Environmental Analysis & LCA

Sustainability Assessment and Circular Life-Cycle Framework

The circular green impact analysis forms the backbone of sustainable development applications. Within this paradigm, all design, manufacturing, and testing activities are planned to take into consideration sustainability measures; this not only ensures environmental protection and well-being but also extends to other economic and social aspects of sustainability.

The ultimate goal of such life cycle assessment is to establish and adopt a climate-neutral ecosystem for the design and production of the target systems/products, aiming towards net-zero carbon emissions. This can be mainly achieved by reducing the consumption of energy and raw materials, as well as fostering the up-cycling and re-cycling of recovered materials throughout the cradle-to-grave life of the systems/products.

LCA - Life Cycle Assessment

Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) - DESIGN FOR RECYCLING (D4R)

The sustainability analysis is planned to be proactive through the early planning and design stages, by means of implementing the Life Cycle Thinking approach and Design for Recycling practices. The life cycle assessment is ideally iterative, such that the various developed components are continuously enhanced and fine-tuned toward minimizing the overall environmental footprint, economic burdens, and social impacts.

The scope of the green impact analyses covers the various life cycle stages, including material extraction, processing, manufacturing, end-user consumption, and end-of-life. The core elements of the life cycle assessment are the system boundaries and inventory analysis. Based on the defined system boundaries, the inventory of all materials, energy, and emissions will be established. The critical process data are acquired from the experimental testing of the examined systems/products.

The life cycle impact assessment reveals the environmental hotspots throughout the processes, and such findings are used to refine the design toward climate-neutrality. The endpoint impact indicators are derived from the aggregation of midpoint eco-categories to yield endpoint characterization factors, including damage to human health, the ecosystem, climate change, and resource availability.

The financial feasibility assessment is estimated for the developed systems/products over their life cycle, accounting for capital costs as well as the use, up-/re-cycling, and decommissioning costs. This economic feasibility can be combined with the green impact assessment under an eco-efficiency analysis to clarify the trade-offs between environmental impacts and business economics.

team's expertise

Ecology and Sustainability
Life Cycle Assessment of products, services, and technologies,
Smart Cities
Climate Change Mitigation
Waste-to-Energy
Integrated Solid Waste Management
Recyclable Waste
material degradation

Team competencies

Life Cycle Assessment (environmental, socio-economical)
Ecology and Sustainability
Performing LCA studies of products / services / technologies / organizations and determining environmental indicators in accordance with ISO 14040 and 14044.
Circular economy studies, green impact assessments, standardized life cycle assessments, multi-criteria lifecycle costing analyses, and social impact analyses.