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  From Green to Blue to Gray to Black: The Chromatics of Water Foot ...

  March 4, 2013  

  Because water is the most vital element for life, many contemporary intellectuals expect it to be the most conflict-generating resource of the 21st century. Not water in general, which is present in most places in one form or another. Much rather, it is access to clean freshwater that counts. More than once, bilateral relations have suffered when one nation's hydroelectric dam projects led to the another nation's fear of water shortages due to shrinking flows in its incoming rivers. But declining water volumes in rivers and their negative environmental effects are also caused by large-scale ag...

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  How Sustainable are Europe's 5 Million E-Cars in 2020? New LCA Gu ...

  February 5, 2013    5 Comments

  When it comes to sustainable private transport, the 21st-century-bearer-of-hope number one is called electric car. Unprecedentedly efficient, locally pollution-free and silent, this technology will totally save the environment without compromising our comfort or convenience in the least. So we think. However, even the best technology requires raw materials, energy and industrial processes to make. Green technology or not, technology is technology. Its production, use and disposal will always have an effect on the environment, no matter what size, weight and efficiency rating it has – throug...

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  Burn or Bury? Analyzing Waste Management Options in Detail

  November 5, 2012    1 Comment

  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – the waste imperative is as clear as it can get. What's less clear, however, is what we should we do with the remaining stuff. Even the greenest society is, at a certain point, confronted with the unusable leftovers of consumption. What should happen to these? Treatment of the leftovers is a well discussed question and the answer relies on three big alternatives: incineration, dumping and composting. All three have pros and cons, some of which are apparent, others rather surprising. In this article, let me introduce you to a life cycle assessment (LCA) that analyzes th...

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  Green Ocean Hunters? The Environmental Effects of Fishing and Aqu ...

  September 11, 2012    1 Comment

  Last week, in part one of this article, we ended with the tragedy of the commons and the question of whether overfishing is a logical consequence of human nature. Luckily, not all things are as bad as they seem. Let's get back to our effort to increase comprehension and scroll to page 18 of Frank Asche's report (Green Growth in Fisheries and Aquaculture Production and Trade). He seems quite confident there. [T]here is no doubt that aquaculture can be carried out in a sustainable manner, independent of the level of intensity. Therefore, the real issue with aquaculture and sustainability is whe...

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  Green Ocean Hunters? The Environmental Effects of Fishing and Aqu ...

  September 5, 2012    1 Comment

  Shrimp farms destroy sensitive mangrove forest ecosystems, salmon escape from designated aquaculture spots and spread parasites, fish trawlers leave nothing but empty seas behind and even organic fish farming could be unsustainable due to dependence on fish meal from wild catch. When it comes to seafood, the message transmitted across mainstream media channels is devastating: there is simply nothing left we can eat responsibly, be it from the wild or aquaculture. Does that mean we all have to go vegetarian? Well, in many cases, the good news is that fish performs better than meat, when it come...

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  What's the Greenest 1 L Packaging? Two Powerful LCAs Give the Ans ...

  August 5, 2012  

  It was a month ago when I heard the surprising news that milk packaged in cartons has the best environmental performance as compared to other packaging materials. Do they, really? Aren't the reusable deposit bottles world famous for being green? Well, actually, milk bottles are white or brown, of course, but environment-wise their reputation is outstandingly green. In order to find some reliable information, I took the time to scan two comparative LCAs on beverage packaging, and guess what: the returnable glass bottle is far from being the best. LCA, for those who aren't familiar with the init...

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  To Recycle or Not to Recycle – PVC Cable Waste is the Question

  July 9, 2012    3 Comments

  Recycling – it’s the magic word when the ill-informed think “environmental friendliness”. “Recyclable” – the number one green term that doesn’t mean a thing. Of course, as long as you put enough energy into a process, you can recycle virtually anything. The issue, the uncomfortable drawback that sits behind the pleasant sheen, the little itch you feel when you start thinking things through, is the inevitable truth of energy input. Yes, producing stuff requires energy. And yes, recycling, too, really does require energy! Material savings are easy to outline, but the key to a true environmental ...

