Proposal for new quantitative eco-design indicators: a first case study

Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 1638–1643

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Proposal for new quantitative eco-design indicators: a first case study Carlos Cerdan a, *, Cristina Gazulla a, Marco Raugei a, Eva Martinez b, Pere Fullana-i-Palmer a a b

Environmental Management Research Group (GiGa), Escola Superior de Comerç Internacional, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Pg. Pujades 1, 08003 Barcelona, Spain ´ gico de Miranda de Ebro (CTME), Industrial Area Bayas R 60, 09218 Miranda De Ebro, Spain Centro Tecnolo

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 12 March 2009 Received in revised form 15 July 2009 Accepted 16 July 2009 Available online 29 July 2009

Eco-design is a valuable approach in order to reduce the environmental impact associated with a product system, by introducing environmental considerations early on in its design. Different strategies are possible for the implementation of eco-design, depending on the intended goals as well as the characteristics of the products. The present work proposes a series of eco-design indicators and tests to what extent the application of these simple indicators provides a reliable indication of the reduction of environmental impact, as measured by commonly employed Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) indicators. The product chosen for the case study was a water source heat pump. Two of the newly-developed indicators were applied and compared to LCIA indicators, focussing on design for disassembly and for recycling. A good and robust correlation was found, providing support to the thesis that these simple eco-design indicators can be used as a proxy to quickly and effectively gauge the environmental improvements introduced in a product system at the design stage. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: LCA Eco-design Indicators Design for recycling Design for disassembly

1. Introduction Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is defined as a process to analyze the environmental burdens associated with the entire life cycle of a product or service, ‘from the cradle to the grave’ [1–3]. At the same time, LCA can be looked at as a very useful tool for the implementation of eco-design, by gathering and examining the energy and material inputs and outputs of a product system and evaluating the associated potential environmental impacts throughout its useful life. The global view implicit in LCA makes it possible to address the environmental issues beyond the local boundaries of the product manufacturing phase [4]. In fact, it is essential that environmental issues are incorporated into the development process of products as early on as possible, for the sooner they are taken into account, the greater the potential for improvement and savings. 2. Eco-design strategies From an environmental point of view, a company’s conventional product design process can be improved upon by applying appropriate eco-design strategies, the scope of which depends to a large extent on the specific objectives of the company. Eco-design

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ34 93 2954710; fax: þ 34 93 295 47 20. E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Cerdan). 0959-6526/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2009.07.010

strategies are generally targeted at reducing the depletion of primary resources and/or other types of environmental impact. Depending on the type of product or service and its environmental bottlenecks, some eco-design strategies may be more suitable than others. Eco-design strategies can be broadly categorized in the following eight groups [5], according to their main goal: 1. reduction of the number of different materials and selection of the most appropriate ones; 2. reduction of environmental impact in the production phase; 3. optimization of the distribution phase; 4. reduction of environmental impact in the use phase; 5. extension of the product’s useful life span; 6. simplification of product disassembly (design for disassembly); 7. design for reuse; 8. design for recycling. There is a large body of scientific literature devoted to discussing the different viable strategies and tools for eco-design [6–12]. One point worth noting is that in most documented literature studies so far, the main focus has been set on producing absolute, rather than relative, eco-design indicators. Clear examples of this choice can be seen for instance in the reports produced within the EU research project EPIC [13,14], where all eco-design indicators were specified as absolute quantities (e.g. kg of a given metal, or area of a given part). While this choice may be well suited to the

C. Cerdan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 1638–1643

intended purposes of a specific set of case studies, in the opinion of the authors it may often turn out to be less robust in terms of general applicability and future proofness. For instance, differentsized products may be harder to compare in terms of absolute quantities than in terms of relative composition; also, the weight of a part relative to the total weight of a product, instead of its absolute dimensions, is often more generally indicative of its share of environmental burdens (e.g. a circuit board might be made thinner, hence requiring less materials and energy, while still keeping the same area). A second observation is that, among all the documented ecodesign strategies, design for recycling and design for disassembly appear to be the least commonly studied. These two latter strategies were therefore chosen as the main focus point of this paper. Design for disassembly points to a decrease in the costs of dismantling a product, which can in turn lead to enhanced recycling and reuse of the product itself, or parts thereof. As a consequence, the waste flows associated to the product itself are reduced, and the impacts associated to the production of new products or parts are avoided. Design for recycling points to using more recycled materials in the manufacturing process and making the products easier to recycle. In this way, the impact of the product is reduced whenever the collection and recycling processes for a given material cumulatively have a lower environmental impact than the production of an equal amount of the same material from primary resources. Design for recycling is often a very effective strategy, providing a considerable decrease in environmental impacts and at the same time allowing savings in the consumption of natural resources.

