Leveraging Life Cycle Assessment to Better Promote the Circular Economy: A First Step Using the Concept of Opportunity Cost
| Autor: | Reinout Heijungs, Esra Aleisa |
|---|---|
| Přispěvatelé: | Operations Analytics, Tinbergen Institute |
| Rok vydání: | 2022 |
| Předmět: |
Functional unit
Renewable Energy Sustainability and the Environment Geography Planning and Development life cycle assessment (LCA) circular economy (CE) system expansion functional unit wastewater sewage sludge recycling Wastewater Management Monitoring Policy and Law Circular economy (CE) Recycling Life cycle assessment (LCA) System expansion Sewage sludge SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production |
| Zdroj: | Sustainability; Volume 14; Issue 6; Pages: 3451 Aleisa, E & Heijungs, R 2022, ' Leveraging Life Cycle Assessment to Better Promote the Circular Economy: A First Step Using the Concept of Opportunity Cost ', Sustainability, vol. 14, no. 6, 3451, pp. 1-17 . https://doi.org/10.3390/su14063451, https://doi.org/10.3390/su14063451 Sustainability, 14(6):3451. MDPI Sustainability, 14(6):3451, 1-17. MDPI AG |
| ISSN: | 2071-1050 |
| DOI: | 10.3390/su14063451 |
| Popis: | In economics, opportunity cost is defined as the benefit foregone by choosing another course of action. Considering opportunity costs enables the improved handling of trade-offs to better support strategic decision-making. We introduce the concept of opportunity cost into life cycle assessment (LCA). In our framework, opportunity cost extends the system expansion paradigm to support better alignment with a circular economy (CE). Opportunity cost thinking is considered to be most useful for the efficient allocation of scarce economic capital for the creation of economic value. In the environmental domain, we use such thinking to account for the implications of ‘wasting waste’. In this paper, we consider a case of treated wastewater sludge being used as a source of nutrients as a vehicle to study the points at which LCA can support a CE. Our conclusions, however, have wider repercussions because there are many more situations in which product systems are analytically demarcated from the web of connections in which they are embedded. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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