Decoupling natural resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth. A Report of the Working Group on Decoupling to the International Resource Panel / Fischer-Kowalski, M., Swilling, M., von Weizsacker, E.U., Ren, Y., Moriguchi, Y., Crane, W., Krausmann, F., Eisenmenger, N., Giljum, S., Hennicke, P., Romero Lankao, P., Siriban Manalang, A. UNEP, 2011, 174 p., ISBN: 978-92-807-3167-5 http://www.unep.org/resourcepanel/decoupling/files/pdf/Decoupling_Report_English.pdf Voir ci-dessous...

Decoupling natural resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth

Critical metals are technologically vital to the functionality of various emerging technologies, yet they have a potentially unstable supply. This condition calls for strategic planning based on the expected long-term demand and supply of these metals and the implications attached. Here, we provide the first systematic review of studies (88 studies in all) exploring the projected long-term status of various critical materials, covering 48 elements with 546 data points for global demand through 2030 and 2050. Interestingly, results indicate that, to date, no long-term demand outlook is available for some high criticality metals. We also find that the social and environmental implications induced by demand growth are largely overlooked in these studies, resulting in less attention being given to the spatial divergence between consuming and producing countries in the global supply chain. Moreover, circular economy strategies that include component reuse and remanufacturing have been barely incorporated into the modelling frameworks presented in these studies, while end-of-life recycling is heavily focused on. In addition, elemental linkages (e.g., indium-zinc-steel) are underemphasized, leading to a lack of understanding of future availability and sustainable cycles. All of these findings affirm the need for further scientific research that explores the long-term status of critical metals, which strongly connects to the sustainable development goals of the United Nations and implementation of the Paris Agreement.

Review of critical metal dynamics to 2050 for 48 elements

Global energy transitions could fundamentally change flows of both minerals and energy resources over time. It is, therefore, increasingly important to holistically and dynamically capture the impacts of large-scale energy transitions on resource flows including hidden flows such as mine waste, as well as direct flows. Here we demonstrate a systematic model that can quantify resource flows of both minerals and energy resources under the energy transition by using stock-flow dynamics and the concept of Total Material Requirement (TMR). The proposed model was applied to the International Energy Agency’s scenarios up to 2050, targeting 15 electricity generation and 5 transport technologies. Results indicate that the global energy transition could increase TMR flows associated with mineral production by around 200–900% in the electricity sector and 350–700% in the transport sector respectively from 2015 to 2050, depending on the scenarios. Such a drastic increase in TMR flows is largely associated with an increased demand for copper, silver, nickel, lithium and cobalt, as well as steel. Our results highlight that the decarbonization of the electricity sector can reduce energy resource flows and support the hypothesis that the expansion of low-carbon technologies could reduce total resource flows expressed as TMR. In the transport sector, on the other hand, the dissemination of Electric Vehicles could cause a sharp increase in TMR flows associated with mineral production, which could offset a decrease in energy resource flows. Findings in this study emphasize that a sustainable transition would be unachievable without designing resource cycles with a nexus approach.

/pdf/total-material-requirement-for-the-global-energy-transition-qsndimduqy.pdf

Total material requirement for the global energy transition to 2050: A focus on transport and electricity

Emerging technologies are expected to contribute to environmental sustainable development. However, throughout the development of novel technologies, it is unknown whether emerging technologies can lead to reduced environmental impacts compared to a potentially displaced mature technology. Additionally, process steps suspected to be environmental hotspots can be improved by process engineers early in the development of the emerging technology. In order to determine the environmental impacts of emerging technologies at an early stage of development, prospective life cycle assessment (LCA) should be performed. However, consistency in prospective LCA methodology is lacking. Therefore, this article develops a framework for a prospective LCA in order to overcome the methodological inconsistencies regarding prospective LCAs. The methodological framework was developed using literature on prospective LCAs of emerging technologies, and therefore, a literature review on prospective LCAs was conducted. We found 44 case studies, four review papers, and 17 papers on methodological guidance. Three main challenges for conducting prospective LCAs are identified: Comparability, data, and uncertainty challenges. The issues in defining the aim, functionality, and system boundaries of the prospective LCAs, as well as problems with specifying LCIA methodologies, comprise the comparability challenge. Data availability, quality, and scaling are issues within the data challenge. Finally, uncertainty exists as an overarching challenge when applying a prospective LCA. These three challenges are especially crucial for the prospective assessment of emerging technologies. However, this review also shows that within the methodological papers and case studies, several approaches exist to tackle these challenges. These approaches were systematically summarized within a framework to give guidance on how to overcome the issues when conducting prospective LCAs of emerging technologies. Accordingly, this framework is useful for LCA practitioners who are analyzing early-stage technologies. Nevertheless, further research is needed to develop appropriate scale-up schemes and to include uncertainty analyses for a more in-depth interpretation of results.

