Week 6 Flashcards
What does sustainability mean?
Wellbeing for the environment, as well as wellbeing for the human community
What are you and ARENT you seeking when assessing for sustainability?
You are seeking to add positive contributions, NOT mitigate adverse effects!
Is assessing sustainability the same as environmental assessment?
Assessing sustainability goes BEYOND environmental assessment
What are the stages to life cycle thinking?
Start: Natural Resources
-> Extraction of raw materials
-> Design and production
-> Packing and distribution
-> Use and maintenance
-> Disposal thought:
- incineration and landfilling (exit cycle)
- reuse (go backwards)
- recovery (go to start)
- recycling (go to start, but further)
life cycle thinking heavily consider the 3 groups of sustainability
What is system thinking?
System thinking considers how the product or process interacts with other elements that together form a system
If we look at supposedly sustainability solutions, we often see a focus on one component of a system with optimization in one specific aspect
Ex/ Incandescent lightbulbs are less efficient and it’s advised to switch to fluorescent lights are a good for the environment alternative due to the energy they save when being made.
BUT, fluorescent lights have mercury, BUT, the mercury produced during power generation FOR INDANDESCENT lights, its actually WORSE!
What is a Life cycle assessment (LCA)?
a life cycle assessment is a systematic evaluation of the impacts material and energy input and outputs for a product or process across all the life cycle stages
What are the 4 main stages of the ISO approach to a LCA?
Goal Definition and Scope
(defining the overall goals and scope)
Inventory Analysis
(analyzing the material and energy flows)
Impact assessment
(Assessing environmental impacts)
Interpretation
(interpreting the outcomes of each other stage to reduce negative impact and stuff)
What is one of the first tasks in the first step of an LCA: Defining the overall goals and scope?
define the system boundary, which refers to defining which aspects of the product or process and which life cycle stages we are considering
Then we look at the energy and material input for each life cycle stage we defined in the system boundary, as well as their corresponding outputs!
What is a functional unit?
A reference unit that is used to measure and normalize performance of alternatives we’re considering.
This is defined in STAGE 1 of LCA!
Ex/ for the lightbulb comparison, we might take 20 000 lumen hours of light as a functional unit?
What are the challenges with LCA?
- Detailed knowledge of material and energy flows are required
- Impacts must be known and quantified
- Focuses on environmental impacts
- LCAs are typically only available at the end of the design process due to these issues and requirements.
What is an SLCA?
We view the lifecycle as a linear sequency of steps and we qualitatively assess performance across a number of criteria. We’ll consider:
- resources used
- waste generated
- energy used
- public health
What is an SLCA Matrix?
It’s a chart with the life cycle stages on the top and the criteria on the side. This way, we can add up all the numbers to get an “Environmentally Responsible Product Rating”, or R(ERP) rating. This is like a score of a WDM if all of the weights were even.
What are 2 uses of the SLCA?
We can use the ratings for a particular product or option to asses the areas of greatest negative impact and hence, greatest potential for improvement
or
We can use the R(ERP) rating to compare performance
