Absolute Sustainability and the Necessity of Developing New Tools for LCE Practitioners

Transcription

1 Absolute Sustainability and the Necessity of Developing New Tools for LCE Practitioners Professor Sami Kara

2 Outline 21 st Century challenges Governments response: legislations Engineering response Root cause: relative improvement LCE framework Tools and techniques for LCE practitioners: bridging the gap Outlook

3 21 st Century Challenges Growing demand for basic commodities and industrial products Growing production on a global scale Population growth Resource scarcity Growing environmental and social impacts through industrial production

4 Governments Response: Legislation Examples of well known legislation applying to manufacturing industry: ELV (End of Life Vehicles Directive) European Union (Directive 2000/53/EC), Japanese (introduced in 2002), Korean (2007), Chinese (a combination of the European and Japanese legislation (McNamara, 2009), effected in 2010) ELV directives RoHs (Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive) European Union WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive) European Union Carbon tax and Emission Trading Scheme (ETS)

5 Engineering Response: Mobility Year Average fuel efficiency (passenger vehicles, lt/100km) Australian Bureau of Statistics

6 Engineering Response: Mobility 30 km Parramata Road 1920 Parramata Road 2015 Speed: km/hr, Time: Approx. 90min Speed: km/hr, Time: Approx. 90min

7 Engineering Response: Display Technologies

8 Engineering Response: Lighting Source: EIA, based on Department of Energy's Lighting Facts Database

9 Engineering Response: Lighting 7 Million LED lights

10 Engineering Response: Actual Impact Although, the environmental impact is reduced at product level, not sufficient for volume increase - average reduction in CO2 emission for automotive vehicles not enough for the market volume increase CO2 Emission (g/km) Total Volume Sold (Millions) Average CO2 emission per engine Actual Vehicle sales volume Year (Kim, Kara, 2014)

11 Root Cause: Relative Improvement Twelfth Law of Sustainability: When large efforts are made to improve the efficiency with which resources are used, the resulting saving are easily and completely wiped out by added resources that are consumed as a consequences of modest increases in consumption and population. Dr Albert Bartlett s Laws of Sustainability

12 Relative Improvement and Increased Environmental Foot print Main drivers: Technology development and enabling size increase (42 inches is the new 25) 42in Samsung CRT TV 110in Samsung LCD TV

13 Relative Improvement and Increased Environmental Foot print Main drivers: Population increase and associated consumption increase / capita (volume increase)

14 Relative Improvement and Increased Environmental Foot print Main drivers: Sustainability is absolute not relative Rockström, J; Steffen, WL; Noone, K; Persson, Å; Chapin III, FS; Lambin, EF; Lenton, TM; Scheffer, M; et al. (2009), "Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity" (PDF), Ecology and Society, 14 (2): 32

15 Life Cycle Engineering Framework Earth s Life Support System Societies Economies IMPACT POPULATION Sustainability Sustainable Development Industrial Ecology Scope of Environmental Concern X Companies One Company X Products One Product AFFLUENCE TECHNOLOGY Manufacturing Life Cycle Management Life Cycle Engineering Multi Product Life Cycle Single Product Life Cycle Raw Materials Extraction Product Development Methods and Tools to support Life Cycle Engineering Reuse, Remanufacturing, Recycling, Disposal After Sales-/ Service Engineering Top-Down Bottom-Up Single Product Life Cycle Multi Product Life Cycle Scope of Temporal Concern Civilization Span Hauschild, M., Herrmann, C., Kara, S. (2017), An Integrated Framework for Life Cycle Engineering, Procedia CIRP.

16 Tools and Techniques for LCE Practitioners: Bridging the Gap Extending LCA: Dynamic functional unit The problem arises as new product technologies enter the market and introduce the following types of changes: Improved performance of existing functions Influence of additional functions Fostering new functionalities that the consumer did not have access to before Integrating additional functionalities leading to possible sharing of common functions with unclear or overlapping system boundaries Altered usage behaviour Kim, S., Kara, S., Hauschild, M. (2016), Functional unit and product functionality: adressing increase in consumtion and demand for fucntionality in sustainability assessment with LCA, International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, DOI /s

17 Tools and Techniques for LCE Practitioners: Bridging the Gap Extending LCA: Dynamic functional unit Categorisation of product functions Kim, S., Kara, S., Hauschild, M. (2016), Functional unit and product functionality: adressing increase in consumtion and demand for functionality in sustainability assessment with LCA, International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, DOI /s

18 Tools and Techniques for LCE Practitioners: Bridging the Gap Influence of technology and volume Manufacturers perspective: introducing new technologies with the intention of improving existing functions while using less resource. User perspective: more eco efficient product New technologies enable new product functions, create new demand for these functions (Rebound effect) and potentially offset the initial environmental impact reductions achieved. Due to economies of scale, products become more and more accessible (financially) as prices get reduced, leading to higher volume sales and increased overall consumption Kim, S., Kara, S., Hauschild, M. (2016), Functional unit and product functionality: adressing increase in consumtion and demand for fucntionality in sustainability assessment with LCA, Internayional Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, DOI /s

19 Tools and Techniques for LCE Practitioners: Bridging the Gap Influence of technology and volume According to Axiomatic Design Theory (Suh, 1990), Functional Requirements (FRs) of products Design Parameters (DPs) Design process Kim, S., Kara, S. (2014), A Design Assessment Tool for Predicting the Total Environment Impact of Product Technologies, CIRP Annals Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 63/1, pp

20 New Tools and Techniques for LCE Practitioners Influence of technology and volume To determine Environmental Impact (EI), extend Axiomatic Design Concept: Design process Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Kim, S.J., Kara, S. (2014), Economic and Environmental Assessment of Product Life Cycle Design, Journal of Cleaner Production, 75(2014),

21 Tools and Techniques for LCE Practitioners: Bridging the Gap Influence of technology and volume Apply Axiomatic Design Theory to Life Cycle Design analysis to identify the driver of environmental impact (Suh, 1988) FR i j A ij DP j Determine EI at product level Product Environmental Impact (PE) Can apply to life cycle stages E ij DP j Cost or Environmental impact Product or FR x x x x 4 Raw Material Manufacturing Usage End of life

22 Tools and Techniques for LCE Practitioners: Bridging the Gap Influence of technology and volume Use S Curve to predict future volume of product technology Volume p( t ) 1 L ae bt Total Environmental Impact (TE)=PE x p(t)

23 Tools and Techniques for LCE Practitioners: Bridging the Gap Influence of technology and volume Apply Factor T ratio method (Toshiba, 2009) at volume level such that: TE2 PE2 Volume Total environmental impact TE1 PE1 L Volume Total environmental impact 1 Determine the product improvement required to reduce TE ratio back to one ratio less than 1 because environmental sustainability means not jeopardizing future generation

24 Tools and Techniques for LCE Practitioners: Bridging the Gap Manufacturer vs Global Environmental Space Absolute limit of GHG concentration 450ppm CO 2eq (Rockstrom et al. 2009) Performed by using previous methodology By scaling according to the volume supply of the manufactured products in accordance with the life cycle e.g. infrastructure required to produce and supply these products

25 Tools and Techniques for LCE Practitioners: Bridging the Gap Manufacturer vs Global Environmental Space

26 Outlook Achieving sustainability requires a shift from relative to absolute assessment LCE practitioners have a critical role to play There is a gap between top down and bottom up tools available This presentation further highlighted this and provided a starting point A world wide joint efforts required to develop enabling tools for practitioners