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Prof. Matthias Finkbeiner
Technische Universität Berlin

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0 social life cycle assessment
0 carbon footprint
0 Water Footprint
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Journal article
Published: 29 June 2021 in Sustainability
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Cities account for 70% of carbon emissions and are therefore a vital driver for climate change. Thus, a city’s main contributing sectors need to be identified. Territorial-based footprints focus on the final energy consumption, which is derived from the stationary and transport sectors. The consumption-based approach is based on consumption data, which are converted into carbon emissions using an input–output model. If the consumption-based approach is applied to an urban district not only emissions in the investigated area are considered, but also those that occur along the supply chain of consumed products in the urban district. The goal of this study was to apply and evaluate two different approaches to calculate an urban district’s carbon footprint to support climate protection management at the local government level. To achieve this goal, these two different approaches were applied to calculate the carbon emissions of the urban district Wedding in Berlin and were compared regarding criteria such as data availability and relevance. The footprints resulted in 400,947 t CO2-eq. for the territorial approach and in 401,371 t CO2-eq. per year for the consumption-based approach, which resulted in 4.61 t CO2-eq and 4.62 t CO2-eq per capita and year, respectively. Methodologically, the two approaches differ significantly, but the total results showed a difference of only 0.1%. Thus, this study cannot verify that the consumption-based approach mostly leads to higher emissions per capita in the Global North. This could be due to lower purchasing power and a higher share of multiple-person households in the relatively poor urban district of Wedding, Berlin. The territorial approach is more suitable to derive measures for local climate action, whereas the consumption-based approach highlights the responsibility of consumers for GHG emissions along the supply chain and the importance of the food sector.

ACS Style

Clara Lenk; Rosalie Arendt; Vanessa Bach; Matthias Finkbeiner. Territorial-Based vs. Consumption-Based Carbon Footprint of an Urban District—A Case Study of Berlin-Wedding. Sustainability 2021, 13, 7262 .

AMA Style

Clara Lenk, Rosalie Arendt, Vanessa Bach, Matthias Finkbeiner. Territorial-Based vs. Consumption-Based Carbon Footprint of an Urban District—A Case Study of Berlin-Wedding. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (13):7262.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Clara Lenk; Rosalie Arendt; Vanessa Bach; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2021. "Territorial-Based vs. Consumption-Based Carbon Footprint of an Urban District—A Case Study of Berlin-Wedding." Sustainability 13, no. 13: 7262.

Journal article
Published: 31 May 2021 in Resources
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In times of increasing awareness of limited resources, companies are becoming especially interested in criticality assessments. Based on the existing approaches of ESSENZ (integrated method to assess resource efficiency) and SCARCE (approach is to enhance the assessment of critical resource use at the country level), a method called CS-ESSENZ (company-specific ESSENZ) has been developed to measure the company-specific aspects of criticality and social impact in supply chains for abiotic resources. These comprise 20 categories and corresponding indicators, based on 19 ESSENZ and 25 SCARCE categories. Eleven of these indicators were modified, four were newly developed (e.g., economic importance), and the last five were applied as they are in ESSENZ or SCARCE. CS-ESSENZ was tested using the case study of a smartphone, demonstrating the method’s applicability as well as generating additional information on company-specific improvement potential. The results for supply risk showed that 29 out of 58 ESSENZ hotspots showed high, and 12 showed medium, improvement potential from the company perspective. CS-ESSENZ enables companies to obtain specific information on criticality and social aspects in their supply chains and points out areas for improvement, e.g., with respect to purchasing strategies for cobalt.

ACS Style

Kim Yavor; Vanessa Bach; Matthias Finkbeiner. Adapting the ESSENZ Method to Assess Company-Specific Criticality Aspects. Resources 2021, 10, 56 .

AMA Style

Kim Yavor, Vanessa Bach, Matthias Finkbeiner. Adapting the ESSENZ Method to Assess Company-Specific Criticality Aspects. Resources. 2021; 10 (6):56.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Kim Yavor; Vanessa Bach; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2021. "Adapting the ESSENZ Method to Assess Company-Specific Criticality Aspects." Resources 10, no. 6: 56.

Review
Published: 28 May 2021 in Sustainability
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The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the energy transition may lead to trade-offs with other impacts on the environment, society, and economy. One challenge is resource use impacts due to increasing demand for high-tech metals and minerals. A review of the current state of the art resource assessment of energy systems was conducted to identify gaps in research and application. Publications covering complete energy systems and supplying a detailed resource assessment were the focus of the evaluation. Overall, 92 publications were identified and categorized by the type of system covered and the applied abiotic resource assessment methods. A total of 78 out of 92 publications covered sub-systems of renewable energy systems, and nine considered complete energy systems and conducted a detailed resource use assessment. Most of the publications in the group “complete energy system and detailed resource assessment” were found in grey literature. Several different aspects were covered to assess resource use. Thirty publications focused on similar aspects including criticality and supply risks, but technology-specific aspects are rarely assessed in the resource assessment of renewable energy systems. Few publications included sector coupling technologies, and among the publications most relevant to the aim of this paper one third did not conduct an indicator-driven assessment.

