Kaisa Grönman

• Doctor of Science
• Researcher at Lappeenranta – Lahti University of Technology LUT

Air transport serves as a fundamental driver of global economic growth, playing a pivotal role in generating employment opportunities, fostering international trade, fueling the tourism industry, and underpinning sustainable development on a global scale. It serves as a conduit for global connectivity and a catalyst for both social and economic pro...

The transition towards zero-carbon energy production is necessary to limit global warming. Smart energy systems have facilitated the control of demand-side resources to maintain the stability of the power grid and to provide balancing power for increasing renewable energy production. Virtual power plants are examples of demand–response solutions, w...

Purpose Carbon offsetting is one of the tools that companies can use to achieve their climate targets. The ability of a company to offset its emissions successfully depends on the availability and quality of guidance on the subject. This study explores how well existing offsetting guidelines equip corporations to achieve successful emissions offset...

Excessive nitrogen (N) uptake for nutrient use in food production and industry and increased N losses to the environment severely interfere with nutrient cycles and harm the environment and thus, closing N cycles through N recovery and recycling is required to improve N use efficiency. To quantify positive impacts enhancing N cycles, this study sug...

Cities play a pivotal role in climate change mitigation; however, the methodology to quantify actual emission reduction potential of climate interventions implemented by cities and regions has been lacking. The aim of this study is to create a framework to assess positive climate impacts of cities and regions by modifying the life-cycle assessment...

The need to reveal positive environmental consequences of offerings has risen as urgent climate actions are needed from companies. The environmental handprint approach was developed to indicate the positive environmental impacts of a solution offered to a client. The environmental handprint approach builds upon the previously published carbon handp...

Nutrients such as nitrogen are required to secure food production. However, nitrogen cycles have been disturbed by excess nitrogen intake and low nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), which have several environmental impacts. In order to address nitrogen-related issues, the magnitude of the problem and hotspots in the value chain must first be identified....

The integration of circular economy-based life cycle management (LCM) into product design and optimisation is essential for the transformation towards a circular economy (CE). However, companies often lack the expertise to adapt life-cycle design (LCD) thinking in their business operations and are in need of respective capacity building. To close t...

A universal mask use was instituted in healthcare during COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The extensive growth in the consumption of surgical masks and respirators brought new challenges. Healthcare workers had to get accustomed to wearing the facemasks continuously, raising concerns on the patient, occupational, and environmental safety. The aim of this...

Climate change is one of the critical challenges of our age and carbon footprint calculation has emerged as a standard method of estimating the global warming potential of products. In addition to climate change, environmental impacts related to resource use and emissions other than greenhouse gases require attention as well. Shifting the thinking...

Ambient air pollution is a global environmental challenge, especially in densely populated regions. In urban areas, road traffic is an important source of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, primarily due to exhaust gases. The adoption of paraffinic renewable diesel fuels for urban transportation has been suggested a...

The modern world is facing unprecedented population growth and increasing demand for consumer goods which, in turn, causes a demand for an increasing supply of materials. At the same time, technological advancement has enabled the development of novel materials suitable for a wide range of applications. Composites are a great example of such materi...

Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology is a standardized method for assessing the potential environmental impact of a product or service throughout its lifetime (ISO 14040). As such, it represents a valuable tool by which researchers and organizations can identify, and avoid, unnecessary environmental burdens that have a negative impact on the eco...

The novel life cycle assessment (LCA)-based carbon handprint indicator represents a potential carbon footprint reduction that producers/products create for customers who use the(ir) product instead of a baseline product. The research question is how to consider a situation in which multiple customers use a product for different purposes to provide...

This study examines the generation and treatment of disposable single-use paper cups at Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) campus located in Finland. The study was carried out within the LUT campus considering take-away venues and the waste collection system, with the intersection of the local waste treatment system. The University was con...

Food production processes may have both positive and negative environmental sustainability impacts. This makes decision-making challenging in the transition towards more sustainable food production systems. In this paper, a new method for presenting environmental impacts in the context of planetary boundaries is demonstrated. This will help food an...

The European Commission's ambitious construction and demolition waste (CDW) material recovery target has placed pressure on Finland to increase its CDW material recovery rate. It has been identified that using CDW fractions, e.g. waste wood, plastic, mineral wool and plasterboard, as raw materials for wood polymer composites (WPCs) may help in reac...

This study addresses the challenges in ensuring energy efficiency and high indoor climate quality with efficient use of public money in the municipal building procurement process. Energy efficient municipal building procurement provides a significant leverage when steering the built environment towards the low-carbon economy targets of the EU. Muni...

