Anne-Marie BoulayPolytechnique Montréal · Department of Chemical Engineering
Anne-Marie Boulay
PhD
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68
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (68)
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology that quantifies potential environmental impacts for comparative purposes in a decision-making context. While potential environmental impacts from pollutant emissions into water are characterized in LCA, impacts from water unavailability are not yet fully quantified. Water use can make the resource unavai...
With the increasing global concern over plastics' environmental and human health impacts, the urgency for effective regulatory measures is evident. The UN Environment Assembly's initiative to establish an international, legally binding instrument via the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on Plastic Pollution marks a significant step tow...
The cosmetics industry is facing growing pressure to offer more sustainable products, which can be tackled by applying eco-design. This article aims to present the Sustainable Product Optimization Tool (SPOT) methodology developed by L’Oréal to eco-design its cosmetic products and the strategies adopted for its implementation while presenting the c...
PurposeThe international working group MariLCA has proposed a framework aiming towards integrating the impacts of plastic pollution in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). Filling one of the identified mechanisms, this paper proposes a harmonized LCIA framework for the development of mechanistic fate factors (FFs) and consequently characterization...
Viticulture needs to satisfy consumers' demands for environmentally sound grape and wine production while envisaging adaptation options to diminish the impacts of projected climate change on future productivity. However, the impact of climate change and the adoption of adaptation levers on the environmental impacts of future viticulture have not be...
Ongoing efforts focus on quantifying plastic pollution and describing and estimating the related magnitude of exposure and impacts on human and environmental health. Data gathered during such work usually follows a receptor perspective. However, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) represents an emitter perspective. This study examines existing data gatheri...
Purpose
An insufficient amount of available domestic water can lead to an increase in the occurrence of water-related diseases. No LCIA consensus has been reached on how to model the potential impacts on human health resulting from water use implying domestic water deprivation. Building on Boulay et al. (2011), this research work provides an update...
Despite the importance of estuaries as transition zones between freshwater and marine compartments, their role in the transport of microplastics is still unclear. This review analyzes the findings pertaining to the transport mechanisms and other factors that influence the fate of microplastics in estuaries. It was found that the concentration of mi...
To date, life cycle assessment (LCA) does not include a methodology for assessing the impacts of plastic litter leaked to the environment. This limits the applicability of LCA as a tool to compare the potential impacts of single‐use plastics and their alternatives on ecosystem quality and human health. As a contribution to tackle this issue, this w...
Purpose
Marine litter, mostly plastics, is a growing environmental problem. Environmental decision makers are beginning to take actions and implement regulations that aim to reduce plastic use and waste mismanagement. Nevertheless, life cycle assessment (LCA), a tool commonly used to assist environmental decision making, does not yet allow for cons...
Although it is not yet current practice in life cycle assessment, it is recommended that impact assessment methods be accompanied by their uncertainty data to better guide the decision maker. This work uses the best available information to assess uncertainty of the AWARE model for water scarcity and corresponding sensitivities of input parameters....
The FAO Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership organised a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to develop reference guidelines on water footprinting for livestock production systems and supply chains. The mandate of the TAG was to i) provide recommendations to monitor the environmental performance of feed and livestock sup...
Plastic litter of all sizes has been acknowledged as a serious threat to biodiversity, especially in the marine environment. The fact that life cycle assessment (LCA) does not properly consider these issues is a serious problem for the aspirations of LCA in the public sphere. This paper focuses on micro‐ and nano‐sized plastics (MNPs), which have t...
This report reviews 50 studies analyzing livestock water productivity carried out in various regions of the world from 1993 to 2018.
Purpose
LCA traditionally has been founded on the ceteris paribus principle, by which the assessed contribution is assumed not to affect the background state, i.e., being marginal. As LCA is increasingly used to assess interventions at larger scales (e.g., territory, sectors), it becomes necessary to provide adequate characterization factors. Apply...