which are difficult to separate, using symbols or codes to identify the types of materials present in products. Based on all these eco-design strategies for product disassembly and recycling, eleven eco-design indicators (Table 1) have been developed. As already mentioned above, it is the authors’ opinion that ecodesign indicators expressed in relative terms are more easily generalized to a broader spectrum of products and applications than corresponding indicators referred to absolute quantities. Most of the indicators presented here are accordingly related to some ratio of the weight or number of ‘eco-design friendly’ pieces in the product to the respective total, and are meant to provide a measure of the degree of eco-efficiency of the product, from the point of view of the chosen strategies. The following is a detailed description of the eleven indicators: 1. Reusable parts. This indicator measures the weight of the elements or parts that can be reused relative to the total weight of the product (this indicator is dimensionless). 2. Recyclable materials. This indicator describes the weight of recyclable materials used in the product in relation to the total weight of the latter (this indicator is dimensionless). 3. Reversible joints. The time needed for disassembling reversible joints (e.g. parts that are held together by screws) is much shorter than that for welded joints; the latter are much more complicated to disassemble and to separate. This indicator quantifies the number of reversible unions of the product in relation with the total number of joints (this indicator is dimensionless). 4. Same material joints. If the joints are of the same or compatible materials for recycling, there is no need to separate the pieces before recycling, reducing the time for disassembly. The indicator measures the number of jointed parts that can be recycled together as a share of the total existing joints in the product (this indicator is dimensionless). 5. Parts with label. One of the important points for disassembling and later recycling is that those who take care of product decommissioning must be able to tell of which materials the product is made. This indicator measures the percentage of

2.1. Proposal for new eco-design indicators The primary goal of this paper is to provide quantitative indicators of eco-design, and verify to which extent these correlate with commonly accepted Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) indicators. Different strategies of design for recycling and for disassembly have been analyzed. From the point of view of the ease of disassembly, products can be ranked from the most favourable situation, in which it is easy to separate their parts, to the least favourable one, in which it is virtually impossible to separate them. Eco-design strategies can be directed at minimizing the number of different components, minimizing the number of junction points, designing the assembly and disassembly operations so that both can be performed using similar procedures and tools, using junction points that are easily removable, replaceable or breakable, incorporating pictograms into the product in order to facilitate the dismantling operations, etc. Also, in order to reduce the time for disassembly, the product can be designed as a series of easily accessible modules, making sure that the tie points are easily locatable. Another possible strategy entails placing those parts that are user-serviceable or which have to be disposed of as hazardous waste (e.g. batteries) in easily accessible and visible spots. In order to assess the potential of a product for recycling, it is important to determine the existence of and access to viable recycling processes, the quantities of recyclable materials that are used in the product and the ease of separating these from the other materials. There are a number of ways to improve the recyclability of a given product: limiting the maximum number of different materials that are used in its fabrication, increasing the use of recyclable materials, designing the product so as to avoid the contamination of plastic parts with metals during the separation of the different parts, avoiding the use of laminated materials or compounds, using plastics of the same or compatible types facilitate joint recycling, avoiding welding metallic parts together with plastic parts, minimizing the use of paint, pigments, marks, etc.

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Table 1 Set of eco-design indicators being proposed here. Nr.

Name

Formula

Units

Desired trend

1

Reusable parts

[

Recyclable materials Reversible joints Same material joints Parts with label

Weight of reusable parts Total weight of product Weight of recyclable materials Total weight of product

n.a.

2

n.a.

[

Number of reversible joints Number of total joints

n.a.

[

Same material joints Number of total joints

n.a.

[

Number of parts with label Total number of different parts Number of necessary tools Number of total joints

n.a.

[

n.a.

Y

Total time to take apart all joints of a product

min

Y

Weight of clever materials Total weight of product

n.a.

Y

Time for replacement of batteries (or other user-serviceable parts)

min

Y

Weight of laminated or compound materials Total weight of product

n.a.

Y

Painted; stained or pigmented surface Total surface of product

n.a.

Y

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11

Tools for disassembling Time for disassembly Intelligent materials Time for battery changing Laminated or compound materials Painted, stained or pigmented surfaces

n.a. ¼ Not applicable (dimensionless).

