Tomas Ekvall

• Professor
• Professor (Associate) at Chalmers University of Technology

Various regional and international standards have been developed to measure the environmental impacts of transportation fuels and minimize greenwashing and misinformation regarding their sustainability. These frameworks offer standardized methods and calculation guidelines for fuel producers to be able to verify compliance with predefined sustainab...

Biofuel producers and other commodity suppliers are increasingly affected by conflicting rules for life cycle assessment (LCA). They may get multiple requests for LCAs to be used in various contexts, which require the application of different methodological approaches that vary in scope, system boundaries, data demand, and more. This results in inc...

Purpose Composites consist of at least two merged materials. Separation of these components for recycling is typically an energy-intensive process with potentially significant impacts on the components’ quality. The purpose of this article is to suggest how allocation for recycling of products manufactured from composites can be handled in life cyc...

Increasing material circularity is high on the agenda of the European Union in order to decouple environmental impacts and economic growth. While life cycle assessment (LCA) is useful for quantifying the associated environmental impacts, consistent LCA modeling of the large-scale changes arising from policy targets addressing material circularity (...

When recycling is beneficial for the environment, results from a life cycle assessment (LCA) should give incentives to collection for recycling and also to the use of recycled material in new products. Many approaches for modeling recycling in LCA assign part of the environmental benefits of recycling to the product where the recycled material is u...

An increased understanding of the existing markets for recycled (secondary) metals, including interactions with virgin material production, is essential for public decision-making processes concerning the implementation and evaluation of different categories of recycling policies. In this paper, we review the existing literature with the purpose of...

The article entitled ‘Review: the availability of life-cycle studies in Sweden’ by Croft and colleagues (January 2019, volume 24, issue 1, pages 6–11) has puzzled many researchers in Sweden. The stated purpose of the article is to review the availability of water and carbon footprinting studies and life-cycle assessment (LCA) studies in Sweden. Des...

Despite general agreement on the importance of adjusting each life cycle assessment (LCA) to its goal, the methodological choices in previously published LCAs on wastewater and sludge management systems are surprisingly similar, even when the information sought in the studies most likely differ. We argue that the potential of LCA may not currently...

Policymakers worldwide are promoting the use of bio-based products as part of sustainable development. Nonetheless, there are concerns that the bio-based economy may undermine the sustainability of the transition, e.g., from the overexploitation of biomass resources and indirect impacts of land use. Adequate assessment methods with a broad systems...

Construction of new low-energy buildings (LEB) areas is attracting attention as a climate mitigation measure. Heat can be supplied to buildings in these areas through individual solutions, through a small, on-site heat network, or through a heat connection to a close-by district-heating (DH) system. The choice between these options affects the ener...

There is now a strong demand in Sweden for construction of new low energy buildings (LEB) areas. There are essentially three options for heat supply to these LEB areas: “individual”, “on-site” and “large heat network” supply. The chosen option is of strategic societal interest. Thus, this study aims at comparing the long-term system cost of the thr...

The ongoing EU FP7 project DYNAMIX aims to develop and assess dynamic policy mixes that achieve absolute decoupling between resource use and well-being. One of the policy instruments we assess is a feebate scheme for selected product categories. This instrument combines a fee for the environmentally worst products in the category and an economic in...

The interest in the transition to a bio-based economy is growing worldwide, as it is seen as a means to reach sustainability goals, energy independence and the development of competitive, innovative bio-based products. Nonetheless, there are concerns that the expectations created for the bio-based economy may undermine the sustainability of the tra...

Sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions cause acidification and human health problems which are, despite present policy instruments, projected to remain even after 2030 in Europe. Additional instruments are needed to solve the problems, and impact analysis of already used policy instruments would contribute to the development of new effective instruments....

The need for new policy instruments supporting the on-going transition from end-of-pipe waste treatment to resource management has been recognized in European policy. Instruments need to be carefully assessed before implementation to promote the desired changes and avoid problem shifting. Mathematical models may assist policy makers in such assessm...