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  Avoiding the Relocation of Emissions - How to Face Carbon Leakage

  April 1, 2012    1 Comment

  In the course of the last 20 years, some of the more developed countries achieved a remarkable reduction of carbon emissions. However, taking a closer look at this, we see that a reduction in one place can be closely correlated to an increase of emissions in another. A scope of “one country” is incomplete, since both goods and emissions circulate all around the world. In this article, I'll explain the phenomenon of carbon leakage and will suggest ways to assess emissions in a more precise way. Many western and northern European countries can serve as examples of the above mentioned “carbon ...

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  "Everybody Should do Their Share" - The Long Road to Sustainabili ...

  March 17, 2012    1 Comment

  knowtheflow: Prof. Dr. Inci Gökmen, you offer a course named "Sustainable Living and Green Chemistry" at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. Prof. Dr. Inci Gökmen: Yes, I just started, this semester. Does it provoke a positive response? Yes, I think so. First, I started with a discussion on the "limits to growth". I guess everybody knows that there are limits in this world. We watched the movie "The Story of Stuff" with my students in class and I tried to get some feedback from them. The students said "yeah, the movie is presenting all the problems, but it is not proposing a...

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  ecoinvent - The Swiss Army Knife of LCA Background Databases

  December 10, 2011    2 Comments

  Background databases can be very convenient when you assess all of the impacts a product or a service has on the environment. Such an assessment is widely known as a life cycle assessment (LCA); it analyzes everything - from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, to disposal or recycling (see Wikipedia definition of LCA). Good databases allow an LCA be to carried out precisely, even when there is a lack of complete information. Three Types of Data Sources Generally speaking, there are three options for the data you use as...

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  French Environmental Labeling – Industrial Experience Feedback

  November 14, 2011    2 Comments

  EVEA Conseil is a French Umberto partner and a leading consultancy firm for Life Cycle Assessment and Ecodesign. The LCA project described in this article results in two main improvements. The labeling allows customers to consider environmental indicators relevant for their purchasing decisions. It has also pushed many manufacturers (Leroy Merlin suppliers) to assess their environmental impact trough Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Context and goal of the project According to the french environmental labeling experimentation launched by the Sustainable Development Ministry, the goal of ...

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  Exploring the Environmental Effects of Electric Cars

  November 8, 2011    1 Comment

  Can you imagine the weight of 1.8 billion tonnes? I can't. I can only try to put this number in relation to others. 1.8 billion tonnes, that's the weight of all carbon emissions caused by private transport in 2009. 1,8 billion tonnes, that's 6,4% of the total carbon emissions from fuel combustion, emitted by all countries and all sectors in 2009 (see IEA's 2011 "highlights" report on CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion, page 67). Sustainable Strategies: Drive Less, Use the Bus, Get an Electric Car 1,8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, blown in the atmosphere, that's what happens whe...

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  Productivity, Efficiency and Quality

  October 12, 2011  

  Productivity is probably the main keyword in growth theory. Expressed as a mathematical function it describes the proportion between increases in output per input unit. Obviously there is a close connection to the input output analysis, mainly developed by the economist Wassily Leontief. A growth in productivity, a essential precondition for economic success, can be achieved by more efficient work process flows. Transfering this into target system increasing productivity is the overall target with a growth in efficiency as a measure to achieve this objective. In this context I would like to...

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  Life Cycle Management 2011 - Personal Field Report

  September 6, 2011    4 Comments

  Last week I was at the LCM 2011 in Berlin – the biggest conference of its kind, with nearly 600 attendees. For sure, Life Cycle Management has great importance for today’s business. But taking a closer look at the attendance list clearly shows: it is still a topic driven and influenced by the academic sector. The idea of a product lifecycle is nothing new. It was in the late sixties, when Raymond Vernon established the lifecycle thinking of a product, from the development to degeneration. What has changed since then is the understanding of the life cycle and, especially in the last few year...