Beatriz Rivela

inViable Life Cycle Thinking. Scientific-Creative Agency · Science

El presente estudio investiga el impacto ambiental y la potencial aplicación del Jacinto de Agua (Eichhornia Crassipes) en el embalse Baba, Ecuador, abordando sus efectos negativos en la biodiversidad y los recursos hídricos y proponiendo su reutilización en la industria de la construcción. Se emplea un enfoque multidisciplinario para desarrollar m...

En Ecuador se desechan anualmente más de 2.400.000 neumáticos, muchos de ellos terminan en terrenos baldíos, orillas de carreteras, o cuerpos de agua, por consiguiente, se genera contaminación; esta cantidad va en aumento cada año. Este tipo de cauchos de neumáticos requiere mucho tiempo para degradarse naturalmente, por lo que permanecen durante l...

En el diseño arquitectónico del futuro será de especial atención el consumo de energía, el confort térmico y la satisfacción de los miembros de ese espacio en un contexto fuertemente condicionado por los retos de sostenibilidad. Esta investigación aborda un análisis comparativo entre el sistema constructivo de bahareque y las paredes hechas de ladr...

Introducción: el presente estudio tiene como objetivo brindar recomendaciones de diseño bioclimáticas pasivas para la ciudad de Tena, caracterizado por ser un clima mega térmico lluvioso. Metodología: la metodología aplicada se basó en el registro de las variables climáticas (temperatura, radiación solar, humedad relativa, velocidad del viento y pr...

Este estudio fue financiado por Latitud R y se realizó en el marco del Convenio Interinstitucional de Cooperación entre Fundación Avina y la Secretaría de Ambiente del Distrito Metropolitano de Quito, contando con la participación activa de la Federación Nacional de Recicladores de Base de Ecuador, RENAREC. Extendemos un agradecimiento especial a t...

El capítulo presenta las perspectivas y reflexiones del libro, centrado en los aspectos metodológicos claves para la adecuada aplicación de los enfoques de ciclo de vida a la gestión de los recursos hídricos.

The sustainability assessment of wine production under a life cycle perspective has rising growing interest since the first studies were carried out in 2001. The first part of this chapter is devoted to the revision of previous research on the application of the life cycle perspective to wine chain to provide an overview of key methodological aspec...

This chapter establishes a baseline of ideas of what Life Cycle Thinking means: going beyond the traditional focus, understanding and including the whole environmental, social, and economic implications of decision-making processes to identify potential conflicts, synergies, and trade-offs. The life cycle methodologies for sustainability assessment...

La ineficiencia y opacidad en la gestión de los mal llamados "desechos" en nuestro modelo económico lineal genera graves problemas de contaminación y reclama un serio cuestionamiento de las prácticas actuales. Las personas que realizan reciclaje de base, principalmente mujeres, constituyen una pieza clave en el sistema: la mitad de los materiales q...

Electricity is the main energy carrier in today's society and plays a vital role in a sustainable future. Based on the Ecuadorian experience, the goal of this study is to analyze the environmental performance of current and forecasted scenarios of electricity generation and supply using life cycle methods, as a basis to discuss the appropriateness...

The goal of this publication is to support countries in developing and implementing roadmaps and action plans to establishing national LCA databases. Such roadmaps are a practical tool to raise and align the support and multi-stakeholder efforts required to generate, structure, and disseminate LCA data while pursuing interoperability with other dat...

El objetivo de esta publicación es dar soporte y proporcionar directrices para ayudar a los países a desarrollar e implementar hojas de ruta y planes de acción para establecer bases de datos nacionales de ACV. Las hojas de ruta son una herramienta práctica para fortalecer y alinear el apoyo y los esfuerzos que se requieren por parte de los diferent...

El Análisis de Ciclo de Vida constituye una piedra angular para proporcionar información veraz a los tomadores de decisiones, tanto en el ámbito de la política pública como del sector privado, pero la disponibilidad de datos de inventario continua siendo muy limitada y representa una barrera para la aplicación de los enfoques de ciclo de vida en el...

Non-renewable technologies still play a significant role in the electricity generation mix of most countries. Thus, relevant up-to-date environmental data are needed to provide a good understanding of the environmental consequences of the fossil fuel electricity generation technologies. The focus of this work is to examine the fossilbased electrici...

Viable implementation of building energy-efficiency policies is inevitable to mitigate climate change, above all as buildings account for around 40% of the world’s energy consumption. Although some 75% of all buildings in Europe are energy-inefficient, only 0.4-1.2% of the whole stock is renovated each year. The greatest challenge for the coming de...

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a highly interdisciplinary field that requires knowledge from different domains to be gathered and interpreted together. Although there are relatively few major data sources for LCA, the data themselves are presented with highly heterogeneous formats, interfaces, and distribution mechanisms. The lack of agreement amon...