Increasing material use efficiency is important to mitigate future supply risks and minimize environmental impacts associated with the production of the materials. The policy mix presented in this paper aims to contribute to reducing the use of virgin metals in the EU by 80% by 2050 without significant shifting of burdens to other material resource...

Purpose This discussion article aims to highlight two problematic aspects in the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook: its guidance to the choice between attributional and consequential modeling and to the choice between average and marginal data as input to the life cycle inventory (LCI) analysis. Methods We analyze the I...

The poster provides a brief overview of the Dynamix project results on modelling physical flows with environmental modelling techniques for Deliverable 6.2.

The poster provides a brief overview of the Dynamix project results on modelling physical flows with environmental modelling techniques for Deliverable 6.1.

The use of EH (excess heat) in DH (district heating) may contribute to increased sustainability through reduced use of primary energy. In Sweden, while biomass has become the most important DH fuel during the last decades, there is a significant amount of industrial EH that could be utilised in the DH systems if it could be shown to be an economica...

This report presents quantitative estimates of the environmental significance of changes in material flows that can result from specific instruments in the three policy mixes designed. We applied life cycle assessment (LCA), carbon footprinting, and material pinch analysis to estimate the potential resource and environmental benefits of the key ins...

Increasing material use efficiency is important to mitigate future supply risks and minimize environmental impacts associated with the production of the materials. The policy mix presented in this paper aims to reduce the use of virgin metals in the EU by 80% by 2050. We used a heuristic framework and a systems perspective for designing the policy...

This study will review the environmental implications of dynamic policy objectives outlined in the EU-FP7 Project DYNAMIX - Decoupling growth from resource use and its environmental impacts to address changes in food consumption, reductions in food waste and a change in waste handling systems. Data from FAOSTAT for the European Union with a base ye...

Purpose: This paper aims to clarify the application of a land-use baseline in attributional life cycle assessment (ALCA) for product systems involving land use, through consideration of the fundamental purpose of ALCA. Currently, there is no clear view in the literature whether a baseline should be used when accounting for environmentally relevant...

The current trend in biomass conversion technologies is toward more efficient utilization of biomass feedstock in multiproduct biorefineries. Many life-cycle assessment (LCA) studies of biorefinery systems have been performed but differ in how they use the LCA methodology. Based on a review of existing LCA standards and guidelines, this paper provi...

https://www.norden.org/en/publication/epr-systems-and-new-business-models-1

EH (excess heat) is an important, but yet partially unused, source for DH (district heating). This study analyses energy system and CO2 emission impacts at a regional scale of integration of EH from a large chemical cluster and local DH systems. The assessment is carried out with the optimising energy systems model MARKAL_WS, in which the DH system...

Many materials can only be recycled a limited number of times because of physical degradation (paper and board), chemical degradation (plastics), or impurities (several metals). Management of the quality of materials is a key to high long-term recycling rates and, hence, to the sustainable future. This key includes several elements, such as: retain...

The purpose of the research program Towards Sustainable Waste Management has been to assemble, develop and evaluate ideas for policy instruments for a more sustainable waste management. The waste management should contribute to reducing the environmental impact of the society, for example through reduced waste quantities and increased recycling. It...

The use of excess heat (EH) in district heating (DH) may contribute to increased sustainability through reduced use of primary energy. In Sweden biomass has become an important DH fuel during the last decades. Currently, there is a strong focus not only on use of biomass in heat and power generation but also for the transport sector. Competition fo...

The aim of this paper is to suggest and discuss policy instruments that could lead towards a more sustainable waste management. The paper is based on evaluations from a large scale multi-disciplinary Swedish research program. The evaluations focus on environmental and economic impacts as well as social acceptance. The focus is on the Swedish waste...

