Bertrand Guillaume

Modeling cumulative effects in life cycle assessment: The case of fertilizer in wheat production contributing to the global warming potential

This paper aims at presenting a dynamic indicator for life cycle assessment (LCA) measuring cumulative impacts over time of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fertilizers used for wheat cultivation and production. Our approach offers a dynamic indicator of global warming potential (GWP), one of the most used indicator of environmental impacts (e.g. in the Kyoto Protocol). For a case study, the wheat production in France was selected and considered by using data from official sources about fertilizer consumption and production of wheat. We propose to assess GWP environmental impact based on LCA method. The system boundary is limited to the fertilizer production for 1 ton of wheat produced (functional unit) from 1910 to 2010. As applied to wheat production in France, traditional LCA shows a maximum GWP impact of 500 kg CO2-eq for 1 ton of wheat production, whereas the GWP impact of wheat production over time with our approach to dynamic LCA and its cumulative effects increases to 18,000 kg CO2-eq for 1 ton of wheat production. In this paper, only one substance and one impact assessment indicator are presented. However, the methodology can be generalized and improved by using different substances and indicators.

Vernadsky’s philosophical legacy: A perspective from the Anthropocene

Vernadsky is rightly associated with the seminal contemporary concept of the ‘Biosphere’, which acknowledges that the world we belong to is a functionally integrated, global phenomenon. Beyond this fundamental idea (that ecology should be thought of at the planetary scale, presaging the concept of Earth System Science), Vernadsky also anticipated the idea of the so-called Anthropocene, i.e. the recent geological era dominated by the global environmental impact of human expansion and activities. Yet, this two-fold legacy of Vernadsky seems still underestimated when it comes to its philosophical implications. In this paper, I explore more particularly three philosophical implications of the planetary and cosmic view that Vernadsky had of the role of ecological/biological organization (including that of humankind) in the great chemical cycles of the Earth, with regard to epistemology, ethics and (in a more speculative way) metaphysics.

Epistemic and Methodological Challenges of Dynamic Environmental Assessment: A Case-Study with Energy Production from Solar Cells

During the last decades, life cycle assessment (LCA) has been one of the most common approaches for environmental impact assessment. This methodology has become more and more complex in its representation of the real environmental impacts of products. However, it does not take into account temporal and cumulative aspects, and therefore appear not so suitable to observe potential rebound effect of new technologies. In this paper, we explore the limits of static LCA and understand how some dynamic LCA can be interpreted, by comparing the results of two environmental impacts assessments of energy production from solar cells. The global warming potential (GWP) of different technologies was accounted from the last 50 years. We show with this example how any temporal evolution of technology matters for environmental assessment (e.g. the global warming potential). Turning then to the future, we offer scenarios to see the evolution of greenhouse effect in long term regarding different mixes of technologies. This example opens new horizons for future research in the field of temporal LCA and its applications.

Linking Industrial Ecology and Ecological Economics: A Theoretical and Empirical Foundation for the Circular Economy: Linking IE and EE: A Theoretical Foundation for CE

The circular economy (CE) is a new model for the production and consumption of goods, which has attracted wide political attention as a strategy toward sustainability. However, the theoretical foundation of CE remains poorly structured and insufficiently explored. Recent studies have shown that the CE model draws on different schools of thought and that its origins are mainly rooted in fields such as industrial ecology (IE) and ecological economics (EE). In this article, we investigate the links between CE, IE, and EE and provide an overview of the similarities and differences between these fields. At the same time, we analyze to what extent the linkages between IE and EE can create a coherent body of knowledge for CE, and be used to identify further research opportunities. This paper shows that, until now, research on CE seems to be mainly rooted in the field of IE and based on concepts and tools that already exist in other fields, rather than inventing new ones. The reconciliation of IE and EE could provide a mechanism to extend beyond such a narrow focus, and increase knowledge of the theoretical and practical framework of CE to benefit sustainability.

Dynamic environmental assessment: scenarios, foresight and challenges

With the environmental challenges in recent years, the assessment of impacts of human activity becomes a major issue for our societies. Nowadays it is well established that our activities can cause negative effects on the balance of the ecosystem. In order to asses our impacts, several tools and methodologies, such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Material Flow Analysis (MFA), Carbon Footprint, etc. have been developed. Each of these approaches have some limitations with respect to their ability to meet the increasingly operational needs of stakeholders, experts and policy makers. For example, the lack of temporal dimension in LCA is one of the major limitation. Recent research suggested a dynamic approach taking into account the temporal. This paper aims to present a road-map for an integrated framework for an efficient assessment of dynamic LCA in the production sector of wheat.