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Review of life-cycle based methods for absolute environmental sustainability assessment and their applications

Anders Bjørn, Chanjief Chandrakumar, Anne-Marie Boulay, Gabor Doka, Kai Fang, Natacha Gondran, Michael Zwicky Hauschild, Annemarie Kerkhof, Henry King, Manuele Margni, Sarah McLaren, Carina Mueller, Mikołaj Owsianiak, Greg Peters, Sandra Roos, Serenella Sala, Gustav Sandin, Sarah Sim, Marcial Vargas-Gonzalez and Morten Ryberg

Article (2020)

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Abstract

In many regions and at the planetary scale, human pressures on the environment exceed levels that natural systems can sustain. These pressures are caused by networks of human activities, which often extend across countries and continents due to global trade. This has led to an increasing requirement for methods that enable absolute environmental sustainability assessment (AESA) of anthropogenic systems and which have a basis in life cycle assessment (LCA). Such methods enable the comparison of environmental impacts of products, companies, nations, etc, with an assigned share of environmental carrying capacity for various impact categories. This study is the first systematic review of LCA-based AESA methods and their applications. After developing a framework for LCA-based AESA methods, we identified 45 relevant studies through an initial survey, database searches and citation analysis. We characterized these studies according to their intended application, impact categories, basis of carrying capacity estimates, spatial differentiation of environmental model and principles for assigning carrying capacity. We then characterized all method applications and synthesized their results. Based on this assessment, we present recommendations to practitioners on the selection and use of existing LCA-based AESA methods, as well as ways to perform assessments and communicate results to decision-makers. Furthermore, we identify future research priorities intended to extend coverage of all components of the proposed method framework, improve modeling and increase the applicability of methods.

Uncontrolled Keywords

carrying capacity, planetary boundaries, sharing principle, life cycle assessment, absolute environmental sustainability, safe operating space, case study review

Subjects: 1500 Environmental engineering > 1500 Environmental engineering
1600 Industrial engineering > 1605 Human factors engineering
2950 Applied mathematics > 2950 Applied mathematics
Department: Department of Chemical Engineering
Department of Mathematics and Industrial Engineering
Research Center: CIRAIG - International Reference Centre for the Life Cycle of Products, Processes and Services
PolyPublie URL: https://publications.polymtl.ca/9314/
Journal Title: Environmental Research Letters (vol. 15, no. 8)
Publisher: IOP Publishing
DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab89d7
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab89d7
Date Deposited: 14 Aug 2023 15:12
Last Modified: 06 Nov 2024 13:58
Cite in APA 7: Bjørn, A., Chandrakumar, C., Boulay, A.-M., Doka, G., Fang, K., Gondran, N., Hauschild, M. Z., Kerkhof, A., King, H., Margni, M., McLaren, S., Mueller, C., Owsianiak, M., Peters, G., Roos, S., Sala, S., Sandin, G., Sim, S., Vargas-Gonzalez, M., & Ryberg, M. (2020). Review of life-cycle based methods for absolute environmental sustainability assessment and their applications. Environmental Research Letters, 15(8), 083001 (24 pages). https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab89d7

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