (CFs). Those with poor process yields, including many companion and high-tech metals such as gallium and tellurium, have high CFs. A comparative study between the developed CFs, along with those of the Abiotic Depletion Potential and Environmental Dissipation Potential methods, show that dissipation trends do not consistently match those of the depletion and environmental dissipation potentials. The proposed methods may thus be complementary to other methods when assessing the impacts of resource use on the area of protection Natural Resources when pursuing an increased material circularity. The research of Alexandre Charpentier Poncelet, PhD candidate, is co-financed by the French Agency for ecological transition (ADEME) and the French geological survey (BRGM)

The selection of an appropriate allocation procedure for co-production and recycling in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) depends on the goal and scope of the analysis. However, it is not always clear when partitioning or system expansion can be applied, or when to conduct an attributional or a consequential LCA, both for LCA practitioners and users of LCA results. In this paper, the influence of the goal and scope on the selected modeling approaches is clarified. The distinction between process-oriented and product-oriented LCAs, between system expansion and substitution, and between the cut-off approach and other allocation procedures are highlighted. Archetypes of goal and scope definitions are developed. These archetypes reflect the minimum amount of information required to select an allocation procedure. It is demonstrated via an illustrative example that the question &ldquo, what is the environmental impact of a product&rdquo, can result in at least 15 different research questions requiring at least five different modeling methods. Finally, perspectives are provided on the use of attributional and consequential approaches to evaluate the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of products and processes.

The space industry generates pressures on the environment and strives towards more sustainable activities. Several actors of or related to the European space industry, such as ArianeGroup or and the European Space Agency (ESA), have identified the life cycle assessment methodology (LCA) as the most appropriate methodology to measure and then support the reduction of their environmental impact. While the use of the LCA is being established within the sector, only a limited number of peer-reviewed publications are available. Most of the documents released by the stakeholders can be considered to be grey literature. As the topic has not been properly discussed in the literature, there is an opportunity to bring the initiatives carried out by the space sector in recent years to the public domain. Thus, the present work aims to provide a comprehensive overview of past and present studies following the LCA framework. The review compiles 11 papers, conferences proceedings or technical reports that address the development of the LCA framework and good practices in the sector and 27 documents dedicated to LCA studies. On the one hand, the results highlight the emergence of a common framework regarding LCA practice in Europe. On the other hand, the analysed LCA case studies show a highly heterogeneous goal and scope definition. In this review, research needs and methodological challenges are identified and discussed. Finally, recommendations on how to implement and develop the use of LCA within the space industry are given in view of designing more sustainable space systems and associated missions.

The built environment is recognized as a major hotspot of resource use and environmental impacts. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been increasingly used to assess the environmental impacts of construction products and buildings and a new trend is characterized by the application of LCA to larger systems such as neighborhoods during early design phases. Assessing urban development projects at the master-planning stage raises the issue of inventory data collection, especially for building materials which are reported to account for about 20% of primary energy consumption in buildings, and up to 45% of associated greenhouse gas emissions. Urban planners focus on the urban morphology and little information is known about the buildings characteristics apart from their general shape. This paper proposes a simplified model for the assessment of buildings embodied energy and embodied carbon in relation with urban planners’ design levers. The model relies on the decomposition of buildings into functional elements in order to be sensitive to the shape of the buildings. A detailed sensitivity analysis and contribution analysis of the model is conducted on two types of generic building forms, in order to investigate the influence of parameters relating to shape on the embodied energy and embodied carbon of a building. The sensitivity analysis shows that the parameters relating to shape (such as the dimension of the buildings) are more influential on the embodied energy and embodied carbon per square meter of building than the ones relating to the elements themselves (such as the wall thickness). The contribution analysis also brings evidence of the relation between the compactness factor and the embodied energy and embodied carbon of a building.