A thorough assessment of the sustainability performance of a product, a system, or a decision requires expertise on environmental, economic, and social aspects. In an assessment that involves researchers from different disciplines, communication is challenging because of different background knowledge, terminology, research traditions, etc. In the...

The purpose of the research program Towards Sustainable Waste Management has been to collect, develop and evaluate ideas for policy instruments for a more sustainable waste management. The waste management should contribute to reducing the environmental impact of the society, for example through reduced waste quantities and increased recycling. It...

Målet med forskningsprogrammet Hållbar Avfallshantering har varit att samla, utveckla och utvärdera idéer till styrmedel som kan bidra till en mer hållbar avfallshantering. Med det menar vi en avfallshantering som minskar samhällets miljöpåverkan, exempelvis genom att avfallsmängderna minskar och återvinningen ökar. För att vara hållbart får avfall...

This paper describes and analyses challenges for the further development of Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA) and other LCA-related tools from a governance perspective, considering their application context in policy and business and the linkages between policy and science. It will be investigated how LCA can be further developed to make it more relevant f...

An ongoing Swedish research program, Towards Sustainable Waste Management (TOSUWAMA), funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency during 2006-2012, aims at formulating and assessing policy instruments that may contribute to the development of a more sustainable waste management, shifting waste management upwards in the waste hierarchy. Th...

Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) has developed fast over the last three decades. Whereas LCA developed from merely energy analysis to a comprehensive environmental burden analysis in the 1970s, full-fledged life cycle impact assessment and life cycle costing models were introduced in the 1980s and 1990 s, and social-LCA and particularly co...

The energy system plays an essential role in accounting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from waste management systems and waste technologies. This paper focuses on energy use and energy recovery in waste management and outlines how these aspects should be addressed consistently in a GHG perspective. Essential GHG emission data for the most common...

An ongoing Swedish research program, Towards Sustainable Waste Management (TOSUWAMA), funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency during 2006-2012, aims at formulating new waste policy instruments that may contribute to the development of a more sustainable waste management, shifting waste management towards the upper levels of the waste...

Life Cycle Assessment is a tool to assess the environmental impacts and resources used throughout a product's life cycle, i.e., from raw material acquisition, via production and use phases, to waste management. The methodological development in LCA has been strong, and LCA is broadly applied in practice. The aim of this paper is to provide a review...

CALCAS is the EU 6th Framework Co-ordination Action with the objective of defining research lines and proposals of networking for innovation in Life-Cycle Analysis for Sustainability. This Blue Paper consists of two parts: I) a description of a framework and a road map for a Life Cycle Sustainability Analysis (LCSA) including the ISO standard LCA a...

We refine and combine a set of existing, quantitative tools to investigate how different policy instruments affect the cost and environmental impacts of waste management in Sweden in the year 2030. The tools include the national waste statistics, a general equilibrium model of the Swedish economy, a systems engineering model of the Swedish waste-ma...

A number of different tools for analysing environmental impacts of different systems have been developed. These include procedural tools such as strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and environmental management systems (EMS) as well as analytical ones such as life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle costing (LCC), cost–benefit analysis (CBA) and...

Swedish waste prevention, corresponding to the outcome of US efforts in 1990-2000, would significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is primarily because of a slower growth in paper and board production. The environmental benefits of the waste prevention depend on the products and materials affected, and on the waste-prevention strategies....

Goal, Scope and Background The principal aim of this paper is to evaluate the environmental attributes and consequences of a ‘rehabilitation for residential redevelopment’ scenario. It is contrasted to a non-intensive and low-cost ‘exposure minimization’ scenario, assumed to be the default intervention option to obtain compliance. This paper also a...

A tax on waste-to-energy incineration of fossil carbon in municipal solid waste from households was introduced in Sweden on July 1, 2006. The tax has led to higher incineration gate fees. One of the main purposes with the tax is to increase the incentive for recycling of materials, including biological treatment. We investigate whether and to what...