It is widely known that the improvement of the energy performance of the existing building stock is a current priority action. This paper presents a methodological approach for the comparative assessment of retrofitting solutions, with the aim of contributing to retrofitting decision-making, considering both the environmental and economic impacts t...

La intención de este texto no es plantear un marco general de transformación de los sistemas universitarios, ni establecer una hoja de ruta concreta. Partiendo de una breve descripción de los síntomas de la crisis de los modelos tradicionales, nuestra pretensión es esbozar los retos que un modelo universitario debe enfrentar en el siglo XXI y dibuj...

The aim of the present research is to characterise the international scene in the field of building refurbishment, by thoroughly reviewing the literature relating to building renovation and systematising the results according to the different aspects considered by the authors. Even though there is certain consensus with respect to the criteria for...

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the study of the environmental impact of products taking into account their entire life-span and production chain. This requires gathering data from a variety of heterogeneous sources into a Life Cycle Inventory (LCI). LCI preparation involves the integration of observations and engineering models with reference data...

The environmental impacts of electricity generation has been studied from a life cycle perspective for the majority of industrialized countries. However, studies for developing countries are less frequent. In the Ecuadorian context, the project "Life Cycle Assessment of Ecuadorian Electricity Generation" has been recently developed by the National...

This policy paper examines the application of the principles of a social knowledge economy to the energy sector. The Introduction explains the importance of the energy sector, the general principles underlying this policy document and the concept of the knowledge economy, underlining the distinction between capitalist knowledge economies and social...

The building sector is one of the key consumers of energy worldwide. Thus, the retrofitting of existing buildings provides excellent opportunities for reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. This paper presents a critical review of the research undertaken on housing retrofits and discusses the approaches driving the assessment of...

El presente documento parte de un análisis de las políticas energéticas en Ecuador y de las necesidades del país en el contexto de los límites biofísicos del planeta, como base para proponer orientaciones y directrices estratégicas de política pública en el ámbito energético, así como un conjunto de casos y proyectos ilustrativos de las medidas pro...

La ilusión de la Ciudad parte de una actividad colectiva, ciudadana y multidisciplinaria, su riqueza está en la polifonía; en distintas perspectivas, competencias, conocimientos, edades, géneros, etcéteras, preguntándose por la ciudad. En la lógica de la complejidad, desde la realidad local, cuencana –ecuatoriana, sin descartar la experiencia y la...

The aim of the present article is to highlight the importance of implementing prospective analysis methods in the Ecuadorian energy sector planning system, in order to generate information that will be used as an input for decision making towards the investment necessary for achieving energy sovereignty and sustainability in the context of the ener...

The main objective of this work is to provide a good understanding of the different aspects of social oriented dwellings in Ecuador. Life cycle thinking has been considered as the methodological framework to perform a multicriteria sustainability analysis. The energy performance of four continental models of dwelling was estimated by simulating eac...

The Galapagos Islands are one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet. Maritime transport there has serious effects, as occurred with the fuel tanker Jessica grounded on Shiavioni reef at the entrance of Wreck Bay, Isla San Cristóbal, on 16 January 2001. The vessel oil spilled approximately 240,000 gallons of fuel oil consisting of 160,000 gallo...

La edificación es un sector de enorme influencia en la evolución del consumo de energía y las emisiones de CO2. Teniendo en cuenta que en estos momentos hay 3,5 millones de viviendas vacías y que los próximos años no va a haber un aumento en la demanda de vivienda nueva, la rehabilitación sostenible del parque residencial existente es una tarea pri...

La edificación es un sector de enorme influencia en la evolución del consumo de energía y las emisiones de CO2. En estos momentos en España hay casi tres millones y medio de viviendas vacías y según datos del Instituto Nacional de Estadística no se prevé un aumento en la demanda de nueva vivienda para los próximos años. Resulta evidente que actuar...

Life cycle thinking has been considered by Ecuadorian government to play a principal role in the definition of sustainable policies on energy efficiency. Nowadays, hydropower remains the most important source of renewable electricity supply and it is expected to have a key contribution to the electricity mix in the future, according to the Ecuadori...

En un momento en el que la proyección del consumo de energía a nivel global y los efectos ambientales derivados constituyen una grave problemática que ha de ser urgentemente abordada, el objetivo del presente trabajo reside en proporcionar un breve panorama del sector transporte, poniendo de manifiesto su relevancia y esbozando las líneas estratégi...

En los próximos años, el principal reto del sector de la construcción reside en la rehabilitación sostenible del parque inmobiliario. En muchas ciudades de España existe un tejido muy específico sobre el que es necesario intervenir: los barrios de bloque abierto construidos en el periodo de la posguerra. Este artículo parte de un estudio del parqu...

