Oliver Sola 7486

Life Cycle Assessment as a

Tool for Designing more

Sustainable Cities

Project funded by the Spanish Ministry of the Environment A042/2007/3-10.1. and the project cRRescendo within the EU 6th FWP.

Research group on Sustainability and Environmental Prevention (SosteniPrA).Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA)

Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB)

Jordi Oliver-Solà, Xavier Gabarrell, Joan Rieradevall

April 2008

• Research group in Sustainability and Environmental Prevention

• Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB)

• Chemical engineers, environmentalists, geographists, agricultural engineers.

• Research areas:

Industrial Ecology: LCA, MEFA, Ecodesign, Ecoefficiency and Green Purchasing

Sustainability in agricultural systems

• Projects in IE: Ecodistricts, service sector, regional metabolism.

• www.sostenipra.cat

SosteniPrA research group

• A need for the ecodesign of cities

• LCA as a tool for the environmental analysis

• LCA as a tool for the ecodesign of cities

• LCA in the public space

• Natural gas distribution networks

• Results and discussion

• Conclusions

Table of contents

• To design environmentally respectful cities is the only solution for

facing the environmental problems that our society has created.

• As half of the world population lives in cities, the improvement on the

design of cities will reduce the environmental impact of millions of

people.

• There are many tools already developed for guiding the ecodesign

process. However, when working with complex systems like cities, it’s

worthy to use those that provide the deepest approach, provide a global

approach, avoid problem shifting and make fewer assumptions, as in this

case little errors may have a multiplying effect.

A need for the ecodesign of cities

• The studies using LCA began in the seventies and were very much

focused in the energetic sector.

• In the eighties in most cases the balances of energy, matter and waste

were still applied separately.

• In the decade of the nineties, the LCA methodology continued its

development, especially because of the new recommendations of the

SETAC with regard to its different phases.

• Currently the actions are centered in the generalized application

through life cycle management of products and processes.

LCA as a tool for the environmental analysis

• Strength of LCA.

1. Cradle-to-grave approach

2. Variety of impact categories that can be used

• Global warming, ozone depletion, acidification, eutrophication, photochemical

ozone formation, toxicity, energy consumption…

3. Can handle problem shifting


MATERIALCONCEPT

DISTRIBUTION

PRODUCTION

END OF LIFE

USE

Goal and Scope

Should include a statement of the reason for carrying

out the study as well as the intended application of the

results and the intended audience.

Inventory analysis

Comprises all stages dealing with data retrieval and

management.

Impact Assessment

Aims to evaluate the significance of potential

environmental impacts.

Interpretation

To reach conclusions and recommendations in

accordance with the defined goal and scope of the

study.

Goal and scope definition

(ISO 14041)

InventoryAnalysis

(ISO 14041)

Impact Assessment(ISO 14042)

Interpretation(ISO 14043)


• Steps of LCA according to SETAC and ISO standards:

• Three steps are usually described inside the Life Cycle Impact

Assessment (LCIA):

1. Classification and characterization: In the classification step, all

substances are sorted into classes according to the effect they have on

the environment. And in the characterization these are aggregated

within each class to produce an effect score.

2. Normalization: In this step each effect calculated for the life cycle of a

product is benchmarked against the known total effect for this class.

3. Evaluation or weighting: In this phase the normalized effect scores

are multiplied by a weighting factor representing the relative

importance of the effect.


LCA as a tool for the ecodesign of cities

“ All the ants on the planet, taken together, have a biomass

greater than that of humans. Ants have been incredibly

industrious for millions of years. Yet their productiveness

nourishes plants, animals, and soil. Human industry has been in

full swing for little over a century, yet it has brought about a

decline in almost every ecosystem on the planet. Nature doesn’t

have a design problem. People do.”

McDonough i Braungart, 2002


• Ecodesign consists on the application of environmental criteria in the

development of a product, process or system.

• The designer plays a key role in all the life cycle stages since the

initial decisions influence the entire life cycle.

• LCA proved to be a useful tool for assessing Ecodesign of simple

products by assessing designers and engineers during the design

process.


Key words Title only %Title, abstractand key words

%

Lifecycle

Life-cycle

LCA

Product 283 100,0 3.390 62,5

Process 131 46,3 4.109 75,8

System 168 59,4 5.424 100,0

• Results obtained for each combination of key words using the ISI Web

of Knowledge search engine

Lifecycle

Life-cycle

LCA

City 20 7,1 197 3,6

Urban 17 6,0 239 4,4

Infrastructure 14 4,9 331 6,1

Distribution networks

energy, water, telecommunications…Distribution networks

energy, water, telecommunications…

LCA in the urban space

• Within the public space, we distinguish three main areas of study

Pavement

Furniture

Natural gas distribution networks

• Objective, to calculate the environmental impact associated to the

infrastructure of an urban network for distributing natural gas inside a

neighborhood.