ACS Style

Kim Yavor; Vanessa Bach; Matthias Finkbeiner. Resource Assessment of Renewable Energy Systems—A Review. Sustainability 2021, 13, 6107 .

AMA Style

Kim Yavor, Vanessa Bach, Matthias Finkbeiner. Resource Assessment of Renewable Energy Systems—A Review. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (11):6107.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Kim Yavor; Vanessa Bach; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2021. "Resource Assessment of Renewable Energy Systems—A Review." Sustainability 13, no. 11: 6107.

Journal article
Published: 30 April 2021 in Sustainability
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Cities are recognized as a major contributor to environmental pressures. Recently, organizational LCA (OLCA) has been found to align well with requirements for city-scale environmental decision support and a novel city-OLCA framework was introduced. City-OLCA combines two relevant aspects: It covers activities beyond public service provision (multi-stakeholder) and emissions beyond greenhouse gases (multi-impact). Its unique approach of acknowledging responsibility levels should help both city-managers and academia in performance tracking and to prioritize mitigation measures. The goal of this work is to test city-OLCA’s feasibility in a first case study with real city data from Vienna. The feasibility was confirmed, and results for 12 impact categories were obtained. As an example, Vienna’s global warming potential, ozone depletion potential, and marine eutrophication potential for 2016 were 14,686 kt CO2 eq., 6796 kg CFC-11 eq., and 310 t N eq., respectively. Our results indicate that current accounting practices may underestimate greenhouse gas emissions of the entire city by up to a factor of 3. This is mainly due to additional activities not covered by conventional standards (food and goods consumption). While the city itself only accounts for 25% of greenhouse gases, 75% are caused by activities beyond public service provision or beyond governmental responsibilities. Based on our results, we encourage city managers to include an organizational based LCA approach in defining reduction strategies. This will reveal environmental blind spots and avoids underestimating environmental burdens, which might lead to setting the wrong focus for mitigation.

ACS Style

Alexander Cremer; Markus Berger; Katrin Müller; Matthias Finkbeiner. The First City Organizational LCA Case Study: Feasibility and Lessons Learned from Vienna. Sustainability 2021, 13, 5062 .

AMA Style

Alexander Cremer, Markus Berger, Katrin Müller, Matthias Finkbeiner. The First City Organizational LCA Case Study: Feasibility and Lessons Learned from Vienna. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (9):5062.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Alexander Cremer; Markus Berger; Katrin Müller; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2021. "The First City Organizational LCA Case Study: Feasibility and Lessons Learned from Vienna." Sustainability 13, no. 9: 5062.

Editorial
Published: 01 April 2021 in The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
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ACS Style

Matthias Finkbeiner; Vanessa Bach. Life cycle assessment of decarbonization options—towards scientifically robust carbon neutrality. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 2021, 26, 635 -639.

AMA Style

Matthias Finkbeiner, Vanessa Bach. Life cycle assessment of decarbonization options—towards scientifically robust carbon neutrality. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. 2021; 26 (4):635-639.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Matthias Finkbeiner; Vanessa Bach. 2021. "Life cycle assessment of decarbonization options—towards scientifically robust carbon neutrality." The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 26, no. 4: 635-639.

Water use in lca
Published: 31 March 2021 in The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
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Purpose The water footprint (WF) method is widely applied to quantify water use along the life cycle of products and organizations and to evaluate the resulting impacts on human health. This study analyzes the cause-effect chains for the human health damage related to the water use on a local scale in the Province Punjab of Pakistan, evaluates their consistency with existing WF models, and provides recommendations for future model development. Method Locally occurring cause-effect chains are analyzed based on site observations in Punjab and a literature review. Then, existing WF models are compared to the findings in the study area including their comprehensiveness (covered cause-effect chains), relevance (contribution of the modeled cause-effect chain to the total health damage), and representativeness (correspondence with the local cause-effect chain). Finally, recommendations for the development of new characterization models describing the local cause-effect chains are provided. Results and discussion The cause-effect chains for the agricultural water deprivation include malnutrition due to reduced food availability and income loss as well as diseases resulting from the use of wastewater for irrigation, out of which only the first one is addressed by existing WF models. The cause-effect chain for the infectious diseases due to domestic water deprivation is associated primarily with the absence of water supply systems, while the linkage to the water consumption of a product system was not identified. The cause-effect chains related to the water pollution include the exposure via agricultural products, fish, and drinking water, all of which are reflected in existing impact assessment models. Including the groundwater compartment may increase the relevance of the model for the study area. Conclusions Most cause-effect chains identified on the local scale are consistent with existing WF models. Modeling currently missing cause-effect chains for the impacts related to the income loss and wastewater usage for irrigation can enhance the assessment of the human health damage in water footprinting.

