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The Planetary Boundary for Climate Change has been surpassed, and humanity must therefore decide on a pathway back to the safe operating space below the Planetary boundaries to minimise the risk of deleterious or even catastrophic environmental change at continental to global scales. However, the control variables used in the concept do not link to current indicators quantified in life-cycle assessments. Translating the Planetary Boundaries into maximum scores for life-cycle assessment indicators is therefore necessary to enable the assessment of whether life-cycle environmental impacts of e.g. products and services respect the Planetary Boundaries. This paper investigates two different approaches for translating the Planetary Boundary for Climate Change into estimations of maximum emission of greenhouse gasses expressed as annual emissions of CO2-equivalents, a commonly used Climate Change indicator in life-cycle assessments. The estimations may serve as an end goal benchmark for the life-cycle environmental impact of products and services in proposed pathways and roadmaps for the regeneration back to the Planetary Boundary for Climate Change., Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, 3 tables

The building industry is responsible for a large proportion of anthropogenic environmental impacts. Circular economy (CE) is a restorative and regenerative industrial economic approach that promotes resource efficiency to reduce waste and environmental burdens. Transitioning from a linear approach to a CE within the building industry will be a significant challenge. However, an insufficient number of quantitative studies exist to confirm the potential (positive) environmental effects of CE within the built environment as well as a consistent method for characterizing these effects. This paper considers key methodological issues for quantifying the environmental implications of CE principles and proposes a life cycle assessment (LCA) allocation method to address these issues. The proposed method is applied to a case study of a Danish office building where the concrete structure is designed for disassembly (DfD) for subsequent reuse. The potential environmental impact savings vary between the different impact categories. The savings are significantly influenced by the building���s material composition, particularly the number of component-use cycles as well as the service life of the building and its components. The substitution of other material choices (e.g. glass and wood) for the concrete structure exhibited a potential increase in impact savings.

The building industry is responsible for a large proportion of anthropogenic environmental impacts. Circular economy (CE) is a restorative and regenerative industrial economic approach that promotes resource efficiency to reduce waste and environmental burdens. Transitioning from a linear approach to a CE within the building industry will be a significant challenge. However, an insufficient number of quantitative studies exist to confirm the potential (positive) environmental effects of CE within the built environment as well as a consistent method for characterizing these effects. This paper considers key methodological issues for quantifying the environmental implications of CE principles and proposes a life cycle assessment (LCA) allocation method to address these issues. The proposed method is applied to a case study of a Danish office building where the concrete structure is designed for disassembly (DfD) for subsequent reuse. The potential environmental impact savings vary between the different impact categories. The savings are significantly influenced by the building���s material composition, particularly the number of component-use cycles as well as the service life of the building and its components. The substitution of other material choices (e.g. glass and wood) for the concrete structure exhibited a potential increase in impact savings.

The aim of this study is to assess the potential environmental impacts of producing maize, grass-clover, ryegrass, and straw from winter wheat as biomass feedstocks for biorefinery. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method included the following impact categories: Global Warming Potential (GWP100), Eutrophication Potential (EP), Non-Renewable Energy use (NRE), Potential Fresh Water Ecotoxicity (PFWTox) and Potential Biodiversity Damages (PBD). The results showed that GWP100 (in kg CO2 eq, including contribution from soil carbon change) for producing 1 ton of dry matter (t DM) was highest for ryegrass, grass-clover and maize, and lowest for straw. The carbon footprints of ryegrass, grass-clover and maize were affected by including the contribution from soil organic carbon (SOC) changes. Nitrous oxide emissions and emissions related to the production of agro-chemicals (including N-fertilizer) were other hotspots in the carbon footprint. The EP calculated per t DM was highest for grass-clover, ryegrass and maize, and was lowest for straw. NRE use (MJ eq/t DM) was highest for ryegrass, grass-clover and maize and lowest for straw. Major hotspots were diesel use for field operations and agro-chemicals production. The PBD, expressed as Potentially Disappeared Fraction (PDF) showed the highest adverse impact to biodiversity in maize, followed by straw, whereas the results showed relatively lower impact for ryegrass and grass-clover. The PFWTox (CTUe/t DM), at farm level was highest for straw, followed by maize, whereas the values were significantly lower for grass-clover and ryegrass. These variations in ranking of the different biomasses productions using different impact categories for environmental performance showed that it is important to consider a wider range of impact categories for assessing environmental sustainability. info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion

International audience; Agricultural waste is a huge pool of untapped biomass resources that may even represent economic and environmental burdens. They can be converted into bioenergy and bio-based products by cascading conversion processes, within circular economy, and should be considered residual resources. Major challenges are discussed from a transdisciplinary perspective, focused on Europe situation. Environmental and economic consequences of agricultural residue management chains are difficult to assess due to their complexity, seasonality and regionality. Designing multi-criteria decision support tools, applicable at an early-stage of research, is discussed. Improvement of Anaerobic Digestion (AD), one of the most mature conversion technologies, is discussed from a technological point of view and waste feedstock geographical and seasonal variations. Using agricultural residual resources for producing high-value chemicals is a considerable challenge analysed here, taking into account innovative eco-efficient and cost-effective cascading conversion processes (bio-refinery concept). Moreover, the promotion of agricultural residues-based business is discussed through industrial ecology, to promote synergy, on a local basis, between different agricultural and industrial value chains. Finally, to facilitate a holistic approach and optimise materials and knowledge flows management, the connection of stakeholders is discussed to promote cross-sectorial collaboration and resource exchange at appropriate geographic scales.