EIO-LCA Case Studies Scott Matthews Civil and Environmental Engineering Carnegie Mellon University

Illustrative Example To make your life easier, you focus on your processes’ top 10 ‘direct inputs’ –Could get this from product manager, accounting, other departments –Assume that your primary inputs are the primary sources of impacts for LCA This is a common boundary assumption

Top ‘Direct’ Inputs for Drugs Chemicals Plastics Electricity Paperboard/ Boxes Paper Trucking Printing Computer Services Telephone Services Refined Petroleum (e.g. gas/diesel)

Overall View of Drug Manufacturing Business GWP There are significant emissions From the support services within the firm and also across supply chain Your initial boundary would have missed 50+% of greenhouse gases

Lessons Learned Your perception of ‘what matters’ is biased by local factors –Overestimates dependence on these items –Underestimates supply chain effects Our perceptions of ‘process inputs’ usually are goods not services –Services are not environmentally benign! Use EIO-LCA to help you frame your LCA problems and set your boundaries (screening) –Potentially as a starting point for conventional LCA

Reinforced Concrete Product Aggregates mining Cement production Iron ore mining Reinforcing steel production Reinforced concrete product End-of-life Landfilling Recycling Concrete production Electricity Chemical additives Coal miningLime Transportation involved

Simplified Process Model Input Requirements for a $2 Reinforced Concrete Product ($1 concrete and $1 steel)

Total Requirements Table from EIO-LCA for Inputs of a Reinforced Concrete Product

Inputs for a $2 Reinforced Concrete Product steel$1.17 concrete$1.01 cement $0.20 electricity$0.15 trucking services $0.13 sand and gravel$0.12 chemicals$0.08 coal mining$0.07 iron ore mining $0.04 lime$0.005 wholesale trade$0.10 banking$0.02 advertising$0.02 maintenance $0.02 computer services$0.01 eating places$0.008 air transportation$0.008 hotels$0.007 construction machines $0.004 paper$0.004 aluminum $0.003 plastics $0.003 postal services$0.003 fertilizers $0.001 meat $0.0003

RCRA Hazardous Waste Generators for $150,000 of Reinforced Concrete Using the Simplified Process Model

Top 10 RCRA Hazardous Waste Generators for a $150,000 of Reinforced Concrete Using EIO-LCA

Group Exercise: Simulating Life Cycles We have discussed how we need economic inputs to EIO-LCA to get results We have talked about how running it gives us “production impacts only” How can we simulate the whole life cycle of a car using only EIO-LCA? Spend 5-10 minutes thinking about this, then we will run it live on EIO-LCA