Development of an Innovative ICT Infrastructure for an Eco-Cost System with Life Cycle Assessment

Autor: Wenjie Peng, Shuyi Wang, Daizhong Su
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Service (systems architecture)
Process management
Computer science
Supply chain
Geography
Planning and Development

TJ807-830
Cloud computing
02 engineering and technology
010501 environmental sciences
Management
Monitoring
Policy and Law

computer.software_genre
TD194-195
01 natural sciences
environmental impact
Renewable energy sources
Product lifecycle
life cycle assessment
GE1-350
product sustainability
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Web services
RFID
Environmental effects of industries and plants
Renewable Energy
Sustainability and the Environment

business.industry
information communication infrastructure
Load balancing (computing)
021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology
Environmental sciences
Middleware (distributed applications)
The Internet
EcoCost
Web service
0210 nano-technology
business
computer
Zdroj: Sustainability
Sustainability, Vol 13, Iss 3118, p 3118 (2021)
Volume 13
Issue 6
ISSN: 2071-1050
DOI: 10.3390/su13063118
Popis: A novel Internet-based information communication technology (ICT) infrastructure for an eco-accounting system was successfully developed to deliver “EcoCosts”, which are the values of environmental impact throughout the product life cycle. The ICT infrastructure manages its internal elements and interacts with operation modules in the supply chain via Web-based service interfaces. The infrastructure consists of upperware, middleware, and resource layers. The upperware layer manipulates the middleware elements (cloud-based load balancing, life cycle assessment, Web-based services, and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)-enabled mobile access), and manages the associated resources within the eco-accounting system. As novel features of the ICT infrastructure, load balancing is used to handle large numbers of data and to allocate the computing load across the eco-accounting network nodes, and life cycle assessment is conducted to analyse product footprints, which are the core of “EcoCost”, to facilitate consumers in comparing the environmental impacts between different products. A case study was conducted by transmitting product EcoCosts from businesses to consumers through the Internet, successfully verifying the system developed in this research. Because this research aims to pay more attention to the ICT aspects, the EcoCost is represented using a single value, hence simplifying the related calculation. This research provides a novel solution for dealing with the large numbers of data and computing loads required to manage EcoCost data throughout the product life cycle and to transmit EcoCosts from businesses to consumers.
Databáze: OpenAIRE