1640

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

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pieces in the product that carry printed identification labels (this indicator is dimensionless). Tools for disassembling. The length of the disassembly process is often directly related to the type of joints between the materials. The joints have to be as simple and standardized as possible, so that the least possible number of tools are needed. This indicator quantifies the number of necessary tools for disassembly with reference to the total number of joints in the product (this indicator is dimensionless). If for instance a product has a total of 10 joints and only requires one tool to be disassembled (i.e. indicator ¼ 0.1), then it is more efficient than if it requires 3 different tools (i.e. indicator ¼ 0.3). Time for disassembly. This is simply the total amount of time that is necessary to take apart all the joints in a product (this indicator is measured in minutes). Intelligent materials. ‘‘Intelligent materials’’ are those materials that undergo reversible physical or chemical changes under variations of magnetic or electrical fields, and which are capable of repeating this process indefinitely without losing their properties. The application of intelligent polymers and metals is very important to reduce the time of disassembly. The indicator measures the weight of the intelligent materials relative to the total weight of the product (this indicator is dimensionless). Time for battery changing. In a product there may be parts that have a shorter useful life than others, causing a loss of value of the product (e.g. batteries). To facilitate and economize on the process of their replacement, and to support the value of the entire product, it is necessary that these parts are easily accessible and visible. The indicator measures the time necessary for disassembly and replacement of the batteries or other such user-serviceable parts (this indicator is measured in minutes). Laminated or compound materials. Laminated or compound materials have very limited potential for recycling. This indicator measures the weight of the laminated or compound materials relative to the total weight of the product (this indicator is dimensionless). Painted, stained or pigmented surfaces. One of the problems that often affect recycling processes is the presence of painted, stained or pigmented surfaces. Such impregnations or alterations of the components complicate the separation for recycling due to the difficulty of separating the paint coats from the underlying materials. This indicator measures the sum of the painted, pigmented or stained surfaces relative to the total surface of the product (this indicator is dimensionless).

Clearly, for some of the indicators, high values correspond to good recycling and disassembling properties, while for others the opposite is true. In particular, the authors are aware of a possible ‘bias’ arising from the way in which indicators 1 and 2 have been defined. These indicators tend to attribute a large importance to comparatively heavy parts, which might not be appropriate if the product contained smaller parts made of very energy-intensive or environmentally burdened materials (such as for instance precious metals). However, changing the indicator to the ratio between the numbers of parts would not solve the issue, but rather shift it. In fact, in this latter case, it might well happen that excessive importance would be given to light and fairly insignificant (e.g. plastic) parts, at the expenses of heavier and much more energy-intensive (e.g. metal) parts. Dilemmas such as this are in fact an inevitable limit of all simplified approaches to indentifying the environmental hot spots of a product, and the only way to solve them would be to sidestep all simplifications and perform a fully fledged LCA.

3. Case study Water Source Heat Pumps (WSHPs) are electrical devices that are used to circulate hot or cold liquids in closed circuits, and may be applied to centralized heating and cooling systems, as well as air conditioning [15]. Over 100 million WHSPs are functioning in the European Union (EU-27), and their cumulative electrical consumption amounts to 5–10% of the EU’s overall electricity demand. They are therefore a significant item to be taken into careful consideration in policy measures aimed at saving energy and reducing greenhouse emissions. Even though efficiency improvement remains without doubt one of the key factors to achieve these goals, it should not be overlooked that WSHPs are composed of a large number of components of different materials, the design of each of which may be improved in order to enhance their recyclability. All in all, WSHPs made for a comparatively simple yet very appropriate case study to showcase the applicability and usefulness of the new eco-design indicators presented here. The inventory data for the WSHP analyzed in this study are shown in Table 2 [16]. The first two of the proposed eco-design indicators were applied in this case study, i.e. ‘‘reusable parts’’ and ‘‘recyclable materials’’; the focus was set on the cast iron parts, which are the easiest to reuse and recycle, and which were also found to be responsible for the largest contribution to the overall environmental impact of the product. The goal was to verify to what extent the chosen ecodesign indicators would correlate with commonly employed LCIA indicators of environmental impact. For each eco-design indicator we considered a base case and four hypothetical scenarios where the values of the indicators would be increased. Then, we assessed the correlation between our proposed indicators and the LCIA impact indicators. In order to better focus on the comparison among the different reuse and recycling scenarios, we deemed it appropriate not to include the use phase of the WSHP; in so doing, the differences in the environmental performance of the WSHP under the various scenarios are overemphasized, of course, since in reality the use phase is always the most energy demanding, and therefore the most impacting part of the entire life cycle of these products. 3.1. Eco-design for disassembly In a WSHP there are different parts that can be reused. By only replacing those parts that have a shorter life span, the WSHP can be restored to full functionality, and its overall lifetime can be

Table 2 Composition of water source heat pump [16]. Components

Weight (g)