Climate change is one of the critical challenges of our age and carbon footprint calculation has emerged as a standard method of estimating the global warming potential of products. However, shifting the thinking from negative to positive – from causers to reducers of greenhouse gases – is the key to solving this pressing challenge. The carbon han...

The capacity to calculate and communicate the beneficial environmental impact of products and services is lacking in scientific guidelines. To fill this gap, this article presents a new approach for calculating the carbon handprint of products. The core of the suggested approach involves comparing the carbon footprint of an improved product with th...

This paper proposes an extension for feasibility assessment of residential energy (heat and electricity) supply solutions in an operational environment undergoing major changes. In order to improve the life cycle economy of the energy supply, the design has to accommodate technological, economic, and regulatory changes in operational environment ov...

Permanent link to document: http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-335-227-8 The purpose of this report is to identify and quantify potential waste materials for rematerialization in the South Karelia region. The Kompotek re-materialization pilot plant utilizes various waste materials, which mainly originates from construction and demolition (C&D) activiti...

Thoroughly considering and optimizing packaging systems can avoid food loss and waste. We suggest a number of issues that must be explored and review the associated challenges. Five main issues were recognized through the extensive experience of the authors and engagement of multiple stakeholders. The issues promoted are classified as follows: (1)...

This study focuses on commercial waste, which has received less attention than household waste in regards to greenhouse gas emission research. First, the global warming potential (GWP) of commercial waste management was calculated. Second, the impacts of different waste fractions and the processes of waste management were recognised. Third, the key...

Distributed production of energy is an opportunity that strongly affects the Finnish regional economy. Bioenergy could potentially provide one third of all energy produced in Finland. There are regional differences in its potential and regional economic impacts in terms of its use. The largest impacts on employment and economy would be in Northern...

Improving the quality and productivity of academic teaching is a continuous challenge. To respond to it, the study platform of a graduate level course on design of turbomachinery was changed from blended education to problem based learning (PBL). The main idea behind PBL is to let the students define the solved problem themselves and study what the...

Energy costs typically dominate the life-cycle costs of centrifugal compressors used in various industrial and municipal processes, making the compressor an attractive target for energy efficiency improvements. This study considers the achievable energy savings of using three different diffuser types in a centrifugal compressor supporting a typical...

The ongoing trend in the public sector is to make more sustainable procurements by taking into account the impacts throughout the entire life cycle of the procurement. Despite the trend, the only deciding factor can still be the total costs. This article answers the question of how greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions should be taken into account in muni...

Deinking sludge, which is generated in large quantities and landfilled, poses a serious threat not only to the environment and society, but to economy as well. The economic damage results from the missed opportunity to utilize sludge as alternative raw material or fuel and especially because of landfill fees and pressure to increase it. Literature...

This paper examines the environmental impacts of food waste and the influence that packaging alternatives can have on causing food waste. This paper presents the results of three life cycle assessment case studies on packed food products. The life cycle assessments were conducted for ham, dark bread and Soygurt drink (fermented soy-based drink). In...

Meeting the needs of both present and future generations forms the foundation of sustainable development. Concern about food demand is increasing alongside the continuously growing population. In the pursuit of food security preventing food waste is one solution avoiding the negative environmental impacts that result from producing food unneces...

Abstract Purpose The year-round supply of fresh fruit and vegetables in Europe requires a complex logistics system. In this study, the most common European fruit and vegetable transport packaging systems; namely single-use wooden and cardboard boxes and multi -use re-useable plastic crates; are analyzed and compared considering environmental, econo...

The environmental impacts of packages have been found to be relatively small compared with the food items they contain. Furthermore, from the environmental and operational point of view, the most significant task of the package is to protect the product, which is important to acknowledge in the packaging design process. This study introduces a guid...

FutuPackEKO2010-hankkeessa tutkittiin pakattujen elintarvikkeiden ja niiden erilaisten pakkausvaihtoehtojen ympäristövaikutuksia. Asiaa lähestyttiin kolmen elinkaaritapaustutkimuksen avulla. Monista aiemmista elintarvikkeiden ympäristövaikutustutkimuksista poiketen myös kotitalouksissa mahdollisesti syntyvä tuotehävikki ja sitä kautta turhasta elin...

This article presents the results from life cycle assessment case studies of packed food products made in the Futupack2010EKO Project, where environmental impacts of different food packaging options were investigated. Also environmental impact scenarios resulting from the unutilised food supply caused by food wasted in households as a function of d...

Proceedings, Vol.1, 507-512 lcafood2010. VII International Conference on Life Cycle Assessment in the Agri-food Sector, Università degli Studi di Bari, Aldo Moro, 22 - 24 Sept. 2010

17th IAPRI World Conference on Packaging, Tianjin, China, 12 - 15 Oct. 2010