Behovet av metaller och mineral växer med ny teknik och med övergången till nya energiformer. Samtidigt vill allt fler veta varifrån metallen kommer. Gruvnäringens negativa påverkan på både miljön och lokalsamhället oroar många. Projektet TraceMet har tagit fram ett pilotsystem som gör det möjligt att certifiera metallens miljöprestanda, det vill säga dess klimatavtryck och hur mycket återvunnet material den innehåller.
Due to government policies and regulations as well as customer and societal demands, organizations around the world are looking for ways to manage their economic, environmental and social sustainability. One of the most frequently used standards for organizations seeking to manage their environmental responsibilities is ISO 14001. This framework, however, is generic because it can be used by any organization irrespective of sector, activity or core values. Therefore, implementation of generic guidelines might result in the use of alternative tools that respond better to specific organizational needs and that provide outcomes that can be useful for decision-making. Through case study methodology, this paper shows how Volvo Group, a world-leading producer of transport solutions, developed an internal environmental evaluation tool called Environmental Screening (EnvS) to improve the environmental performance of its solutions.
Den här rapporten finns endast på engelska.
Circular Economy scholarship has developed multiple metrics for assessing product-level circularity. To date, however, many product-level indicators either conflate circularity and environmental impact or have been validated using a very limited sample of products. This study applies a single metric, “C”, to a sample of 18 products in the Swedish marketplace and compares their C-scores with scores for lifecycle assessment (LCA). LCA scores for sample products are normalized by LCA scores of very similar reference products, allowing for comparison of LCAs across different product varieties. A test for correlation between products’ C-scores and LCA ratios reveals a strong, significant, and inverse association between levels of circularity and products’ relative environmental impact. The results offer evidence that products whose economic value is composed of relatively more recirculated material have a relatively low impact on the environment. Future research will benefit from applying similar tests to a broader variety of products and developing tools to expedite the accurate measurement of circularity and lifecycle impacts.
Ett mått som mäter cirkularitet, det vill säga hur stor andel av en produkt som har använts tidigare eller återvunnits och dess värde har nu testats i samarbete med ett antal företag. Syftet är att skapa tydlighet och mätbarhet som kan underlätta övergången till en cirkulär ekonomi. Projektet har genomförts av RISE och IVL Svenska Miljöinstitutet inom ramen för det strategiska innovationsprogrammet Re:source och IVL stod för jämförelse med livscykelanalys.
This report regards the fate of the lithium-ion batteries used in vehicles in the Nordic countries. There are only very few large vehicle batteries that are worn out today, but about approximately 40,000 from e-bikes which are very much smaller. Based on the life length of batteries in current electric cars, the current flows of new batteries (2015–2018) are the ones that will be available for recycling in 2025–2030. They are, however, quickly out-shadowed by the projected increase in number of car batteries on the market, growing from around 0.5 million units 2018 to 4 million units by 2030. The report presents scenarios of amounts of batteries used for second-use after the use in the cars and describes different options for recycling including research in the field.
In the Swedish research programme Mistra TerraClean a tiered approach for life cycle based environmental and human health assessment early in process development was introduced. In the project smart filters for water and air purification are under development. Innovative materials and devices are applied and evaluated with a systems perspective. In our tiered approach life cycle assessment (LCA), chemical safety assessment and applied eco and human toxicity assessments are combined, with a particular focus on the inclusion of toxicity potential impacts in LCA.
To this end, the consensus model USEtox has been applied, complemented with the method ProScale, that focusses on human direct exposure. The life cycle-based approach has so far been applied to material development and a pilot scale case study. The case study focuses on water purification of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) for which we have a PFAS adapted life cycle impact assessment framework at hand. This tiered approach is relevant to process developers, people within the field of water and air treatment as well as the broader LCA community.
Major reasons for a lower GWP in the update The battery manufacturing supply chain is often divided into material sourcing, cell and component production, and battery pack manufacture. The previous report highlighted the differences in energy-use in cell manufacture, which is the focus of most of this update. The most energy-intensive step for cell production is the dry-room, for which newer data has been measured in newer studies. The measurements were done in several larger production plants which ran more efficiently per battery produced than for pilot plants. Changes to the modelling of an energy-intensive evaporation step to reflect real production has decreased the energy estimate further. Battery production considerations Although the carbon dioxide emitted is a big contributor to environmental burdens, battery production also requires the sourcing of metals which produce negative environmental and social effects in the supplying countries. The amounts that need to be mined in coming years will depend on the types of batteries produced, and how successful battery recycling will be.
