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Understanding the global environmental impacts of local consumption is an area of growing interest among policymakers and consumers. By knowing what products comprise urban consumption "hotspots," municipalities and consumers alike could take deliberate actions to target and discourage consumption of high-impact products. In this paper, a new method for identifying environmental hotspots of consumption is presented. The main methodological advances are the following: i) material flow analysis of urban areas and life cycle assessment are combined; ii) a 16-year time-series of urban consumption data is used for selection of the most suitable representative products and for trend analysis; iii) representative products are selected systematically from consumption data of 1000 product types; iv) representative products are scaled up to represent consumption of the product groups; v) hotspots are identified by simultaneously evaluating six environmental impacts - acidification, climate change, eutrophication (marine and freshwater), photochemical ozone formation, and resource use; vi) for the case study, hotspots are connected to the city's profiles. The method was applied to the Swedish cities Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo and to Sweden in total. Electronics is a hotspot for all the studied areas and all the studied impacts and should be a prioritized product group for action. Fuel is a hotspot shared by all the areas while vehicles is a hotspot in Gothenburg. Meat is a nationwide hotspot, but not for the cities investigated. Gothenburg and Stockholm could collaborate to find effective measures for their common hotspot machinery. Thus, the method can be used to identify hotspots and find which product types could be part of national versus local programs. • Combined MFA-LCA environmental impact analysis of urban consumption. • Region-specific analysis to identify need for local consumption reduction efforts. • Some common but also different hotspots were identified for the studied areas. • Method enables assessment of multiple environmental impacts simultaneously. • Time series of consumption data allows for trend analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Systems integration is a trend in the quest for increased environmental performance in urban districts, yet its implications are not yet fully known. Hammarby Sjöstad is a district in Stockholm, Sweden, designed with high environmental ambitions. These ambitions were later expressed in the Hammarby Model, an integrated infrastructural system aiming to minimize the metabolic flows of the district by closing its material and energy flows. Various integrated systems were already present in Stockholm when discussions began around the development of the Hammarby Model. Using a conceptual framework inspired by transition theory, this paper analyses the process of designing and building the Hammarby Model. Our aim is to create a better understanding of the implications of systems integration at the urban district level. The findings of the study show that systems integration may both enable and constrain further innovation. On one hand, integration facilitates the implementation of technologies that are add-ons or that solve a reverse salient experienced by the integrated system. On the other hand, technologies that are perceived to threaten the integrated system are locked out, prohibiting further optimization of the system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Systems integration (the combination of previously independent systems) is one of the solutions proposed by industrial ecology scholars to tackle environmental problems. Systems integration has not yet been analysed as an innovation process, which could bring additional insights to its challenges and barriers. This paper is a first attempt to fill this gap. Using a conceptual model based on actor-network theory and insights from structuration theory, we analyse the case of developing sewage gas for transport in Stockholm. Results show that the process was very dynamic and that the network grew in such a way that it became risky for actors not to join it. Moreover, pre-existing socio-technical rules had to be re-negotiated during the process. The process through which types of pre-existing rules were modified was unique for each pre-existing network that was involved. Besides, in one instance systems integration required the development of a bridging network allowing interaction between initially independent networks for sewage and private transport. Finally, results also show that systems integration requires a “superstructure” i.e. an organisation that can coordinate activities and take important risks to see to it that systems integration gets realised. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]