Material

Impeller Shell Stator windings and rotor cage Stator (rest) Rotor (rest) Shaft Motor housing Paint Operating instructions Terminal box Can Bearing bracket þ end shield Packaging Screws, washers and bolts Misc. materials Misc. materials Total

7 912 302 388 146 21 180 24 250 35 106 98 174 50 125 125 2943

Polypropylene Cast iron Cu (winding wire) Cast iron Cast iron Cast iron Al (diecast) Powder coating Office paper Low density polyethylene Cast iron Cast iron Cardboard (recycled) Cast iron Cast iron Polypropylene

C. Cerdan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 1638–1643

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Fig. 1. Model for the production stage of a Water Source Heat Pump (base case).

extended. The adopted eco-design indicator is ‘reusable parts’ ¼ (weight of reusable parts/total weight of product).

3.2. Eco-design for recycling The replacement of parts manufactured out of virgin materials with recycled parts generally allows a reduction of the associated environmental impacts. Iron is the predominant material in a WSHP, and it also happens to be the most widely recycled material worldwide [17]. The environmental impacts associated to iron ore mining and primary iron production are notably greater than those of its recycling process [18–20]. The adopted eco-design indicator is ‘recyclable materials’ ¼ (weight of recyclable materials/ total weight of product).

4. Methods and assumptions The GaBi software package was employed for carrying out the LCA study, in accordance with the current ISO norms [3,21], and making use of the built-in professional database [22], as well as of the Ecoinvent 2.0 database [23]. A flow diagram of the production process for the WSHP (base case) is illustrated in Fig. 1. As far as LCIA is concerned, we used CML [24] midpoint indicators for Global Warming Potential (GWP), Acidification Potential (AP), Ozone Layer Depletion Potential (ODP) and Photochemical Ozone Creation Potential (POCP). Endpoint indicators were discarded since they inevitably entail larger uncertainty because of the difficulty of modelling the complex casual effect relationships. Also, neither weighting nor grouping was performed, in order to limit the subjectivity of the results to a minimum.

WSHP Landfill (k*X)

Production a) X Recycle (1-k)*X

b) (X*k)

“primary” Fe (70 % virgin / 30 % recycled)

a) Y b) Y-[(1-k)*x]

Other product

Fig. 2. Expanded system for recycling scenarios. (a) Base case (no recycling); (b) partial replacement of primary iron by recycled iron, by means of virtual system expansion.

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Table 3 Different scenarios analyzed for the ‘‘eco-design for disassembly’’ strategy. Scenario

Eco-design indicator ‘‘Reusable Parts’’

GWP kg (CO2-eq)

AP kg (SO2-eq)

ODP kg (CFC-11-eq)

POCP kg (C2H4-eq)

Base Case: nothing is reused Scenario 1: rotor and can are reused Scenario 2: stator, rotor, shaft are reused Scenario 3: shell is reused Scenario 4: shell, stator, rotor, shaft and can are reused

0

7.53

3.49E  02

2.27E  07

4.07E  03

0.09

6.99

3.34E  02

2.14E  07

3.74E  03

0.19

6.33

3.15E  02

1.98E  07

3.35E  03

0.31

5.56

2.92E  02

1.79E  07

2.88E  03

0.53

4.13

2.51E  02

1.44E  07

2.02E  03

It is important to explain in detail how the allocation of the environmental burdens of iron production and recycling was carried out. The average commercial ‘primary’ iron that is used for the product in the base case is in fact already made from a mix of virgin iron (70%) and scrap iron (30%). On the average, every tonne of secondary steel allows the following environmental savings [21]: 1.5 tonnes of iron ore; 0.5 tonnes of coal; 40% of the water consumption; 75% of the energy consumption; 1.28 tonnes of solid waste; 86% of airborne emissions and 76% of liquid emissions. Using the so-called ‘cut-off’ method used for the allocation of environmental burdens, the impact of recycling is always assigned to the product system which makes use of the recycled material. Thus, in order to include the impacts associated to the recycling process in our analysis (for the eco-design scenarios), it was necessary to virtually expand the system to include the entire iron market. In fact, the production process for the WSHP can be reasonably assumed to always make use of the same mix of ‘primary’ iron, irrespective of the final decommissioning fate of the pump. However, as illustrated in Fig. 2, if the product system is designed so that a fraction of the iron that is contained in the pump can be recycled at the end of its useful life and then be re-used by another process in the virtually expanded system, this will globally reduce the demand for ‘primary’ iron to a comparable degree. The life cycle inventory for the production of the WSHP can therefore be changed to reflect this, by replacing a fraction of the input of the primary iron mix with a corresponding quantity of purely secondary iron. 5. Results and discussion Tables 3 and 4 list the values of the eco-design and LCIA indicators corresponding to the four scenarios for the ‘design for disassembly’ and ‘design for recycling’ strategies, respectively. Figs. 3 and 4 then illustrate the correlations that exist between the eco-design indicators and the LCIA indicators, where all indicators have been expressed in percentages, relative to the values for the