Sustainability criteria application must be understood as the essential procedure for the necessary restructuring of the construction sector, which mobilizes 10% of the world economy, accounting for more than one third of the consumption of the world's resources, around 30 - 40% of energy consumption and emissions of greenhouse gases, 30-40% of was...

In the field of construction LCA has been used essentially to design building products ecologically, comparing different options, addressing a function with different materials, and identifying which phases in the life cycle cause a greater environmental impact. The LCA of construction materials, products and elements will help architects decide wh...

Sustainability criteria application must be understood as the essential procedure for the necessary restructuring of the construction sector, which mobilizes 10% of the world economy, accounting for more than one third of the consumption of the world's resources, around 30 - 40% of energy consumption and emissions of greenhouse gases, 30-40% of was...

A proper understanding of the concept of sustainability requires an approach based on a critical reading of the international regulatory framework regarding environment and sustainability. While the concept of sustainability is easily understood, bringing it to the policy level presents many difficulties, accentuated in the case of the construction...

LCA has been traditionally concerned with product design, but by limiting the functional unit of an LCA to a building material or component, a number of functions that should be provided by buildings cannot be properly taken into account. Nowadays there is an intensive standardization process on building environmental assessment and CEN/TC 350 is d...

The construction industry is one of the less sustainable activities on the planet: with a consumption of 40% of the materials entering the global economy and the generation of 40–50% of the global output of greenhouse gases. The biggest environmental impact caused by buildings is generated during their use phase due to the energy consumption for th...

Long-term sustainability represents a challenging goal for the construction industry. Green roofs can be used to create more environmentally sustainable buildings. However, up-to-date environmental data are needed to allow the comparison of green roofs with conventional solutions. In this work, the importance of green roofs related to the environme...

Las crisis que estamos viviendo están relacionadas con una errada concepción de desarrollo: es necesario y urgente reequilibrar el sistema-mundo, partiendo de una nueva concepción de las ideas de cooperación internacional, desarrollo, cultura y medio ambiente. Un análisis comparativo de la normativas existentes pone de manifiesto que, a pesar de ha...

The use of green roofs has increased noticeably in recent years in many countries, but relevant up-to-date environmental data is needed to allow the environmental comparison of green roofs with conventional solutions. This will help us to assess their behaviour and analyse if, just because they have vegetation, we can call them “ecological roofs”....

The tendency from the beginning of the 20th century until the early 1980s was to regard traditional or vernacular architecture as primitive and traditional materials have been associated with poverty. This is what happened with the most important traditional material of Colombia: Guadua angustifolia. The main focus of this study is to provide compr...

Me rebelaré contra todo lo que hay en mí que me aleja de ti… Estás palabras caracterizan EGO. LA REVOLUCIÓN INVISIBLE, una original campaña para la prevención de la contaminación y del cambio climático, promovida por CIMA -Científicos por el Medio Ambiente-, asociación sin ánimo de lucro de científicos e investigadores de toda España, y subvencion...

Nowadays, an increasing number of designers, developers and building users is aware of the environmental impact associated to building sector and more environmentally sustainable design and construction strategies are being encouraged. The objective of this paper is to assess the importance of bioclimatic design related to the environmental impact...

Wood is the most important renewable material. The management of wood appears to be a key action to optimise the use of resources and to reduce the environmental impact associated with mankind’s activities. Wood-based products must be analysed considering the two-fold nature of wood, commonly used as a renewable material or regenerative fuel. Relev...

Volcanic soil can be used to remove metals from wastewaters. Once used, it is disposed in landfills. The utilization of this material in the cement industry as an alternative raw material was evaluated using life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. This possibility has been studied from an environmental point of view in a Chilean cement facility, r...

One of the most commonly used elements in ephemeral architecture is a particleboard panel. These types of wood products are produced from wood wastes and they are used in temporary constructions such as trade fairs. Once the event is over, they are usually disposed into landfills. This paper intends to assess the environmental effects related to th...

Wood has many applications and it is often in competition with other materials. Chipboard is the most common item of wood-based materials and it has attained the highest economical development in recent years. Relevant up-to-date environmental data are needed to allow the environmental comparison of wood with other materials. There are several exam...

A Chilean leather tanning industry (tannery) was studied in terms of input/output (I/O) analysis of beamhouse, tanyard and retanning processes. The physical-chemical characterization of 19 streams were investigated. Streams from the beamhouse process and some streams from the retanning process were found to have high organic contents ranging from 2...

A representative leather tannery industry in a Latin American developing country has been studied from an environmental point of view, including both technical and economic analysis. Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology has been used for the quantification and evaluation of the impacts of the chromium tanning process as a basis to propose further...

The process of transforming animal skin to leather is characterised by a large consumption of fresh water and the generation of a high quantity of solid waste. As a consequence of the high water consumption tanneries are responsible for a huge quantity of waste water containing chromium, suphide and/or organic matter. In developing countries where...