In assessments of waste management, life-cycle assessment (LCA) helps expanding the perspective beyond the waste management system itself. However, the applicability of LCA for waste management planning and policy-making is restricted by certain limitations, some of which are characteristics inherent to LCA methodology as such, and some of which ar...

Goal, Scope and Background. The primary goal of this paper is to present a LCI modelling approach that allows the inclusion of all three types of impacts. The approach is based on consequential LCA (CLCA) rather than more common attributional LCA (ALCA). In CLCA, system boundaries are expanded in order to include all significantly affected activiti...

A large number of methods and approaches that can be used for supporting waste management decisions at different levels in society have been developed. In this paper an overview of methods is provided and preliminary guidelines for the choice of methods are presented. The methods introduced include: Environmental Impact Assessment, Strategic Enviro...

The aim of this consequential life cycle assessment (LCA) is to compare district heating based on waste incineration with combustion of biomass or natural gas. The study comprises two options for energy recovery (combined heat and power (CHP) or heat only), two alternatives for external, marginal electricity generation (fossil lean or intense), and...

In assessments of the environmental impacts of waste management, life-cycle assessment (LCA) helps expanding the perspective beyond the waste management system. This is important, since the indirect environmental impacts caused by surrounding systems, such as energy and material production, often override the direct impacts of the waste management...

Various scenario typologies have been suggested in attempts to make the field of futures studies easier to overview. Our typology is based on the scenario user's need to know what will happen, what can happen, and/or how a predefined target can be achieved. We discuss the applicability of various generating, integrating and consistency techniques f...

Goal, Scope, Background. As of July 1st, 2006, lead will be banned in most solder pastes used in the electronics industry. This has called for environmental evaluation of alternatives to tin-lead solders. Our life cycle assessment (LCA) has two aims: (i) to compare attributional and consequential LCA methodologies, and (ii) to compare a SnPb solder...

Fjärrvärmesystemet expanderar fortfarande och det finns därför behov av nya investeringar. Ofta finns ett val mellan olika typer bränslen, där biobränsle, avfall och naturgas kan konkurrera. I denna studie har vi gjort en konsekvensorienterad livscykelanalys för att jämföra olika bränslen ur miljösynpunkt. I studien jämförs kraftvärme med bara fjär...

A district heating (DH) system usually covers a local heat market only. Each system is characterised by a unique size, load profile and set of heat supply technologies. This diversity makes it difficult to analyse changes in the DH sector of a country as a whole. In national energy systems modelling and in life cycle assessment (LCA), the DH system...

Prospective life cycle assessment (LCA) provides information on the environmental consequences of individual actions. Retrospective LCA provides information about the environmental properties of the life cycle investigated and of its subsystems. In this paper we analyse the links between the choice of methodology and different theories of normative...

The various issues surrounding the concept of life cycle assessment (LCA), which was developed from the idea of comprehensive environmental assessments of products. Many initiatives taken to harmonize LCA methodology have resulted in methodological guidelines that include different and often conflicting methodological recommendations. An effort to...

In the late 1990s, members of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) launched several international working groups with the task to discuss and, if possible, harmonise different aspects of the methodology for life-cycle assessment. The reports from these working groups were published in 2002–2005. Edited summaries of these re...

Between 1996 and 2002, the Swedish import of so-called yellow waste for energy recovery increased. The import mainly consisted of separated wood waste and mixes of used wood and paper and/or plastics that was combusted in district heat production plants (DHPPs). Some mixed waste was imported to waste incineration plants for energy recovery (10% of...

There are a large number of tools available for assessing environmental impacts and, thus, for generating environmental information that can be used for supporting decisions. In the first section of this chapter, a short overview of some tools is presented. In the second section, some aspects of one of these tools – Life Cycle Assessment (lca) – ar...

Sustainable development requires methods and tools to measure and compare the environmental impacts of human activities for the provision of goods and services (both of which are summarized under the term "products"). Environmental impacts include those from emissions into the environment and through the consumption of resources, as well as other i...