base case. As expected, for both eco-design strategies, we found a perfect linear correlation between the proposed quantitative indicators of eco-design and the LCIA mid-point indicators for GWP, AP, OPD and POCP, i.e. results clearly show that given variations in the eco-design indicators produce similar changes in the potential environmental impacts. The main value of this comparison is that it shows how changes in simple eco-design indicators which can be easily calculated on the mere basis of the inventory of the parts that constitute a product can provide a clear and quantitative indication of the corresponding variations in LCIA indicators for a number of important environmental impact categories. As regards the ‘recyclable materials’ indicator, it may be argued that the extent of the environmental benefits associated to the recycling strategy are heavily dependent on how the recycling processes compare to the production processes of the corresponding virgin materials. In order to assess the robustness of our findings, we performed a simplified sensitivity analysis whereby the emission flows associated to iron recycling were changed by 50%. The strong linear correlation between all eco-design indicators and LCIA indicators was found to be maintained in all instances, despite such rather large variation range (for the sake of visual clarity, only the results for one indicator, i.e. POCP, are shown in Fig. 4, but similar results apply across the board). Lastly, the rate of reduction of the LCIA indicators vs. the increase of the eco-design indicators, in both the disassembly and recycling scenarios, is strongly dependent on the extent to which the disassembled/recycled parts are responsible for a sizeable percentage of the overall environmental impact of the product. As a consequence, the real-world relevance of the eco-design indicators is similarly dependent on this. However, those materials that cause comparatively larger environmental impact are also often those that are more expensive to source, and designing for the easy disassembly and possible recycling of the most valuable materials is clearly one of the foremost goals of every manufacturer.

Table 4 Different scenarios analyzed for the ‘‘eco-design for recycling’’ strategy. Scenario

Eco-design indicator ‘‘Recyclable Materials’’

GWP kg (CO2-eq)

AP kg (SO2-eq)

ODP kg (CFC-11-eq)

POCP kg (C2H4-eq)

Base case: nothing is recycled Scenario 1: rotor and can are recycled Scenario 2: stator, rotor and shaft are recycled Scenario 3: shell is recycled Scenario 4: shell, stator, rotor, shaft and can are recycled

0

7.53

3.49E  02

2.27E  07

4.07E  03

0.09

7.21

3.37E  02

2.16E  07

3.82E  03

0.19

6.82

3.21E  02

2.03E  07

3.53E  03

0.31

6.37

3.03E  02

1.87E  07

3.18E  03

0.53

5.53

2.69E  02

1.59E  07

2.53E  03

C. Cerdan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 1638–1643

LCIA Indicator (%)

100% 90%

AP

ODP

GWP

POCP

we believe that manufacturers may thus be encouraged to implement eco-design strategies in their production lines, and thus contribute to increasing the sustainability of the industrial sector in which they operate.

80%

Acknowledgements

70%

This paper is based on the outcomes of the research project ˜ o para el desmontaje de bienes de equipo (DFDBE)’’, carried ‘‘Disen out by GiGa for CTME. Thanks are due to AEA Energy & Environment, UK, for facilitating the inventory data for the WSHP case study.

60% 50% 40% 0.0

References 0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

"reusable parts" ecodesign indicator Fig. 3. Correlation between indicators of eco-design for disassembly (‘‘reusable parts’’) and LCIA impact indicators.

100%

LCIA indicator (%)

90%

ODP

AP

POCP

GWP

80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 0.0

1643

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

"recyclable materials" ecodesign indicator Fig. 4. Correlation between indicator of eco-design for recycling (‘‘recyclable materials’’) and LCIA impact indicators.

6. Conclusions The intended goal of this paper was to explore the correlation between the proposed eco-design indicators and traditional LCIA indicators. Testing two of these eco-design indicators in a practical case study has shown that these do correlate perfectly with LCIA indicators. These newly-introduced eco-design indicators help reduce the time and resources needed to choose between alternative ecodesign options. In addition, their use increases the credibility of the implementation of eco-design as a measure to reduce environmental impact, again thanks to the good correlation between the results for the eco-design indicators and those for the LCIA ones. It will be interesting to follow up with more studies where such results may be extended to a broader range of indicators and products. Thanks to the simplicity in implementing the indicators and to the confidence that, if the manufacturer applies them correctly, the environmental impact of their product can be effectively reduced,

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