Consumer choices affect sustainability of societal systems, and state governments increasingly are interested in environmental impacts of consumption. This article describes a Consumer Environmental Index (CEI) to track the impacts of product purchase, use, and disposal and applies this initial CEI to Washington State in the United States. CEI has modules for product and service use, upstream r...

Regional Transportation Commission (SCCRTC) to evaluate environmental conditions along the rail line in support of the acquisition of the Branch Line right-of-way, between Watsonville Junction and Davenport. The Phase II investigations consisted of advancing soil borings to collect soil samples at targeted locations along the Branch Line identified in AMEC's 1996 Phase I environmental site asse...

This thesis is part of a larger project which began in response to a request by the Spanish water agengy, Cadagua, for advice on life cycle assessment (LCA) and environmental impacts of Cadagua operated wastewater treatment plants. The project uses the LCA software GaBi and focuses on La Gavia Wastewater Treatment Plant in Madrid. This thesis analyzes three sludge management options that La Gav...

A sustainable transport system needs a cost accounting and full cost-pricing systems reflecting economicfactors which originate from transport activity inhibiting sustainable development (namely, externalities; spillovereffects and non-priced inter-sectorial linkages; public goods; uncompetitive markets; myopic planning horizonsand high discount rates; risk and uncertainty, irre...

The OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050 projects demographic and economic trends over the next four decades, using joint modelling by the OECD and the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. It assesses the impacts of these trends on the environment if we do not introduce more ambitious policies to better manage natural assets. It then examines some of the policies that could change tha...

The integration of environmental impacts in the conceptual process design procedure can be achieved by combining Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools with flowsheeting software and process integration techniques. However, current LCI databases assume a given unit process chain for each product or waste, and do not allow for the systematic synthesis of the process chain minimizing the environmental...

The aim of this thesis is to assess potential environmental impacts of electronic media distribution and consumption—from a life cycle perspective—as compared to those of print media. The thesis consists of a cover essay and two papers appended at the end of the thesis. The cover essay summarizes the papers and puts them in context. The main objectives of the thesis are twofold: to assess poten...

Life cycle assessment is applied to assess the environmental benefits and trade-offs of a solar-assisted heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system installed in the CIESOL building in Almeria (southeastern Spain). The environmental performance of this system is compared to that of a conventional HVAC system using a heat pump. The study evaluates these systems from cradle to grave,...

Corn production, and its associated inputs, is a relatively large source of greenhouse gas emissions and uses significant amounts of water and land, thus contributing to climate change, fossil fuel depletion, local air pollutants, and local water scarcity. As large consumers of this corn, corporations in the ethanol and animal protein industries are increasingly assessing and reporting sustaina...