The wine industry is facing two major environmental challenges: consumers are increasingly aware of the impacts of wine making, and production is jeopardized by environmental changes such as global warming. Therefore, there is a growing need to measure and minimize the environmental footprint of the sector. Life cycle assessment has already proven its worth in evaluating the environmental impacts and hotspots of bottled wine production. However, the methodological discrepancies in the LCA conducted do not allow conclusions regarding the most sustainable production systems or the most significant impacts for the sector. Moreover, LCA application in the field remains scarce due to the complexity of the method and the lack of readability of its results. In this study, 10 LCA papers corresponding to 17 different products were reviewed. Methodological discrepancies have been reduced through harmonization of the functional unit, the life cycle inventory and the life cycle impact assessment method, enabling provision of a range of results for different impact categories, as well as comparisons between different wines. The LCI elements that drive the results have been identified. This can be useful to simplify the data collection and the comparability of the products in this sector. Impact clusters (indicators that follow the same behaviour and are driven by the same LCI elements) have been proposed. Three clusters of impacts ((i) climate change, fossil depletion and particulate matter formation; (ii) terrestrial ecotoxicity; (iii) agricultural land occupation) are responsible for more than 90% of the single score. Nonetheless, the proposed harmonization procedure has limitations, and no conclusion can be made on the most sustainable products due to the remaining discrepancies in the system boundaries.

The European seafood and aquaculture sectors are facing important challenges in terms of environmental threats (climate change, marine debris, resources depletion), social development (worker rights, consumer's awareness) or economic growth (market and nonmarket goods and services, global competitiveness). These issues are forcing all stakeholders, from policy-makers to citizens and industries, to move to more sustainable policies, practices and processes. Consequently, an improvement in collaborations among different parties and beyond borders is required to create more efficient networks along the supply chain of seafood and aquaculture sectors. To achieve this, a â nexus thinkingâ approach (i.e. the analysis of actions in connected systems) combined with a life cycle thinking appears as an excellent opportunity to facilitate the transition to a circular economy. This work was supported by the EAPA_576/2018 NEPTUNUS project. The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of Interreg Atlantic Area. A.C. Dias and P. Quinteiro acknowledge FCT/MCTES for the contracts CEECIND/02174/2017 and CEECIND/00143/2017, respectively, and for the financial support to CESAM (UID/AMB/50017/2019), through national funds. The Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for supporting the contract of A. Marques in the framework of the IF2014 program (IF/00253/2014). peer-reviewed 2022-02-11

International audience; The impact of non-energetic abiotic resource use in life cycle assessment (LCA) has been receiving much attention in the last decades, and even more so since the resource efficiency and circular economy have become prominent subjects of discussion in public and private sectors all around the world. As LCA has proven to be the most solid holistic tool to integrate environmental impacts in sustainability assessments of product systems, it should be able to integrate current concerns about non-energetic abiotic resource use into its methodology and therefore provide exploitable results for every LCA user. However, to this day no consensus has been reached on which approach for characterizing impacts due to the use of these resources should be used (Drielsma et al., 2016; Sonderegger et al., 2017). This seems to be attributable to the fact that no method is recognized as both solid on the methodological level while answering at the same time the true concerns for abiotic natural resource uses in LCA: the need to retain and therefore maximize their functional value in the technosphere after their extraction in order to fulfill the needs of current and future generations, while minimizing the losses to the ecosphere. Indeed, abiotic resources are not always consumed

International audience; FPGAs have been widely adopted in cloud datacenters and System-on-Chip for hardware acceleration purposes during the past few years. For flexibility and efficiency reasons, cloud FPGA fabrics are likely to be shared between multiple users. Despite the logical isolation suggested to protect each tenant, multiuser FPGA environment raises crucial questions about the potential security threats that it may represent. Recently, a series of papers demonstrated that a malicious user could be able to use its rented logic to perform remote side-channel and fault attacks on other user assets located inside the fabric or in the surrounding chips. In this paper, we present a novel implementation method for ring oscillator based voltage sensors that enables runtime supply voltage fluctuation measurement. Considering a multiuser FPGA cloud scenario, we evaluate our sensor performances for side-channel purposes by performing CPA attacks against a hardware AES module instantiated within the same FPGA fabric. Then, we compare our results with existing voltage sensors and also demonstrate that, when calibrated, our sensors can provide results similar to traditional electromagnetic side-channel setups.

