New technologies carry both the promise of improvement of human welfare and the threat of undesired environmental consequences. Applying life cycle assessment (LCA) early in the development of technologies – when still at lab or pilot scale – provides valuable insights about how to prioritize research activities and to potentially avoid damage to the environment. LCA quantifies environmental and resources impacts of products and technologies from raw material extraction and processing, through a product’s manufacture, distribution and use, to recycling or final disposal. LCA of emerging technologies can help research and development (R&D) groups, planners, and policymakers look ahead and identify environmental and resource implications, potential liabilities, and other unanticipated consequences of products and technologies early in innovation.
Existing LCA methods, standards, and guidelines, however, focus on…
How is it possible to measure a nation’s environmental impact when half its goods are imported from China and other regions?
Over the past decade, a consortium of European researchers has developed a database that offers new clarity on the increasingly complex links between international trade, consumption, and environmental impact. Known as EXIOBASE 3, the database enables new insights to be drawn about the environmental impact that trade has had, who benefits, and who is harmed by increasing globalization.
In a new special issue, The Global Multi Regional Input Output Database “EXIOBASE,” Yale’s Journal of Industrial Ecology (JIE) examines how this database was designed and built. The issue shows how it will improve understanding of the effects…
We think of capital, the assets we use in production, as heavy: machines, buildings, infrastructure, trucks and railroads. Being composed mostly of cement and steel, we would expect their production to cause a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. In a new paper, published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, we offer a first detailed analysis of the carbon footprint of gross fixed capital formation across countries and sectors. The picture that emerges is interesting because of some small surprises.
First of all, capital is big. Capital formation constitutes about one-quarter of gross global product in monetary terms. It causes about 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Leaving it out is a pretty big oversight.
Second, capital formation varies across countries. The country with the highest capital…
Energy efficiency and renewable energy are widely recognized as two of the most effective ways to greatly reduce the threat of climate change. But how much do we know about other environmental impacts of a large-scale deployment of these technologies? What are the benefits (or impacts) from a life-cycle perspective? By how much can the gains from energy efficient technologies be multiplied if greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from electricity production are also reduced?
In a special issue, Yale’s Journal of Industrial Ecology aims to advance our understanding of environmental and natural resource implications of energy efficiency technologies. This special issue, “Environmental Impacts of Demand-Side Technologies and Strategies for Carbon Mitigation,” was prepared…
