Traditionally, the emissions embodied in construction materials have not been considered important; however, they are becoming crucial due to the short time-frame in which the emissions should be reduced. Moreover, evaluating the environmental burden of construction materials has proven problematic and the reliability of the reported impact estimates is questionable. More reliable information from the construction sector is thus urgently needed to back and guide decision-making. Currently, the building sector environmental impact assessments predominantly employ commercial software with environmental impact databases and report results without knowledge about the impact of the software/database choice on the results. In this study, estimates for the embodied environmental impacts of residential construction from the two most widely used life cycle assessment (LCA) database-software combinations, ecoinvent with SimaPro software and GaBi, are compared to recognize the uniformities and inconsistencies. The impacts caused by two residential buildings of different types, a concrete-element multi-story residential building and a detached wooden house, both located in Finland, were assessed, including all building systems with a high level of detail. Based on the ReCiPe Midpoint method, fifteen impact categories were estimated and compared. The results confirm that the tool choice significantly affects the outcome. For the whole building, the difference is significant, around 15%, even in the most widely assessed category of Climate Change, and yields results that lean in different directions for the two cases. In the others, the estimates are entirely different, 40% or more in the majority of the categories and up to several thousand percentages of difference. The main conclusion is that extensive work is still urgently needed to improve the reliability of LCA tools in the building sector in order to provide reliable and trustworthy information for policy-making.

Plastic is valued for its flexibility to be utilized in different applications, yet it poses a significant threat to our environment because of mismanaged plastic waste. India’s compound annual growth of plastic consumption has been around 7% for a decade. Despite this significant growth, there has not been a comprehensive study of Indian plastic flows since 2000. This work presents a 20-year update, detailing plastic production, consumption by all plastic types and sectors, and the overall material flow for 2018–19 to fill the gap in the data on post-consumer plastic flows. The analysis reveals a total plastic production of 19.3 Mt, 22% of which is Polyethylene as the most wildly used plastic. The total mass of plastic in products distributed in various applications is 23.9 Mt. Key sectors for plastic consumption are Packaging (30%), Textiles (17%), and Buildings and Construction (16%). Plastic waste generation is 15.5 Mt, primarily from packaging and textiles. Only 13% of this plastic gets recycled, 46% is mismanaged, and the rest incinerated or dumped. The study’s unique nationwide, mass-balanced, transparent approach offers a rigorous reference point for decision-makers. Yet, the lack of reliable data is the main barrier to design, implement, and monitor of policy interventions.

Buildings are the key components of urban areas and society as a complex system. A life cycle assessment was applied to estimate the environmental impacts of the resources applied in the building envelope, floor slabs, and interior walls of the Vættaskóli-Engi building in Reykjavik, Iceland. The scope of this study included four modules of extraction and transportation of raw material to the manufacturing site, production of the construction materials, and transport to the building site, as described in the standard EN 15804. The total environmental effects of the school building in terms of global warming potential, ozone depletion potential, human toxicity, acidification, and eutrophication were calculated. The total global warming potential impact was equal to 255 kg of CO₂ eq/sqm, which was low compared to previous studies and was due to the limited system boundary of the current study. The effect of long-distance overseas transport of materials was noticeable in terms of acidification (25%) and eutrophication (31%) while it was negligible in other impact groups. The results also concluded that producing the cement in Iceland caused less environmental impact in all five impact categories compared to the case in which the cement was imported from Germany. The major contribution of this work is that the environmental impacts of different plans for domestic production or import of construction materials to Iceland can be precisely assessed in order to identify effective measures to move towards a sustainable built environment in Iceland, and also to provide consistent insights for stakeholders.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which necessitates accelerated progress in sustainable production and consumption. This study employs an economy‐wide material flow analysis to assess the ASEAN community's material use, waste generation, emissions, resource efficiency, and circularity rate. The analysis encompasses the entire ASEAN economy, with a detailed focus on four member countries: Thailand, Laos, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In 2018, ASEAN countries collectively extracted 6449 million metric tons (Mt) of resources, exported 1302 Mt, and recorded a domestic material consumption (DMC) of 6376 Mt. Approximately 40% of this DMC contributed to material stock accumulation. Of the domestic processed output, 58% was released as air emissions, and the end‐of‐life recycling rate was 1.3%. Resource efficiency trends from 1970 to 2021 reveal a general improvement across the region, although Laos and Vietnam exhibited lower efficiency levels than the ASEAN average. The study concludes by comparing the sustainability policy capacities of the four selected countries with their material flows, identifying key areas requiring policy intervention and improvement.

Green hydrogen is a promising energy carrier for the decarbonization of hard-to-abate sectors and supporting renewable energy integration, aligning with carbon neutrality goals like the European Green Deal. Iceland’s abundant renewable energy and decarbonized electricity system position it as a strong candidate for green hydrogen production. Despite early initiatives, its hydrogen economy has yet to significantly expand. This study evaluated Iceland’s hydrogen development through stakeholder interviews and a techno-economic analysis of alkaline and PEM electrolyzers. Stakeholders were driven by decarbonization goals, economic opportunities, and energy security but faced technological, economic, and governance challenges. Recommendations include building stakeholder confidence, financial incentives, and creating hydrogen-based chemicals to boost demand. Currently, alkaline electrolyzers are more cost-effective (EUR 1.5–2.8/kg) than PEMs (EUR 2.1–3.6/kg), though the future costs for both could drop below EUR 1.5/kg. Iceland’s low electricity costs and high electrolyzer capacity provide a competitive edge. However, this advantage may shrink as solar and wind costs decline globally, particularly in regions like Australia. This work’s findings emphasize the need for strategic planning to sustain competitiveness and offer transferable insights for other regions introducing hydrogen into ecosystems lacking infrastructure.