ACS Style

Natalia Mikosch; Markus Berger; Elena Huber; Matthias Finkbeiner. Assessing local impacts of water use on human health: evaluation of water footprint models in the Province Punjab, Pakistan. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 2021, 26, 1027 -1044.

AMA Style

Natalia Mikosch, Markus Berger, Elena Huber, Matthias Finkbeiner. Assessing local impacts of water use on human health: evaluation of water footprint models in the Province Punjab, Pakistan. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. 2021; 26 (5):1027-1044.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Natalia Mikosch; Markus Berger; Elena Huber; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2021. "Assessing local impacts of water use on human health: evaluation of water footprint models in the Province Punjab, Pakistan." The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 26, no. 5: 1027-1044.

Journal article
Published: 06 February 2021 in Sustainability
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Environmental impacts of textile production increased over the last decades. This also led to an increasing demand for sustainable textiles and ecolabels, which intend to provide information on environmental aspects of textiles for the consumer. The goal of the paper is to assess selected labels with regard to their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their coverage of relevant environmental aspects over the life cycle of textiles. We applied a characterization scheme to analyse seven selected labels (Blue Angel Textiles, bluesign®, Cotton made in Africa (CMiA), Cradle to Cradle CertifiedTM, Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), Global Recycled Standard (GRS), VAUDE Green Shape), and compared their focus to the environmental hotpots identified in the product environmental footprint case study of t-shirts. Most labels focus on the environmental aspects toxicity, water use, and air emissions predominantly in the upstream life cycle phases of textiles (mainly garment production), whereas some relevant impacts and life cycle phases like water in textile use phase remain neglected. We found significant differences between the ecolabels, and none of them cover all relevant aspects and impacts over the life cycle. Consumers need to be aware of these limitations when making purchase decisions.

ACS Style

Felice Diekel; Natalia Mikosch; Vanessa Bach; Matthias Finkbeiner. Life Cycle Based Comparison of Textile Ecolabels. Sustainability 2021, 13, 1751 .

AMA Style

Felice Diekel, Natalia Mikosch, Vanessa Bach, Matthias Finkbeiner. Life Cycle Based Comparison of Textile Ecolabels. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (4):1751.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Felice Diekel; Natalia Mikosch; Vanessa Bach; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2021. "Life Cycle Based Comparison of Textile Ecolabels." Sustainability 13, no. 4: 1751.

Review
Published: 15 December 2020 in Sustainability
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Different LCA methods based on monetization of environmental impacts are available. Therefore, relevant monetization methods, namely Ecovalue12, Stepwise2006, LIME3, Ecotax, EVR, EPS, the Environmental Prices Handbook, Trucost and the MMG-Method were compared quantitatively and qualitatively, yielding results for 18 impact categories. Monetary factors for the same impact category range mostly between two orders of magnitude for the assessed methods, with some exceptions (e.g., mineral resources with five orders of magnitude). Among the qualitative criteria, per capita income, and thus the geographical reference, has the biggest influence on the obtained monetary factors. When the monetization methods were applied to the domestic yearly environmental damages of an average EU citizen, their monetary values ranged between 7941.13 €/capita (Ecotax) and 224.06 €/capita (LIME3). The prioritization of impact categories varies: Stepwise and Ecovalue assign over 50% of the per capita damages to climate change, while EPS and LIME3 assign around 50% to mineral and fossil resource use. Choices regarding the geographical reference, the Areas of Protection included, cost perspectives and the approach to discounting strongly affect the magnitude of the monetary factors. Therefore, practitioners should choose monetization methods with care and potentially apply varying methods to assess the robustness of their results.

ACS Style

Rosalie Arendt; Till Bachmann; Masaharu Motoshita; Vanessa Bach; Matthias Finkbeiner. Comparison of Different Monetization Methods in LCA: A Review. Sustainability 2020, 12, 10493 .

AMA Style

Rosalie Arendt, Till Bachmann, Masaharu Motoshita, Vanessa Bach, Matthias Finkbeiner. Comparison of Different Monetization Methods in LCA: A Review. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (24):10493.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Rosalie Arendt; Till Bachmann; Masaharu Motoshita; Vanessa Bach; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2020. "Comparison of Different Monetization Methods in LCA: A Review." Sustainability 12, no. 24: 10493.