• The selected indicator has been the Cumulative Energy Demand

(CED). This indicator is a good “entry point” into life cycle thinking and

includes the direct and indirect energy consumption due to the use of

materials.

• Functional unit: to provide natural gas to a neighborhood. This

includes the materials, installation works, maintenance of components,

transportation and waste treatment of the infrastructures required to

distribute natural gas in urban areas. Different urban densities and a

lifespan of 50 years are taken into account.


• System description

Neighborhood of 20,000 inhabitants.

Three density scenarios.

The considered scenarios recreate one low density detached

house neighborhood and two medium and high density

Mediterranean neighborhoods.

It is taken for granted that the regional natural gas pipeline

reaches the neighborhood boundary.

Natural gas distribution networks Scenarios

Scenario

Pipe length (m)

Buildings

Apartments

Pipe length (m)

Buildings

Apartments per building

Nei

ghbo

r-ho

odS

tree

t se

ctio

n

C

1,389

139

6,672

100

10

48

B

2,778

278

6,672

100

10

24

A

166,667

6,667

6,667

100

4

1

Natural gas distribution networks Detailed diagram

Results and discussion

Subsystem Component Average lifespan (years)

Neighborhood network

Pipe 50

Surface box 50

Trench works 50

Building

PE-Cu transition 50

Service line 50

Tap 50

Gas meters and associated elements 50

Closet 50

Apartment

Downpipe 50

Tap 50

Manometer 50

Boiler 15

High relevance of local components and maintenance works


0,00E+00

2,00E+07

4,00E+07

6,00E+07

8,00E+07

1,00E+08

1,20E+08

1,40E+08

CED

MJ

Neighborhood

Buildings

Apartment

Scenario A

• The length of the grid (more than 166 kilometers) has a multiplying effect on the impact.

• The impact of the building subsystem is also higher than in B and C scenarios because in scenario A each single house requires a connection to the neighborhood grid.


0,00E+00

5,00E+06

1,00E+07

1,50E+07

2,00E+07

2,50E+07

3,00E+07

CED

MJ

Neighborhood

Buildings

Apartment

Scenario B

• In the building subsystem the difference is lower than 1.5% because the relevant components (such as gas meters) are proportional to the number of apartments.

0,00E+00

5,00E+06

1,00E+07

1,50E+07

2,00E+07

2,50E+07

3,00E+07

CED

MJ

Neighborhood

Buildings

Apartment

Scenario C

• The relative impact of the building and apartment subsystems increase with the urban density.


• The results show that the natural gas distribution network in low density neighborhood (A) is four times more energy demanding than in the other two scenarios (B and C), basically due to the neighborhood grid.

• The effect of doubling the density (between B and C) has a little effect on the results.

0,00E+00

4,00E+07

8,00E+07

1,20E+08

1,60E+08

2,00E+08

CED

MJ

low density (A)

medium density (B)

high density (C)

Conclusions

LCA

• There are still few experiences where LCA has been applied to deal

with environmental issues in an urban context.

• LCA is an appropriate tool for guiding the ecodesign process at an

urban scale.

• The possibility to express results in a comprehensive way, allows

adapting LCA to different audiences.

• LCA can help to the decision making process in urban planning.

Conclusions


• The distribution of the environmental impact between subsystems

(neighborhood network, building and dwelling) changes radically

according to urban density.

• In low-density areas the neighborhood network is the subsystem that

gives raise to most CED (71%)

• In high-density neighborhoods the building and dwelling subsystems are

those that are responsible for more than 95% of the CED.

• The neighborhood network plays a key role on the impact of

natural gas distribution networks in low density areas. However,

once the urban density has increased the CED variation is very low.

Distribution networks

energy, water, telecommunications…

Conclusions

• The same methodology can be applied to other systems

Pavement

Furniture

Thank you very much!

Life Cycle Assessment as a Tool for Designing more Sustainable

Cities

Research group on Sustainability and Environmental Prevention (SosteniPrA).Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA)

Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB)

Jordi Oliver-Solà, Xavier Gabarrell, Joan Rieradevall

[email protected]

April 2008

Project funded by the Spanish Ministry of the Environment A042/2007/3-10.1. and the project cRRescendo within the EU 6th FWP.

Oliver Sola 7486

Technology

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