This study compared plastics content in passenger cars. It concluded that there has likely been no change in passenger cars’ plastics share in the past twenty years and the next five years will likely tell a similar story. Three methods were used to estimate the future trends for plastics content in cars. The first was a literature review. This data showed a slight increase of plastic material shares in some sources, but the transparency of data selection, material categorization (what is a “plastic”), and calculation methods left us questioning its legitimacy. The second method was based on our own selection of cars representing the Swedish car fleet with A2mac1 vehicle breakdown data for each model. Since we controlled more variables in this data, we were more convinced of its legitimacy. The results show that there has been no change in plastics fraction in cars for each separate driveline in the past twenty years. The third method was using Volvo car material data compiled from each model’s numerous part suppliers for a single production year, to compare to the other methods. The study was conducted as part of the project Explore in the research program Closing the Loop, funded by Mistra.
This document was compiled during 2020 and early 2021 within the TraceMet project, funded by the strategic innovation program Swedish Mining Innovation, a joint investment of Vinnova, Formas and the Swedish Energy Agency. The document contains the Product Category Rules (PCR) - the methodology rules for how to calculate and report carbon footprint and recycled content for metal products. The document contains the Product Category Rules (PCR) - the methodology rules for how to calculate and report carbon footprint and recycled content for metal products and Specific Methods, Assumptions and Data (SMAD) for the two pilots with specific metal qualities.
The study consists of a review of available life cycle assessments on lithium-ion batteries for light-duty vehicles, and the results from the review are used to draw conclusions on how the production stage impacts the greenhouse gas emissions. The report also focuses on the emissions from each individual stage of the battery production, including; mining, material refining, refining to battery grade, and assembly of components and battery. The report is largely structured based on a number of questions. The questions are divided in two parts, one focusing on short-term questions and the second on more long-term questions. To sum up the results of this review of life cycle assessments of lithium-ion batteries we used the questions as base. Part 1 – Review the iteratively specified chemistries and answer the following short-term questions related to the battery production: How large are the energy use and greenhouse emissions related to the production of lithium-ion batteries? How large are the greenhouse gas emissions related to different production steps including mining, processing and assembly/manufacturing? What differences are there in greenhouse gas emissions between different production locations? Do emissions scale with the battery weight and kWh in a linear or non-linear fashion? Part 2 – To answer more long-term questions related to opportunities to reduce the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from battery production. a) What opportunities exist to improve the emissions from the current lithium-ion battery chemistries by means of novel production methods? b) What demands are placed on vehicle recycling today? c) How many of the lithium-ion batteries are recycled today and in what way? d) What materials are economically and technically recoverable from the batteries today? e) What recycling techniques are being developed today and what potential do they have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? f) How much of the production emissions can be allocated to the vehicle? Based on the assessment of the posed questions, our conclusions are that the currently available data are usually not transparent enough to draw detailed conclusions about the battery’s production emissions. There is, regardless, a good indication of the total emissions from the production, but this should be viewed in light of there being a small number of electric vehicles being produced compared to the total number of vehicles. The potential effects of scale up are not included in the assessments. Primary data for production, especially production of different pack sizes, is therefore interesting for future work. This report also concludes that there is no fixed answer to the question of the battery’s environmental impact. There is great potential to influence the future impact by legislative actions, especially in the area of recycling. Today there is no economic incentive for recycling of lithium-ion batteries, but by placing the correct requirements on the end of life handling we can create this incentive. Coupling this type of actions with support for technology development both in battery production processes and battery recycling can ensure a sustainable electric vehicle fleet. The review of the available life cycle assessments also highlighted that there is a need for improving the primary data used in the studies, as there is little new data being presented. Additionally, the studies are often not transparent in their data choices and modelling assumptions, leading to a situation where comparing results becomes very difficult. Regardless of this, the review found a number of critical factors for determining differences in the results. The assumptions regarding manufacturing were shown to have the greatest variation and impact on the total result. In order to improve our understanding of the environmental impact of the battery production we need more than LCA results. We need more clear technical descriptions of each production step and where they are performed so that the emissions found in the reviewed life cycles assessments can be defined into different stages. Not until we have a clear definition of stages can we assess where the energy consumption and emissions are largest, or what actions that can help lower the impact.