Recent targets for reduced amounts of waste to landfills in Sweden will result in a large increase in waste incineration with recovery of energy, used primarily for district heating. The aim of this study is to investigate what changes in the usage of other fuels and technologies for district heat production would be caused by this increase. A ques...

Goal, Scope and BackgroundA consequential life cycle assessment (LCA) is designed to generate information on the consequences of decisions. This paper includes a comprehensive presentation of the consequential approach to system boundaries, allocation and data selection. It is based on a text produced within the SETAC-Europe working group on scenar...

Waste management models have been developed worldwide since the late 1960s. The overall aim of the models is to assist decision makers who are facing a complex task in order to handle waste in a cost-efficient and environmentally sound way. International research publications regarding waste management models point out the major benefits to be thei...

In this paper, benefits from increasing cross-border cooperation under future CO2 commitments in the Nordic countries are examined and evaluated. Four cooperative strategies are analyzed and valued separately: cross-border electricity trade, cross-border emission-permit trade, the introduction of a trans-Nordic natural gas transmission grid, and, f...

The adequacy and feasibility of methods recommended for allocation by the current international standard on life cycle inventory analysis (LCI) are reviewed. The review is based on the view that an LCI should provide information on the environmental consequences of manipulating technological systems. On this basis, subdivision and allocation based...

The environmental aspects of different waste management options for paper materials are the subject of an ongoing debate. A large number of life cycle assessments have been performed in order to study the topic. The comparison between recycling and incineration with energy recovery is often in focus. Different studies have arrived at different conc...

Changes in the amount of recycled material delivered by, or used in, the life cycle of a product will affect the environmental burdens of other product life cycles. These indirect effects can potentially be taken into account through expansion of the system investigated to include the activities affected. Presently, the assessment of the indirect e...

The choice of system boundaries, allocation methods and data sources in a life cycle inventory analysis (LCI) depends on basic, ethical views. From the viewpoint of teleological situation ethics, an effect-oriented LCI - with system expansions and marginal data - provides relevant information. From the viewpoint of rule ethics, the methodological c...

This review is based on the view that a life cycle inventory analysis (LCI) should provide information on the consequences of our actions. System expansion is an adequate method when exported functions are affected. Otherwise, subdivision and allocation based on physical, causal relationships are adequate. Other approaches to the allocation problem...

Recycled material from the vehicle may replace a mix of virgin material, recycled material from other sources, and completely different types of material. The type of materials that are replaced depends on political constraints, the price elasticity etc. at the markets for recycled material. This paper presents a methodological approach to allocati...

This article is based on the work of the SETAC-Europe LCA Working Group ‘Scenario Development in LCA’, which has started its work in April 1998. The goal of the Working Group is to focus on the use of scenarios in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This article presents the results of the first phase of the Working Group. The previous definitions of scen...

Life cycle assessments carried out to assess paper recycling have arrived at different conclusions, partly due to methodological differences in the inventory analysis. Important methodological issues include the definition of system boundaries, allocation, assumptions and choice of data. Forestry, electricity production, recycling and final waste m...

A new approach to the allocation problem in open-loop recycling is introduced. The approach models the indirect effects of a change in the supply of, or demand for, the recycled material. This approach can be used for system expansion as well as for allocation.

Recently published life-cycle assessments (LCAs) on recycling and incineration with energy recovery of paper packaging materials are used as examples in order to discuss the usefulness of LCAs. The type of information that can typically be produced by an LCA is described. The reproducibility of LCAs is evaluated and reasons for possible discrepanci...

If the aim of an LCA is to support decisions or to generate and evaluate ideas for future decisions, the allocation procedure should generally be effect-oriented rather than cause-oriented. It is important that the procedure be acceptable to decision makers expected to use the LCA results. It is also an advantage if the procedure is easy to apply....