Journal article
Published: 03 December 2020 in Science of The Total Environment
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Endocrine-disrupting chemicals have the ability to interfere with and alter functions of the hormone system, leading to adverse effects on reproduction, growth and development. Despite growing concerns over their now ubiquitous presence in the environment, endocrine-related human health effects remain largely outside of comparative human toxicity characterization frameworks as applied for example in life cycle impact assessments. In this paper, we propose a new methodological framework to consistently integrate endocrine-related health effects into comparative human toxicity characterization. We present two quantitative and operational approaches for extrapolating towards a common point of departure from both in vivo and dosimetry-adjusted in vitro endocrine-related effect data and deriving effect factors as well as corresponding characterization factors for endocrine-active/endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Following the proposed approaches, we calculated effect factors for 323 chemicals, reflecting their endocrine potency, and related characterization factors for 157 chemicals, expressing their relative endocrine-related human toxicity potential. Developed effect and characterization factors are ready for use in the context of chemical prioritization and substitution as well as life cycle impact assessment and other comparative assessment frameworks. Endocrine-related effect factors were found comparable to existing effect factors for cancer and non-cancer effects, indicating that (1) the chemicals’ endocrine potency is not necessarily higher or lower than other effect potencies and (2) using dosimetry-adjusted effect data to derive effect factors does not consistently overestimate the effect of potential endocrine disruptors. Calculated characterization factors span over 8-11 orders of magnitude for different substances and emission compartments and are dominated by the range in endocrine potencies.

ACS Style

Yasmine Emara; Peter Fantke; Richard Judson; Xiaoqing Chang; Prachi Pradeep; Annekatrin Lehmann; Marc-William Siegert; Matthias Finkbeiner. Integrating endocrine-related health effects into comparative human toxicity characterization. Science of The Total Environment 2020, 762, 143874 .

AMA Style

Yasmine Emara, Peter Fantke, Richard Judson, Xiaoqing Chang, Prachi Pradeep, Annekatrin Lehmann, Marc-William Siegert, Matthias Finkbeiner. Integrating endocrine-related health effects into comparative human toxicity characterization. Science of The Total Environment. 2020; 762 ():143874.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Yasmine Emara; Peter Fantke; Richard Judson; Xiaoqing Chang; Prachi Pradeep; Annekatrin Lehmann; Marc-William Siegert; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2020. "Integrating endocrine-related health effects into comparative human toxicity characterization." Science of The Total Environment 762, no. : 143874.

Policies and support in relation to lca
Published: 19 November 2020 in The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
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Purpose Weighting can enable valuable support for decision-makers when interpreting life cycle assessment (LCA) results. Distance-to-target (DtT) weighting is based on the distance of policy (desired) targets to current environmental situations, and recent methodological DtT developments are based on a weighting perspective of a single region or country, considering mainly environmental situations in consuming countries or regions. However, as product supply chains are spread over many countries, this study aims at developing additional weighting approaches (producer regions and worst-case regions) and applying them in a theoretical case study on a global scale. Methods The current study is carried out to understand the influence of and the effect on weighting results of different countries and regions with their specific environmental policy targets. Based on the existing Ecological Scarcity Method (ESM), eco-factors for the three environmental issues climate change, acidification, and water resources were derived for as many countries as possible. The regional eco-factors were applied in a case study for steel and aluminum considering the three different weighting approaches on different regional scales. Results and discussion The analysis revealed significant differences in the obtained weighting results as well as strengths and limitations in the applicability of the examined perspectives. Acidification was showed to be highly important with between 80 and 92% of the aggregated weighting results among the perspectives where water-scarce countries were not involved. Water-scarce countries had a significant influence (75–95%) when they were part of the examined case study. Conclusions The developed approaches enable the assessment of global value chains in different producer regions as well as the utilization of the conservative worst-case-regions approach. The approaches can foster future decision-making in LCA contexts while providing country-specific results based on different weighting perspectives in national, regional, and global contexts. However, for a complete implementation of the presented approaches, further data gathering is needed on environmental situations and policy targets in different countries as well as regionalized life cycle data.

ACS Style

Marco Muhl; Markus Berger; Matthias Finkbeiner. Distance-to-target weighting in LCA—A matter of perspective. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 2020, 26, 114 -126.

AMA Style

Marco Muhl, Markus Berger, Matthias Finkbeiner. Distance-to-target weighting in LCA—A matter of perspective. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. 2020; 26 (1):114-126.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Marco Muhl; Markus Berger; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2020. "Distance-to-target weighting in LCA—A matter of perspective." The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 26, no. 1: 114-126.