In many regions and at the planetary scale, human pressures and resulting impacts on the environment exceed levels that natural systems can sustain. These pressures are caused by networks of human activities, which often extend across countries and continents due to global trade. This has led to an increasing requirement for methods that enable abs...
Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) links the emissions and resource abstractions of a product system or process to potential impacts on the environment through characterization factors (CF). For regionalized impact categories like water-use, the regional CFs can vary over several orders of magnitude within the same country. The aggregated country-...
Existing methods for applying the planetary boundary concept in life cycle assessment are not sufficiently spatially and temporally resolved. Here, we develop a new method for freshwater use based on the safe operating space (SOS) at watershed-level. The SOS is based on the concept of environmental flow requirements, which is the share of mean mont...
In order to perform a Water Scarcity Footprint (WSF), as per the ISO standard 14,046 (2014), it is necessary to multiply a volume of water consumed in a specific region, with the corresponding local water scarcity indicator. The use of these factors is recommended in priority at the native scale at which these factors were developed, which is the w...
The assessment of the water scarcity footprint of products emerged as an important step in supporting water management strategies. Among others, the AWARE methodology was published as a consensus-based indicator to perform such an assessment at a watershed level and monthly scale. The need to adopt such a detailed resolution, however, collides with...
These guidelines are a product of the Livestock Environmental Assessment and
Performance (LEAP) Partnership, a multi-stakeholder initiative whose goal is
to improve the environmental sustainability of livestock supply chains through
better methods, metrics and data.
Water is essential to life and crucial for agricultural food production. During
the...
Purpose
This paper addresses the need for a globally regionalized method for life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), integrating multiple state-of-the-art developments as well as damages on water and carbon areas of concern within a consistent LCIA framework. This method, named IMPACT World+, is the update of the IMPACT 2002+, LUCAS, and EDIP methods....
Purpose
While many examples have shown unsustainable use of freshwater resources, existing LCIA methods for water use do not comprehensively address impacts to natural resources for future generations. This framework aims to (1) define freshwater resource as an item to protect within the Area of Protection (AoP) natural resources, (2) identify rele...
Purpose
Guidance is needed on best-suited indicators to quantify and monitor the man-made impacts on human health, biodiversity and resources. Therefore, the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative initiated a global consensus process to agree on an updated overall life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) framework and to recommend a non-comprehensive list of...
This paper compares the water footprint profiles of four feedstocks used for biodiesel production: palm, soya, rapeseed and waste cooking oil (WCO). The profiles include: (a) a water scarcity footprint related to freshwater consumption impacts and (b) a water quality degradation footprint related to freshwater degradation impacts. The water scarcit...
Many new damage oriented methods have recently been developed to address environmental consequences of water consumption in life cycle assessment (LCA). However, such methods can only partially be compared and combined, since their modelling structure and metrics are inconsistent. Moreover, they focus on specific water sources (e.g. river) and miss...
Purpose
Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been used to assess freshwater-related impacts according to a new water footprint framework formalized in the ISO 14046 standard. To date, no consensus-based approach exists for applying this standard and results are not always comparable when different scarcity or stress indicators are used for characterizat...
This chapter is dedicated to the third phase of an LCA study, the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) where the life cycle inventory’s information on elementary flows is translated into environmental impact scores. In contrast to the three other LCA phases, LCIA is in practice largely automated by LCA software, but the underlying principles, models...
Freshwater is a unique resource essential to both human life and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Water resource management plays a critical role in sustainability. While life cycle assessment (LCA) has been applied to model direct water pollution impacts such as freshwater eutrophication, acidification or human and aquatic (eco)toxicity; potent...
The Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework represents a significant advance in specifying the ecological constraints on human development. However, to enable decision-makers in business and public policy to respect these constraints in strategic planning, the PB framework needs to be developed to generate practical tools. With this objective in mind,...
Water footprinting has emerged as an important approach to assess water use related effects from consumption of goods and services. Assessment methods are proposed by two different communities, the Water Footprint Network (WFN) and the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) community. The proposed methods are broadly similar and encompass both the computation...
