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The chill-on-demand system is a new technology designed to provide cooled products on demand, thereby avoiding chilled storage. It uses the cooling effect provided by endothermic desorption of carbon dioxide previously adsorbed onto a bed of activated carbon and has the potential to be applied to any type of product that needs to be cold at the point of consumption. The principles of life cycle engineering have been utilized to evaluate the overall environmental performance of one possible application of this technology: a self-chilling beverage can, with a steel outer can to contain the beverage and an inner aluminium can to contain the adsorbent. An attributional life cycle assessment has been undertaken considering all the life cycle stages of a self-chilling can: manufacture of each part of the beverage container, its utilization, collection of the used can, and management of the waste by reuse, recycling and landfilling. Activated carbon production is included in detail, to assess its contribution to the overall life cycle. The results are compared with those for conventional aluminium and steel beverage cans stored in two types of retail chiller: a single door refrigerator and a large open-front cooler. A sensitivity analysis explores alternative scenarios for activated carbon production and for recovery of the can components post-use for reuse or recycling. The results highlight the importance of using activated carbon produced from biomass by a process with efficient use of low-carbon electrical energy, energy recovery from waste streams and appropriate air pollution control, and of achieving high rates of recovery, re-use and recycling of the cans after use. The results suggest limited markets into which the product might be introduced, particularly where it would displace inefficient chilled storage in an electricity system with a high proportion of coal-fired generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We investigated the environmental impact of treatment of OFMSW in London. [•] We performed LCA with sensitivity analysis to test the robustness of the model. [•] We found AD is the best option for some impact categories, but not for all. [•] The most important assumption results quantity and quality of energy substituted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symbiotic integration of agricultural activities is widespread but quantitative assessments of the environmental benefits are scarce. To explore the potential benefits of applying the industrial symbiosis approach in agriculture and horticulture, a detailed case study is reported of a potential Eco-Industrial Park (EIP) including three activities: dairy farming, greenhouse cultivation of vegetables, and mushroom growing. These activities are widespread world-wide but, to enable quantitative assessment, the specific EIP studied is located in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC). The activities are linked by anaerobic digestion of dairy manure to produce biogas and digestate. Biogas replaces natural gas to supply heat to the farms and carbon dioxide (CO 2) to the greenhouse. Digestate is separated into a liquid fertilizer and a solid substrate; the former replaces chemical fertilizers and the latter can be utilized as cow bedding and growing medium for plants and mushrooms. Mushroom growing emits CO 2 which is conventionally ventilated but can be used for stimulating plant growth in the greenhouse. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used to quantify the environmental benefits of the EIP compared to conventional independent farms. Non-renewable energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, aquatic acidification, respiratory effects from organic emissions, and human toxicity can be reduced by 50%–90% and aquatic eutrophication and respiratory effects from inorganic emissions can be reduced by more than 10%. Such EIPs can also alleviate nutrient management problems in regions with intensive livestock farming. • An LCA model of EIP linking AD of dairy manure, greenhouse and mushroom operations. • Exchange of by-products enhances energy and material self-sufficiency. • Digestate utilisation within the EIP improves nutrient management. • Reductions of ∼60% achievable in non-renewable energy use and global warming potential. • Reductions of 10%–90% achievable across five other life cycle impact categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years society as a whole has become more aware and concerned about environmental issues, in light of increasingly stringent legislation and the more critical eyes of external stakeholders, companies have come to realise the heightened need for their actions to be seen as environmentally responsible. The innovation process provides companies with an excellent opportunity to influence the environmental impacts associated with their products. However, merely providing product developers with new processes and a toolbox of available ecodesign tools is rarely sufficient to facilitate more environmentally conscious decision-making in innovation. This paper proposes that employee participation within the development of new initiatives will aid the implementation of those initiatives. It highlights the first results from a study undertaken at Unilever seeking to initiate employee participation within initiatives for environmentally conscious innovation by ascertaining the attitudes of employees involved in the product innovation process regarding environmental responsibility and its integration into innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an example of the kind of analysis needed to support better targeted policies to reduce the environmental impacts of agricultural activities, using the specific case of Anaerobic Digestion (AD) to treat animal manure and other agricultural and food wastes in British Columbia (BC). Economic and life cycle environmental performance metrics are estimated to compare integrated and stand-alone systems using the resulting biogas and digestate. Using biogas for heating outperforms purifying it for distribution as renewable natural gas (RNG). However, current policy and energy prices in BC perversely support RNG, making biogas-fired heating systems economically unattractive. The performance of biogas-fired heating system can be improved and their dependence on subsidies reduced by integration with local agricultural activities, exploiting CO 2 and digestate as by-products. Biogenic CO 2 , from combustion of the biogas and from mushroom cultivation, can displace natural gas use in producing CO 2 -enriched atmospheres to enhance growth rates in greenhouse production. Using digestate as growing media in greenhouses and mushroom cultivation can generate significant revenues but the environmental benefits are nugatory. Co-digestion of food waste can further improve performance by increasing biogas yield. With all extra benefits combined, integrated AD systems can increase both GHG mitigation and revenues by at least 80%. The analysis illustrates the general point that, to avoid perverse outcomes, policy measures must support options based on their actual GHG mitigation benefits, rather than targetting any specific technology., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Radiological impacts are often disregarded in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) due to the lack of a standard and comprehensive framework for including the impacts of radionuclides alongside other emissions from industrial processes. This data article is related to the research articles "Radiological Impacts in Life Cycle Assessment. Part I: General framework and two practical methodologies" [1] and "Radiological Impacts in Life Cycle Assessment. Part II: Comparison of Methodologies" [2], which introduced two practical methodologies for assessing the radiological impacts in LCA; these are UCrad and the Critical Group Methodology (CGM). This article reports the characterisation factors, for routine direct discharges and releases from nuclear waste disposed in a geological disposal facility, obtained from both methodologies. The article also reports the underlying data supporting the methodologies and the analysis carried out in the related research articles., (© 2019 The Author(s).)