Water use in lca
Published: 16 November 2020 in The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
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Purpose In contrast to water consumption, water pollution has gained less attention in water footprinting so far. Unlike water scarcity impact assessment, on which a consensus has recently been achieved, there is no agreement on how to address water quality deterioration in water footprinting. This paper provides an overview of existing water footprint methods to calculate impacts associated with water pollution and discusses their strengths and limitations using an illustrative example. Methods The methods are described and applied to a case study for the wastewater generated in textile processing. The results for two scenarios with different water quality parameters are evaluated against each other and the water scarcity footprint (WSF). Finally, methodological aspects, strengths and limitations of each method are analysed and discussed and recommendations for the methods application are provided. Results and discussion Two general impact assessment approaches exist to address water quality in water footprinting: the Water Degradation Footprint (WDF) calculates the impacts associated with the propagation of released pollutants in the environment and their uptake by the population and ecosystem, while the Water Availability Footprint (WAF) quantifies the impacts related to the water deprivation, when polluted water cannot be used. Overall, seven methods to consider water quality in water footprinting were identified, which rely upon one or a combination of WDF, WAF and WSF. Methodological scopes significantly vary regarding the inventory requirements and provided results (a single-score or several impact categories). The case study demonstrated that the methods provide conflicting results concerning which scenario is less harmful with regard to the water pollution. Conclusions This paper provides a review of the water pollution assessment methods in water footprinting and analyses their modelling choices and resulting effects on the WF. With regard to the identified inconsistencies, we reveal the urgent need for a guidance for the methods application to provide robust results and allow a consistent evaluation of the water quality in water footprinting.

ACS Style

Natalia Mikosch; Markus Berger; Matthias Finkbeiner. Addressing water quality in water footprinting: current status, methods and limitations. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 2020, 26, 157 -174.

AMA Style

Natalia Mikosch, Markus Berger, Matthias Finkbeiner. Addressing water quality in water footprinting: current status, methods and limitations. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. 2020; 26 (1):157-174.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Natalia Mikosch; Markus Berger; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2020. "Addressing water quality in water footprinting: current status, methods and limitations." The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 26, no. 1: 157-174.

Review
Published: 28 October 2020 in Ecological Indicators
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The water planetary boundary has been proposed to determine limits for a sustainable anthropogenic appropriation of freshwater. Aim of the present research was to summarise the water planetary boundary’s development status and applications including its integration into Life Cycle Assessment and Environmentally-Extended Input-Output-Analysis. A systematic literature review was conducted for studies featuring the keywords “planetary boundary” and “water consumption”. All pertinent studies were categorised as either revision, commentary, stand-alone application, the application within Life Cycle Assessment or application within Environmentally-Extended Input-Output Analysis and subsequently summarised and discussed. Overall, 35 studies from the period of 2009 until mid-2020 are subject of this review. Recent advancements such as spatially differentiated thresholds and refined sub-boundaries have addressed initial shortcomings of the concept of a water planetary boundary. Stand-alone applications of the water planetary boundary have either established local thresholds or allocated fair shares of afore-defined global thresholds. Several authors integrated the concept of a water planetary boundary into LCA e.g. via characterisation factors, weighting or normalisation, often under consideration of sharing principles. An application of the water planetary boundary into Environmentally-Extended Input-Output Analysis is less represented although some authors have demonstrated its powerfulness in investigating causes for the exceedance of local thresholds. For some of the reviewed studies, a link to the water planetary boundary remains rather vague as these studies merely investigate water availability in comparison to consumption. Although it should be applied with caution, the concept of a planetary boundary for freshwater use can contribute to understanding limits to sustainable freshwater consumption. Many studies established water use thresholds but refrained from analysing causative drivers in detail. Challenges for exploring this further include overcoming spatial and temporal mismatches of environmentally-extended economic accounts and hydrogeological data.

ACS Style

Jonas Bunsen; Markus Berger; Matthias Finkbeiner. Planetary boundaries for water – A review. Ecological Indicators 2020, 121, 107022 .

AMA Style

Jonas Bunsen, Markus Berger, Matthias Finkbeiner. Planetary boundaries for water – A review. Ecological Indicators. 2020; 121 ():107022.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Jonas Bunsen; Markus Berger; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2020. "Planetary boundaries for water – A review." Ecological Indicators 121, no. : 107022.

Journal article
Published: 23 October 2020 in Sustainability
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The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cannot be met without the private sector. In order to contribute to the fulfillment of the SDGs, companies have to identify their influence and select relevant SDGs. However, so far no research has been conducted on the influence of companies or industries at the most concrete level in the SDG framework—the 247 SDG indicators. In this paper, a criteria-based approach to select relevant environmental SDG indicators for the automobile industry is developed. The three criteria—environmental impact, direct impact, and automobile impact—are defined. By means of a qualitative analysis, 31 influenceable indicators are selected and substantiated by an empirical analysis of the automobile industry’s impact. These indicators belong to 12 SDGs and demonstrate the broad influence of the automobile industry. The outcome of this study is a structured procedure for selecting relevant environmental SDG indicators. This procedure can be applied by companies and can also be adapted to other economic sectors. Finally, it is possible to quantify the level of influence of the selected indicators and thus measure the contributions of companies or economic sectors to the fulfillment of the SDGs.