How to Conduct Prospective Life Cycle Assessment for Emerging Technologies? A Systematic Review and Methodological Guidance

Prospective life cycle assessment (LCA) needs to deal with the large epistemological uncertainty about the future to support more robust future environmental impact assessments of technologies. This study proposes a novel approach that systematically changes the background processes in a prospective LCA based on scenarios of an integrated assessment model (IAM), the IMAGE model. Consistent worldwide scenarios from IMAGE are evaluated in the life cycle inventory using ecoinvent v3.3. To test the approach, only the electricity sector was changed in a prospective LCA of an internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) and an electric vehicle (EV) using six baseline and mitigation climate scenarios until 2050. This case study shows that changes in the electricity background can be very important for the environmental impacts of EV. Also, the approach demonstrates that the relative environmental performance of EV and ICEV over time is more complex and multifaceted than previously assumed. Uncertainty due to future developments manifests in different impacts depending on the product (EV or ICEV), the impact category, and the scenario and year considered. More robust prospective LCAs can be achieved, particularly for emerging technologies, by expanding this approach to other economic sectors beyond electricity background changes and mobility applications as well as by including uncertainty and changes in foreground parameters. A more systematic and structured composition of future inventory databases driven by IAM scenarios helps to acknowledge epistemological uncertainty and to increase the temporal consistency of foreground and background systems in LCAs of emerging technologies.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jiec.12825

When the Background Matters: Using Scenarios from Integrated Assessment Models in Prospective Life Cycle Assessment

Utilisation of resources is closely linked to population growth and economic and technological development. Hence, it is expected that global resource demand will increase substantially over the next decades. This resource challenge is currently partly addressed by the UNEP-IRP resource scenario activity, where metals, non-metallic minerals, and biomass resource availability and consumption scenarios are being developed. Advancements in the understanding of environmental impacts induced by anthropogenic activities indicate that large-scale exploitation of metal resources adversely affects the natural environment. Global copper demand is expected to grow significantly over the next decades, which is likely to result in increasing environmental stress and can be problematic for efforts to reduce the global environmental footprint. This research aims to estimate environmental implications of copper demand scenarios from present to mid-century by applying a life cycle sustainability analysis (LCSA) methodology. The results indicate that the environmental impacts related to global copper supply are expected to increase substantially between 2010 and 2050 – e.g., the carbon footprint is estimated to increase by 100% to 200%, depending on the scenario. This research discusses the main drivers of growing environmental implications of global copper supply scenarios and shows potential focus areas for mitigation policies.

/pdf/assessing-environmental-implications-associated-with-global-3ggz45o7d6.pdf

Assessing environmental implications associated with global copper demand and supply scenarios from 2010 to 2050

In this paper, we develop a method to assess the environmental impacts of metal scenarios. The method is life cycle based, but enables forward looking and upscaling. The method aims at translating metal demand scenarios into technology‐specific supply scenarios, necessary to make the translation into environmental impacts. To illustrate the different steps of the methodology, we apply it to the case of seven major metals. Demand scenarios for seven major metals are taken from literature. We translate those into technology‐specific supply scenarios, and future time series of environmental impacts are specified including recycling rates, energy system transformation, efficiency improvement, and ore grade decline. We show that the method is applicable and may lead to relevant and, despite many uncertainties, fairly robust results. The projections show that the environmental impacts related to metal production are expected to increase steeply. Iron is responsible for the majority of impacts and emissions are relatively unaffected by changes in the production and energy system. For the other metals, the energy transition may have substantial benefits. By far, the most effective option for all metals appears to be to increase the share of secondary production. This would reduce emissions, but is expected to become effective only in the second half of the twenty‐first century. The circular economy agenda for metals is therefore a long‐term agenda, similar to climate change: Action must be taken soon while benefits will become apparent only at the long term.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jiec.12722

Environmental Implications of Future Demand Scenarios for Metals: Methodology and Application to the Case of Seven Major Metals

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Assessing environmental implications associated with global copper demand and supply scenarios from 2010 to 2050

Environmental Implications of Future Demand Scenarios for Metals: Methodology and Application to the Case of Seven Major Metals