Towards empirically grounded guidance for resource efficiency: Applying, developing and synthesising environmental assessments
Doktorsavhandling, 2021

Numerous solutions have been proposed to mitigate environmental damage, including resource efficiency and the vision of circular economy. Suggested solutions are often formulated as guidelines and heuristics like in the EU waste hierarchy, so-called R-hierarchies for resource efficiency and various guidelines for circular business models. However, these are often formulated on a conceptual basis without empirical support. Hence, it is often unclear in what contexts they are valid and how they can be interpreted for different types of products and applications. Systemic environmental assessments are necessary, and have been widely employed, to provide more solid empirical support for guidelines and for investigating the efficacy of suggested solutions. There is also a need for the results and learnings of those assessments to be easily understandable and usable for guiding decision-making towards reducing environmental impact within, say, product design and business management.
 
The purpose of this dissertation is to 1) formulate empirically grounded guidelines for resource efficiency and 2) test existing guidelines and heuristics in specific cases. The first aim is addressed by synthesising assessments of resource efficiency measures in literature. This revealed in what circumstances each measure can yield environmental benefits, depending on product characteristics, as well as when there are possible trade-offs and limitations. Several product characteristics were identified as of key importance for the efficacy of measures, including whether products are durable or consumable, active or passive, used for their full technical lifetime, used frequently or not and finally the product’s complexity and pace of development.
 
The second aim is addressed by carrying out a prospective life cycle assessment (LCA) scrutinising the expectations of metal 3D printing for reducing automotive environmental impacts. The results showed that 3D printing can potentially reduce future life cycle impacts, by allowing redesign of components for lower weight and thus lower fuel consumption. However, this is only valid with low-fossil electricity for the printing process and developments towards printing with low-impact materials like low-alloy steel.
 
The second aim is further addressed by testing the potential environmental benefits of alternative business models. The method business model LCA method (BM-LCA) was developed for this purpose, taking the business itself as the object of analysis. The method uses economic performance as the basis of comparison, thus allowing a business to calculate the environmental consequences of business decisions. BM-LCA was applied to an apparel company, comparing selling and renting jackets. The results show that renting enabled sustained economic performance while reducing environmental impacts. This depended, however, on the sustainability of the transport and energy systems, as well as on business model parameters like price and rental efficiency, and on customer habits.
 
This dissertation shows that environmental assessments can be used to provide an empirical foundation for improved resource efficiency guidelines and to test the validity of heuristics Two key contributions and innovations are emphasised. The first is the formulation of empirically grounded guidelines based on key product characteristics. The second is the formulation and testing of BM-LCA, a method for assessing decoupling business from environmental impact.

Circular Business Models

guidelines

business models

synthesis

Life Cycle Assessment

decoupling

resource efficiency

3D-printing

Circular Economy

waste hierarchy

Opponent: Assoc. Prof. Daniella Pigosso, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark

Författare

Daniel Böckin

Chalmers, Teknikens ekonomi och organisation, Environmental Systems Analysis

How product characteristics can guide measures for resource efficiency - A synthesis of assessment studies

Resources, Conservation and Recycling,;Vol. 154C(2020)

Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift

Environmental assessment of additive manufacturing in the automotive industry

Journal of Cleaner Production,;Vol. 226(2019)p. 977-987

Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift

Business model life cycle assessment: A method for analysing the environmental performance of business

Sustainable Production and Consumption,;Vol. 32(2022)p. 112-124

Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift

With growing environmental degradation comes an increasing need for guidance to citizens, companies and governments for actions to reduce environmental burdens. Fortunately, many guidelines have been formulated, telling us the best ways to deal with products, be it to use less, recycle, reuse or share. But many of these guidelines are based on simplified descriptions, neglecting real-world complexities. For example, if a guideline tells consumers to reuse products, how can that be applied to the food they eat?
 
I here explore ways of developing useful guidance that actually leads in the right direction. One way is to identify solutions that improve environmental performance by calculating products’ environmental burden. The promise of 3D printing of truck engines was found to only be realised if printing with green electricity and common materials like low-alloy steel. Many companies are looking into rental business models, so we compared if renting clothes instead of selling them can reduce environmental impacts. The study showed that it is possible, while the company keeps making the same profit. To do this comparison, we had to invent business model life cycle assessment, a new way of calculating environmental impacts of business models.
 
Another way to develop guidance is to go through lots of existing environmental calculations on solutions expected to be environmentally benign, to try to learn something from them collectively. From this, we formulated guidelines for working solutions for different types of products.

Mistra REES – Resource-Efficient and Effective Solutions

Stiftelsen för miljöstrategisk forskning (Mistra), 2016-01-01 -- 2019-12-31.

Mistra REES (Resource-effective and efficient solutions) phase 2

Stiftelsen för miljöstrategisk forskning (Mistra) (2019-00239), 2019-12-01 -- 2023-12-31.

Drivkrafter

Hållbar utveckling

Styrkeområden

Produktion

Ämneskategorier

Naturresursteknik

Annan naturresursteknik

Miljöledning

Miljövetenskap

ISBN

978-91-7905-459-5

Doktorsavhandlingar vid Chalmers tekniska högskola. Ny serie: 4926

Utgivare

Chalmers

Online

Opponent: Assoc. Prof. Daniella Pigosso, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2023-11-08