ACS Style

Sergej Lisowski; Markus Berger; Justus Caspers; Klaus Mayr-Rauch; Georg Bäuml; Matthias Finkbeiner. Criteria-Based Approach to Select Relevant Environmental SDG Indicators for the Automobile Industry. Sustainability 2020, 12, 8811 .

AMA Style

Sergej Lisowski, Markus Berger, Justus Caspers, Klaus Mayr-Rauch, Georg Bäuml, Matthias Finkbeiner. Criteria-Based Approach to Select Relevant Environmental SDG Indicators for the Automobile Industry. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (21):8811.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Sergej Lisowski; Markus Berger; Justus Caspers; Klaus Mayr-Rauch; Georg Bäuml; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2020. "Criteria-Based Approach to Select Relevant Environmental SDG Indicators for the Automobile Industry." Sustainability 12, no. 21: 8811.

Journal article
Published: 12 October 2020 in Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy
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The aim is to conduct a life cycle assessment of the analgesic Eudorlin® Extra to identify environmental hotspots along its life cycle, i.e. the manufacturing of the active pharmaceutical ingredient, the galenic formulation, packaging, distribution, use and end-of-life. This publication is one of only few LCA studies that consider all life cycle stages of a pharmaceutical. The functional unit is the treatment of an adult in Germany with the purpose of pain relief for 4 days, the reference flow is one package Eudorlin® Extra (10 tablets with 400 mg ibuprofen per tablet). Primary data is provided by the manufacturing companies for the production stage. The impact assessment is conducted for impact categories that have been identified as germane for the sector. A contribution analysis is performed and relevant processes are evaluated by sensitivity analyses. The environmental profile is dominated by the production stage whereas the use and end-of-life are negligible. This seems to be plausible due to the high material usage during manufacturing, as opposed to the use stage where no additional inputs are required. However, methodological issues are identified which potentially affect the results such as the lack of characterization factors for the metabolites. The results are in alignment with existing studies which emphasize the environmental relevance of the production stage. Future research should focus on improving existing impact assessment methods, developing characterization factors for metabolites and publishing inventory data on substances that are frequently used in the pharmaceutical life cycle.

ACS Style

Marc-William Siegert; Peter Saling; Pascal Mielke; Carolin Czechmann; Yasmine Emara; Matthias Finkbeiner. Cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment of an ibuprofen analgesic. Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy 2020, 18, 100329 .

AMA Style

Marc-William Siegert, Peter Saling, Pascal Mielke, Carolin Czechmann, Yasmine Emara, Matthias Finkbeiner. Cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment of an ibuprofen analgesic. Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy. 2020; 18 ():100329.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Marc-William Siegert; Peter Saling; Pascal Mielke; Carolin Czechmann; Yasmine Emara; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2020. "Cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment of an ibuprofen analgesic." Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy 18, no. : 100329.

Life cycle management
Published: 27 September 2020 in The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
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Cities contribute to and are affected by several environmental pressures within and beyond city boundaries. Urban decision makers struggle to find environmentally sound strategies while respecting their obligation to provide the basis for a viable society. Methods to assess the environmental performance of cities beyond greenhouse gases either lack a holistic or multi-impact perspective which limits the informational value of recommendations for improvement. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is already seen as a promising tool to overcome this gap although research on LCA at city scale is still in its infancies. This paper introduces a novel approach for city-scale environmental decision support and extends the current methodological discussion to organizational LCA (OLCA). A four-step procedure was followed. Firstly, a universal city structure was developed by reviewing different city characteristics and by conducting a virtual case study. Secondly, this structure was split into assessment levels by a stakeholder analysis to reflect different levels of decision support. Thirdly, OLCA’s capabilities to cover the required assessment levels were evaluated. Lastly, methodological uncertainties were discussed, and the assessment framework was finalized by giving guidance on how to extend OLCA to city needs. An environmental assessment framework containing four assessment levels is proposed. Results show that OLCA is well suited to estimate potential environmental impacts associated with the provision of public services by the local government (level 1) and by contracted companies (level 2). Methodological challenges were encountered regarding the uncertain definition of the local government’s influence on private activities beyond public service provision (level 3a). Including activities that are neither directly nor indirectly influenced by the local government go beyond OLCA’s capabilities (level 3b). The framework proposed will support local governments in tracking their environmental performance, prioritizing mitigation measures, and considering transformational change in their strategic decisions. The organizational perspective makes OLCA a valuable approach for decision support at city level. This perspective, however, does not allow to capture all activities taking place within the city boundary and methods have to be found that adequately estimate a local government’s influence beyond public service provision. When aiming at developing long-term strategies to improve a city’s environmental performance, future availability of new technologies and business models that may further impact a local government’s influence need to be considered.

ACS Style

Alexander Cremer; Katrin Müller; Markus Berger; Matthias Finkbeiner. A framework for environmental decision support in cities incorporating organizational LCA. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 2020, 25, 2204 -2216.