International audience; Life cycle assessment (LCA) has proven its worth in modelling the entire value chain associated with the production of goods and services. However, modelling the consumption system, such as the use phase of a product, remains challenging due to uncertainties in the socioeconomic context. Agent-based models (ABMs) can reduce these uncertainties by improving the consumption system modelling in LCA. So far, no systematic study is available on how ABM can contribute towards a behaviour-driven modelling in LCA. This paper aims at filing this gap by reviewing all papers coupling both tools. A focus is carried out on 18 case studies which are analysed according to criteria derived from the four phases of LCA international standards. Criteria specific to agent-based models and the coupling of both tools, such as the type and degree of coupling, have also been selected. The results show that ABMs have been coupled to LCA in order to model foreground systems with too many uncertainties arising from a behaviour-driven use phase, local variabilities, emerging technologies, to explore scenarios and to support consequential modelling. Foreground inventory data have been mainly collected from ABM at the use phase. From this review, we identified the potential benefits from ABM at each LCA phase: (i) scenario exploration, (ii) foreground inventory data collection, (iii) temporal and/or spatial dynamics simulation, and (iv) data interpretation and communication. Besides, methodological guidance is provided on how to choose the type and degree of coupling during the goal and scope phase. Finally, challenging LCA areas of research that could benefit from the agent-based approach to include behaviour-driven dynamics at the inventory and impact assessment phase have been identified.

International audience; Global consumption of carbon fibers reinforced polymer (CFRP) is rising and the management of waste is an issue of high concern. In order to implement a sustainable carbon fiber recycling sector, there is a need to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of recycling processes.In this context, we compared current end-of-life scenarios (landfilling and incineration) with recycling technologies: pyrolysis, supercritical solvolysis and electrodynamic fragmentation using life cycle assessment. We conducted two analyses: a comparison between the CFRP end-of-life processes and a comparison including the substituted products from the recycled carbon fibers.When only considering the end-of-life processes, recycling processes have a higher environmental impact as they require higher energy demand than incineration or landfilling. When considering product substitution, recycling is environmentally beneficial since they replace the production of virgin products. Results are variable depending on the technology readiness level and the quality of fibers recovered from the recycling processes.

Multifunctionality in life-cycle assessment (LCA) is solved with allocation, for which many different procedures are available. Lack of sufficient guidance and difficulties to identify the correct allocation approach cause a large number of combinations of methods to exist in scientific literature. This paper reviews allocation procedures for recycling situations, with the aim to identify a systematic approach to apply allocation. Assumptions and definitions for the most important terms related to multifunctionality and recycling in LCA are given. The most relevant allocation procedures are identified from literature. These procedures are expressed in mathematical formulas and schemes and arranged in a systematic framework based on the underlying objectives and assumptions of the procedures. If the LCA goal asks for an attributional approach, multifunctionality can be solved by applying system expansion—i.e. including the co-functions in the functional unit—or partitioning. The cut-off approach is a form of partitioning, attributing all the impacts to the functional unit. If the LCA goal asks for a consequential approach, substitution is applied, for which three methods are identified: the end-of-life recycling method and the waste mining method, which are combined in the 50/50 method. We propose to merge these methods in a new formula: the market price-based substitution method. The inclusion of economic values and maintaining a strict separation between attributional and consequential LCA are considered to increase realism and consistency of the LCA method. We identified the most pertinent allocation procedures—for recycling as well as co-production and energy recovery—and expressed them in mathematical formulas and schemes. Based on the underlying objectives of the allocation procedures, we positioned them in a systematic and consistent framework, relating the procedures to the LCA goal definition and an attributional or consequential approach. We identified a new substitution method that replaces the three existing methods in consequential LCA. Further research should test the validity of the systematic framework and the market price-based substitution method by means of case studies.

