Selecting representative products for quantifying environmental impacts of consumption in urban areas
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2017

Populations are becoming more urban than rural, creating concentrated areas with high consumption of products. Understanding and influencing the environmental impact of consumption within cities becomes therefore increasingly important. Although there have been several studies evaluating the environmental impact of consumption at the global, national, and regional scale, there are few methods currently available to estimate impact at the urban level. There is therefore a need for a systematic approach to select appropriate, region-specific representative products. This study combines material flow analysis with life cycle assessment to select representative products that can be used as proxies to assess the environmental impact of urban areas using life cycle impact factors. The selection was based on the following criteria: the top consumed products within a product category, consistent products with respect to time and geography, and product types with known high environmental impact. The representative products were identified for three Swedish cities: Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo, using sixteen years of annual urban-level material flow analysis data (1996-2011). A total of 71 products across 44 categories, were identified as representative of the 10,000 product types consumed in the urban areas analyzed. The method described in this study can be used by practitioners to identify representative products in any urban area with material flow data and allows for a more comprehensive and tailored analysis that what has been previously available. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Basket of products

Urban impact quantification

Sustainable urban development

Urban metabolism

Hybrid MFA-LCA

Författare

Alexandra Lavers Westin

Chalmers, Bygg- och miljöteknik, Vatten Miljö Teknik

Yuliya Kalmykova

Chalmers, Bygg- och miljöteknik, Vatten Miljö Teknik

Leonardo Rosado

Chalmers, Bygg- och miljöteknik, Vatten Miljö Teknik

F. Oliveira

IVL Svenska Miljöinstitutet

R. Laurenti

IVL Svenska Miljöinstitutet

Journal of Cleaner Production

0959-6526 (ISSN)

Vol. 162 34-44

MEI metoden- en kombination av materialflödesanalys och livscykelanalys för att utv ändamålsenligheten och potentialen för för kommunala åtgärder i arbetet med att nå uppsatta miljömål

Mistra Urban Futures, 2015-01-01 -- 2020-06-30.

Formas (2014-1338), 2015-01-01 -- 2018-12-31.

Ämneskategorier

Miljöanalys och bygginformationsteknik

DOI

10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.06.030

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Senast uppdaterat

2019-11-15