AMA Style

Alexander Cremer, Katrin Müller, Markus Berger, Matthias Finkbeiner. A framework for environmental decision support in cities incorporating organizational LCA. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. 2020; 25 (11):2204-2216.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Alexander Cremer; Katrin Müller; Markus Berger; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2020. "A framework for environmental decision support in cities incorporating organizational LCA." The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 25, no. 11: 2204-2216.

Chapter
Published: 22 September 2020 in Sustainable Production, Life Cycle Engineering and Management
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Carbon offsets as an additional measure to mitigate climate change are on the agenda in recent years. This study analyzes the three carbon offsetting programs (the Clean Development Mechanism, the Verified Carbon Standard and the Gold Standard) with the largest market shares by systematically comparing their standard documents with environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) standards (ISO 14067 and ISO 14040/44). The programs’ most important methodologies are assigned to the sectors forestry, renewable energy, energy efficiency, industrial gas, and waste. We analyzed each sector for its compatibility with LCA using a criteria evaluation scheme to answer the main question, whether the methodologies provide guidance on life cycle emission accounting and what uncertainties they face. The offsetting standards differ from LCA standards due to different analyzed systems, system boundaries and purposes of their methods. Furthermore, offsetting methods always apply scenario analysis. Environmental impacts apart from greenhouse gases are not quantified, rather environmental impact assessments of heterogeneous quality are applied. We find that the approaches in the analyzed carbon offsets are incompatible with the LCA approach, mainly because they always involve scenario analysis, do not include all life-cycle phases and do not account for additional (negative) environmental and social impacts that project activities related to carbon offsets may cause.

ACS Style

Rosalie Arendt; Vanessa Bach; Matthias Finkbeiner. Carbon Offsets: An LCA Perspective. Sustainable Production, Life Cycle Engineering and Management 2020, 189 -212.

AMA Style

Rosalie Arendt, Vanessa Bach, Matthias Finkbeiner. Carbon Offsets: An LCA Perspective. Sustainable Production, Life Cycle Engineering and Management. 2020; ():189-212.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Rosalie Arendt; Vanessa Bach; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2020. "Carbon Offsets: An LCA Perspective." Sustainable Production, Life Cycle Engineering and Management , no. : 189-212.

Data description paper
Published: 27 August 2020 in Earth System Science Data
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Various studies investigated the fate of evaporation and the origin of precipitation. The more recent studies among them were often carried out with the help of numerical moisture tracking. Many research questions could be answered within this context, such as dependencies of atmospheric moisture transfers between different regions, impacts of land cover changes on the hydrological cycle, sustainability-related questions, and questions regarding the seasonal and interannual variability of precipitation. In order to facilitate future applications, global datasets on the fate of evaporation and the sources of precipitation are needed. Since most studies are on a regional level and focus more on the sources of precipitation, the goal of this study is to provide a readily available global dataset on the fate of evaporation for a fine-meshed grid of source and receptor cells. The dataset was created through a global run of the numerical moisture tracking model Water Accounting Model-2layers (WAM-2layers) and focused on the fate of land evaporation. The tracking was conducted on a 1.5∘×1.5∘ grid and was based on reanalysis data from the ERA-Interim database. Climatic input data were incorporated in 3- to 6-hourly time steps and represent the time period from 2001 to 2018. Atmospheric moisture was tracked forward in time and the geographical borders of the model were located at ±79.5∘ latitude. As a result of the model run, the annual, the monthly and the interannual average fate of evaporation were determined for 8684 land grid cells (all land cells except those located within Greenland and Antarctica) and provided via source–receptor matrices. The gained dataset was complemented via an aggregation to country and basin scales in order to highlight possible usages for areas of interest larger than grid cells. This resulted in data for 265 countries and 8223 basins. Finally, five types of source–receptor matrices for average moisture transfers were chosen to build the core of the dataset: land grid cell to grid cell, country to grid cell, basin to grid cell, country to country, basin to basin. The dataset is, to our knowledge, the first ready-to-download dataset providing the overall fate of evaporation for land cells of a global fine-meshed grid in monthly resolution. At the same time, information on the sources of precipitation can be extracted from it. It could be used for investigations into average annual, seasonal, and interannual sink and source regions of atmospheric moisture from land masses for most of the regions in the world and shows various application possibilities for studying interactions between people and water, such as land cover changes or human water consumption patterns. The dataset is accessible under https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.908705 (Link et al., 2019a) and comes along with example scripts for reading and plotting the data.

ACS Style

Andreas Link; Ruud Van Der Ent; Markus Berger; Stephanie Eisner; Matthias Finkbeiner. The fate of land evaporation – a global dataset. Earth System Science Data 2020, 12, 1897 -1912.