Reducing the pressure on the environment related to consumption and production in human systems was identified as a priority in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by the heads of state and government, and requires the development of products and services with reduced impacts to human health and the environment. In this sense, guidance is n...
p>Purpose: Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been used to assess freshwater-related impacts according to a new water footprint framework formalized in the ISO 14046 standard. To date, no consensus-based approach exists for applying this standard and results are not always comparable when different scarcity or stress indicators are used for characteri...
This chapter is dedicated to the third phase of an LCA study, the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) where the life cycle inventory's information on elementary flows is translated into environmental impact scores. In contrast to the three other LCA phases, LCIA is in practice largely automated by LCA software, but the underlying principles, models...
Purpose Guidance is needed on best suited indicators to quantify and monitor the man-made impacts on human health, biodiversity and resources. Therefore, the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative initiated a global consensus process to agree on an updated overall life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) framework and to recommend a non-comprehensive list of...
Purpose
Anthropic water uses can affect aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems through various pathways. To address these impacts in life cycle assessment, an array of impact assessment methods can be applied. The currently well-known review of methods carried out by the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative’s WULCA working group (Kounina et al. Int J Life...
Purpose
The life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) guidance flagship project of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) Life Cycle Initiative aims at providing global guidance and building scientific consensus on environmental LCIA indicators. This paper presents the progress made since...
Purpose
As a class of environmental metrics, footprints have been poorly defined, have shared an unclear relationship to life cycle assessment (LCA), and the variety of approaches to quantification have sometimes resulted in confusing and contradictory messages in the marketplace. In response, a task force operating under the auspices of the UNEP/S...
A series of three expert workshops, including non- LCA experts from hydrology, eco-hydrology, and water supply science, was organized specifically on the topic of a generic stress-based midpoint indicator. They were held in Zurich on 10th September, in San Francisco on 5th October and in Tsukuba on 27th October 2014. In total 49 experts attended. T...
Purpose The integration of different water impact assessment methods within a water footprinting concept is still ongoing, and a limited number of case studies have been published presenting a comprehensive study of all water-related impacts. Although industries are increasingly interested in assessing their water footprint beyond a simple inventor...
The impacts of water use have rapidly gained attention in Life Cycle Assessment(LCA)since around 2007. The WULCA(Water Use in LCA)working group has taken initiatives to lead discussions of assessing impacts related to water use and the development of consensus and recommendations. The working group is composed of various international experts and s...
Purpose: The shortage of agricultural water from freshwater sources is a growing concern because of the relatively large amounts needed to sustain food production for an increasing population. In this context, an impact assessment methodology is indispensable for the identification and assessment of the potential consequences of freshwater consumpt...
In the past decade, several methods have emerged to quantify water scarcity, water availability and the human health impacts of water use. It was recommended that a quantitative comparison of methods should be performed to describe similar impact pathways, namely water scarcity and human health impacts from water deprivation. This is precisely the...
Introduction
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology that quantifies potential environmental impacts for comparative purposes in a decision-making context. While potential environmental impacts from pollutant emissions into water are characterized in LCA, impacts from water unavailability are not yet fully quantified. While water use can make...
PurposeIn recent years, several methods have been developed which propose different freshwater use inventory schemes and impact assessment characterization models considering various cause–effect chain relationships. This work reviewed a multitude of methods and indicators for freshwater use potentially applicable in life cycle assessment (LCA). Th...
Impacts from water unavailability are not yet fully quantified in LCA. Water displacement from the original water body (consumption)
or quality degradation of released water reduces water availability to human users. This can potentially affect human health
through diseases or malnutrition or, if financial resources are available, adaptation can o...
PurposeAs impact assessment methods for water use in LCA evolve, so must inventory methods. Water categories that consider water
quality must be defined within life cycle inventory. The method presented here aims to establish water categories by source,
quality parameter and user.
Materials and methodsWater users were first identified based on the...