Multifunctionality in LCA can be solved by several allocation procedures. Various official guidelines give divergent recommendations in which allocation procedure to apply, and up to now, no consensus has been reached. We aim to identify the obstacles to a consistent allocation approach that can be applied to all product categories and is supported by a broad range of stakeholders. Based on a systematic framework for consistent allocation, developed by Schrijvers et al. (Int J Life Cycle Assess, 2016), we identify five review criteria that indicate the degree of consistency in the proposed allocation procedure of official guidelines. Several relevant guidelines, i.e. ISO 14044, ISO/TR 14049, ISO/TS 14067, the ILCD Handbook, BP X30-323-0, PAS 2050, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, EN15804, PEF Guide and guidance documents for EPDs and PCRs, are reviewed according to these criteria. None of the investigated guidelines fully follows the systematic framework for allocation. Often, different approaches are recommended for co-products and recycled materials, although the boundary between these flows is not always clear. Many guidelines do not recognize the existence of different LCA goals; therefore, elements of attributional and consequential LCAs are often mixed. The market situation of the recycled material is not always taken into account, e.g. in the mandatory 50/50 method of the PEF Guide. The ILCD Handbook and the General Programme Instructions for the International EPD® System provide most consistent guidance. We argue that consistency does not require a one-formula-fits-all method, as this would favour some product categories and only responds to a certain LCA goal. A critical review of guidelines against a systematic framework for allocation of co-products and recycled materials shows that few guidelines propose a consistent allocation approach. The main obstacles for consistency are the different approaches for co-production and (different types of open-loop) recycling and disregarding of different LCA goals and recycled material markets. We recommend to include material specific guidance in Product Category Rules on the determination of market prices, quality determining factors and relevant material properties for different applications.

International audience; The emphasis on the sustainable urban water management has increased over the last decades. In this context decision makers need tools to measure and improve the environmental performance of urban water systems (UWS) and their related scenarios. In this paper, we propose a versatile model, named WaLA (Water system Life cycle Assessment), which reduces the complexity of the UWS while ensuring a good representation of water issues and fulfilling life cycle assessment (LCA) requirements. Indeed, LCAs require building UWS models, which can be tedious if several scenarios are to be compared. The WaLA model is based on a framework that uses a 'generic component' representing alternately water technology units and water users, with their associated water flows, and the associated impacts due to water deprivation, emissions, operation and infrastructure. UWS scenarios can be built by inter-operating and connecting the technologies and users components in a modular and integrated way. The model calculates life cycle impacts at a monthly temporal resolution for a set of services provided to users, as defined by the scenario. It also provides the ratio of impacts to amount of services provided and useful information for UWS diagnosis or comparison of different scenarios. The model is implemented in a Matlab/Simulink interface thanks to object-oriented programming. The applicability of the model is demonstrated using a virtual case study based on available life cycle inventory data.

International audience; A framework and an associated modeling tool to perform life cycle assessment (LCA) of urban water system, namely the WaLA model, has been recently developed. In this paper, the WaLA model is applied to a real case study: the urban water system of the Paris suburban area, in France. It aims to verify the capacity of the model to provide environmental insights to stakeholder's issues related to future trends influencing the system (e.g., evolution of water demand, increasing water scarcity) or policy responses (e.g., choices of water resources and technologies). This is achieved by evaluating a baseline scenario for 2012 and several forecasting scenarios for 2022 and 2050. The scenarios are designed through the modeling tool WaLA, which is implemented in Simulink/Matlab: it combines components representing the different technologies, users and resources of the UWS. The life cycle inventories of the technologies and users components include water quantity and quality changes, specific operation (electricity, chemicals) and infrastructures data (construction materials). The methods selected for the LCIA are midpoint ILCD, midpoint water deprivation impacts at the sub-river basin scale, and endpoint Impact 2002þ. The results of the baseline scenario show that wastewater treatment plants have the highest impacts compared to drinking water production and distribution, as traditionally encountered in LCA of UWS. The results of the forecasting scenarios show important changes in water deprivation impacts due to water management choices or effects of climate change. They also enable to identify tradeoffs with other impact categories and to compare several scenarios. It suggests the capacity of the model to deliver information for decision making about future policies.