AMA Style

Andreas Link, Ruud Van Der Ent, Markus Berger, Stephanie Eisner, Matthias Finkbeiner. The fate of land evaporation – a global dataset. Earth System Science Data. 2020; 12 (3):1897-1912.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Andreas Link; Ruud Van Der Ent; Markus Berger; Stephanie Eisner; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2020. "The fate of land evaporation – a global dataset." Earth System Science Data 12, no. 3: 1897-1912.

Research article
Published: 23 June 2020 in Environmental Science & Technology
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ACS Style

Masaharu Motoshita; Stephan Pfister; Matthias Finkbeiner. Regional Carrying Capacities of Freshwater Consumption—Current Pressure and Its Sources. Environmental Science & Technology 2020, 54, 9083 -9094.

AMA Style

Masaharu Motoshita, Stephan Pfister, Matthias Finkbeiner. Regional Carrying Capacities of Freshwater Consumption—Current Pressure and Its Sources. Environmental Science & Technology. 2020; 54 (14):9083-9094.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Masaharu Motoshita; Stephan Pfister; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2020. "Regional Carrying Capacities of Freshwater Consumption—Current Pressure and Its Sources." Environmental Science & Technology 54, no. 14: 9083-9094.

Journal article
Published: 01 June 2020 in Sustainability
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Companies are increasingly interested in reducing their environmental footprint. Thereby, they face the challenge of identifying and mitigating their specific impacts and hotspots and simultaneously avoid burden shifting. The organizational life cycle assessment (OLCA) method was conceived and successfully tested for the assessment if companies’ potential environmental impacts. Still, the method poses methodological challenges for the application to service providing organizations. In this paper, OLCA was applied to a service providing SME in the photovoltaic and wind energy business in the United Kingdom. The environmental impact profile of the reporting organization is dominated by transport activities, including the technicians’ trips to the solar farms, employee commuting, and business travels. According to the main goals of the study (gaining insights in internal operations and improving organizational procedures), recommendations to reduce travel-related impacts are provided. For existing methodological challenges like selecting the reporting flow and setting the system boundaries, innovative solutions like defining multiple reporting flows for different activities and to partly include service receiving objects in system boundaries are discussed with the aim to facilitate future applications.

ACS Style

Hendrik Marx; Silvia Forin; Matthias Finkbeiner. Organizational Life Cycle Assessment of a Service Providing SME for Renewable Energy Projects (PV and Wind) in the United Kingdom. Sustainability 2020, 12, 4475 .

AMA Style

Hendrik Marx, Silvia Forin, Matthias Finkbeiner. Organizational Life Cycle Assessment of a Service Providing SME for Renewable Energy Projects (PV and Wind) in the United Kingdom. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (11):4475.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Hendrik Marx; Silvia Forin; Matthias Finkbeiner. 2020. "Organizational Life Cycle Assessment of a Service Providing SME for Renewable Energy Projects (PV and Wind) in the United Kingdom." Sustainability 12, no. 11: 4475.

Societal lca
Published: 18 May 2020 in The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
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This study proposes a systematic approach for identifying the relevant social issues of a sector or company to be integrated within the Social Organizational Life Cycle Assessment framework. The approach is implemented through the Pugh matrix analysis in a wine company located in Abruzzo, Italy. The Pugh matrix is suitably modelled for social organizational life cycle assessment by considering the subcategories, i.e. social issues, and the stakeholder categories proposed by the Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment UNEP/SETAC. The model is implemented by involving 31 consumers, 28 workers, 36 local community, and 7 value chain actors who were interviewed and asked to give a score by comparing pairwise the subcategories of each stakeholder, respectively. The results allowed the identification of the most relevant subcategories for the case under study. For example, the health and safety issue is evident as being relevant for different stakeholders (i.e. worker, local community and consumers). Furthermore, starting from the relevant subcategories, a set of indicators was identified. The indicators are allocated at two levels depending on the kind of data used for assessing the indicators (sites visit, consultation of reports or surveys and questionnaires). This study proposes and implements a model within the Social Organizational Life Cycle Assessment framework as well as Social Life Cycle Assessment in order to support decision-makers in sustainability decisions, taking into account the entire value chain over time.

ACS Style

Manuela D’Eusanio; Annekatrin Lehmann; Matthias Finkbeiner; Luigia Petti. Social Organizational Life Cycle Assessment: an approach for identification of relevant subcategories for wine production in Italy. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 2020, 25, 1119 -1132.

AMA Style

Manuela D’Eusanio, Annekatrin Lehmann, Matthias Finkbeiner, Luigia Petti. Social Organizational Life Cycle Assessment: an approach for identification of relevant subcategories for wine production in Italy. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. 2020; 25 (6):1119-1132.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Manuela D’Eusanio; Annekatrin Lehmann; Matthias Finkbeiner; Luigia Petti. 2020. "Social Organizational Life Cycle Assessment: an approach for identification of relevant subcategories for wine production in Italy." The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 25, no. 6: 1119-1132.