• Energy Research

Allocation methodological choices in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a relevant issue for the Circular Bioeconomy context. The recent Product Environmental Footprint Guide from the European Commission includes the Circular Footprint Formula (CFF) as a new way to deal with energy recovery/recycling processes. This paper investigated CFF vs. other different LCA allocation methods in Brazilian briquette production. A cradle-to-gate LCA study was conducted considering 1 MJ of energy from recovered and dedicated Eucalyptus briquette production. Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) were selected as the impact categories to evaluate the allocation methods choice that influences the potential impacts. LCA results were compared regarding four allocation methods. Eucalyptus wood as a biomass supply scenario achieved impact results up to 4.3 kg CO2-eq. for GWP and 0.0272 MJ-eq. for CED. The recovery wood scenario presented LCA burdens reduction by up to 206% for GWP, however a 492% increase in the CED results. CFF provided the lowest results for both impact categories. However, the CFF method still doesn’t address particular aspects of circular bioenergy systems. Biomass and bioenergy LCA require further adjustments focusing on biochemical flows in the CFF calculation procedure to lead the development of innovative circular business models.

Abstract The main objective of this study was to explore and analyze the recent scientific production on sustainability in the fashion retail sector. The methodology was based on a literature review and bibliometric analysis of the last 12 years of peer-reviewed published papers on the topic. The results illustrated an increase in publications in 2017 and 2018, with large participation from countries such as the United States and China. The findings covered a broad diversity of topics related to fashion retail such as: slow fashion, fast fashion, sustainability in the supply chain, sustainable production and consumption of textile products, and the main barriers, benefits, and trends for this sector in a near future. Due to the increase of negative social and environmental impacts in the last decades more studies related to sustainability practices to be adopted by this sector are required to identify potential alternative solutions for the problem. We did a list with the 55 most important practices to promote sustainability in fashion retail.

The companies’ needs to adopt changes in their way of production to maximize the environmental performance required by their stakeholders, and at the same time, to maximize their economic and market performance, have made them seek for environmental strategies and certifications. In this sense, the Cleaner Production and the Environmental Management System based on ISO 14001 have been, respectively, presented, since the main objective of this research is to identify and analyze Cleaner Production contributions to comply with ISO 14001 requirements. For such, a survey research has been carried out in Brazilian industrial companies certified by ISO 14001. We have identified the main performance factors by leading practices and variables of Cleaner Production that contribute to the compliance with the standard requirements by companies. Thus, it has been noted that Cleaner Production is an important strategy for the preparation of companies for certification as well as for improving their environmental performance.

Abstract Remarkable differences can be found between Brazilian and Spanish production of wood-based products. The purpose of this study is to analyze and compare the environmental performance of particleboard production in both countries. The results showed that the greatest impacts in four impact categories correspond to Brazilian particleboards, because of the use of heavy fuel-oil and virgin wood as energy source and raw material respectively, as well as uncontrolled formaldehyde emissions. On the contrary, Spanish production reports worse results in other impacts (eutrophication and toxicity related categories) mostly due to the large demand of diesel in the mobile chipping machine. A sensitivity analysis based on the variation of scenarios considering multifunctionality issues to produce particleboards in Brazil and Spain was conducted. The allocation approach (economic and mass) showed a relevant influence for all impact categories for the Brazilian scenarios in order to reduce most of the environmental impacts, however, it has increased most of the impacts for the Spanish ones due to the change of perspective in the hypothesis that wooden residues are free of environmental burden. The use of the substitution method to address the multifunctional processes displayed the lowest values for almost all impact categories, and especially for Spain, where the avoided impacts from wooden waste were so high that they covered all the life cycle impacts of the particleboards life cycle on many occasions, meaning that there was a net benefit, as the overall environmental impacts were more than offset by the avoided impacts.

Abstract Melamine-urea-formaldehyde (MUF) resin is commonly used in the production of wood-based panels. It can replace urea-formaldehyde (UF) resin particularly to improve wood panel properties under high humidity conditions. This paper presents a life cycle assessment (LCA) study of the production of MUF resin through a case study conducted in Brazil. The assessment of 1 kg of MUF resin included two main stages: raw material supply and MUF resin manufacturing. A detailed inventory of MUF resin was obtained from technical visits to a Brazilian producer (foreground system), as well as from literature reviews (mainly background systems). The potential environmental impact assessment phase was assessed by applying two methods and seven impact categories: CML (abiotic depletion, acidification, global warming, eutrophication and photochemical oxidation) and USEtox (ecotoxicity and human toxicity). The raw material supply stage was responsible for most of the impacts, except for the toxicological impact categories. Nearly all of the raw material supply hotspots are related to the production of melamine (9–61% of impacts) and urea (3–72% of impacts). The MUF manufacturing stage was significantly more important for ecotoxicity (84% of impacts) and human toxicity (72% of impacts) due to local formaldehyde emissions. Improvement scenarios were developed and the addition of up to 10% of melamine was suggested for the production of MUF resins. MUF resin was compared with UF resin and the results showed that MUF can replace UF resin because of its lower contribution to photochemical oxidation, ecotoxicity and human toxicity.

ABSTRACT Would it be possible to improve lean performance and at the same time minimize water scarcity footprint (WSF) impact in manufacturing? The purpose of this paper is to propose and test an integrated lean–green approach for eco-efficiency monitoring in manufacturing companies. This approach starts with the application of value stream mapping as a lean manufacturing tool, followed by a green manufacturing perspective based on a WSF assessment. Lastly, eco-efficiency indicators were calculated based on previous steps measurements. This lean–green approach was applied in a Brazilian beverage industry. Three eco-efficiency indicators were simulated: (1) considering Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) divided by WSF results in the company shop floor, (2) value aggregation rate (%V/A) per WSF, and (3) production volume per WSF. The future scenario leads to an increase of 22 %, 38 %, and 2.5% in the eco-efficiency indicators based on OEE, %V/A, and product volume, respectively. Scenario 2 was the more appropriate one to be used in the company because %V/A best fits the changes suggested to improve the value stream at the company level. The suggested lean–green approach can add new knowledge to the lean–green research field, and the application of this can help other companies to improve their environmental responsibilities at business while remaining profitable.

Objectif Le but de cet article est de passer en revue la littérature sur la performance environnementale de la fabrication additive (FA) et d'évaluer l'utilisation de l'analyse du cycle de vie (ACV) dans ces études. Purpose The purpose of this paper is to overview the literature about the environmental performance of additive manufacturing (AM) and to evaluate the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) on these studies. Propósito El propósito de este documento es revisar la literatura sobre el desempeño ambiental de la fabricación aditiva (AM) y evaluar el uso de la evaluación del ciclo de vida (ACV) en estos estudios. الغرض من هذه الورقة هو إلقاء نظرة عامة على الأدبيات حول الأداء البيئي لتصنيع المواد المضافة (AM) وتقييم استخدام تقييم دورة الحياة (LCA) في هذه الدراسات.