International audience; Environmental impact assessment models are readily available for the assessment of pollution-related impacts in life cycle assessment (LCA). These models have led to an increased focus on water pollution issues resulting in numerous LCA studies. Recently, there have been significant developments in methods assessing freshwater use. These improvements widen the scope for the assessment of wastewater treatment (WWT) technologies, now allowing us to apprehend, for the first time, a combination of operational (energy and chemicals use), qualitative (environmental pollution) and quantitative (water deprivation) issues in wastewater treatment. This enables us to address the following question: Is water consumption during wastewater treatment environmentally significant compared to other impacts? To answer this question, a standard life cycle inventory (LCI) was performed with a focus on consumptive water uses at plant level, where several WWT technologies were operating, in different climatic conditions. The impacts of water consumption were assessed by integrating regionalized characterization factors for water deprivation within an existing life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) method. Results at the midpoint level, show that water deprivation impacts are highly variable in relation to the chosen WWT technology (water volume used) and of WWTP location (local water scarcity). At the endpoint level, water deprivation impacts on ecosystem quality and on the resource damage categories are significant for WWT technologies with great water uses in water-scarce areas. Therefore, our study shows the consideration of water consumption-related impacts is essential and underlines the need for a greater understanding of the water consumption impacts caused by WWT systems. This knowledge will help water managers better mitigate local water deprivation impacts, especially in selecting WWT technologies suitable for arid and semi-arid areas.; Des modèles de caractérisation des impacts environnementaux sont déjà disponibles pour l'évaluation des impacts liés à la pollution en analyse de cycle de vie (ACV). Ces modèles ont permis de nombreuses études ACV sur les questions de pollution de l'eau. Récemment, il y a eu d'importantes avancées méthodologiques sur la prise en compte de l'eau douce. Ces nouveautés élargissent le champ d'évaluation des technologies de traitement d'eaux usées, ce qui nous permet pour la première fois, une combinaison d'aspects opérationnels (énergie et réactifs chimiques), qualitatifs (pollution environnementale) et quantitatifs (carence en eau). Il est donc possible de répondre à la question suivante : Est-ce que la consommation d'eau dans un système d'assainissement est significative pour l'environnement vis-à-vis des autres impacts générés ? Pour répondre à cette question, un inventaire de cycle de vie standard a été réalisé avec une attention particulière sur les consommations d'eau dans le périmètre de la station de traitement d'eaux usées (STEU), pour différentes filières de traitement et pour différentes conditions climatiques. Les impacts de la consommation d'eau ont été analysés en intégrant des facteurs de caractérisation régionalisés pour la carence en eau dans une méthode existante d'analyse de cycle de vie. Les résultats obtenus au niveau des indicateurs d'impact midpoint montrent que les impacts dus à la carence en eau varient fortement en fonction de la filière de traitement choisie (volume d'eau consommé) et de la localisation géographique de la STEU (rareté de l'eau au niveau local). Au niveau des indicateurs d'impact endpoint, les impacts dus à la carence en eau sur les catégories de dommages à la qualité des écosystèmes et aux ressources sont significatifs pour les filières de traitement ayant d'importantes consommations d'eau dans les régions arides. Ainsi, notre étude montre qu'il est important de considérer les impacts liés à la consommation d'eau et souligne le besoin d'une meilleure compréhension de ces impacts causés par les systèmes d'assainissement. Ces connaissances vont aider à prendre des décisions informées pour mieux faire face aux impacts locaux de la rareté en eau, notamment sur le choix des filières de traitement adaptées aux régions arides et semi-arides.

Physical water deprivation at the midpoint level is assessed in water-related LCIA methods using water scarcity indicators (e.g., withdrawal-to-availability and consumption-to-availability) at the river basin scale. Although these indicators represent a great step forward in the assessment of water-use-related impacts in LCA, significant challenges still remain in improving their accuracy and relevance. This paper presents a methodology that can be used to derive midpoint characterization factors for water deprivation taking into account downstream cascade effects within a single river basin. This effect is considered at a finer scale because a river basin must be split into different subunits. The proposed framework is based on a two-step approach. First, water scarcity is defined at the sub-river basin scale with the consumption-to-availability (CTA) ratio, and second, characterization factors for water deprivation (CFWD) are calculated, integrating the effects on downstream sub-river basins. The sub-river basin CTA and CFWD were computed based on runoff data, water consumption data and a water balance for two different river basins. The results show significant differences between the CFWD in a given river basin, depending on the upstream or downstream position. Finally, an illustrative example is presented, in which different land planning scenarios, taking into account additional water consumption in a city, are assessed. Our work demonstrates how crucial it is to localize the withdrawal and release positions. within a river basin.