Supplementary Material_Visualization Supported Corporate Decision Making for Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

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Supplementary Material for the Study:
Visualization Supported Corporate Decision Making for Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment
– Illustrated Using a Case Study for Mortar Manufacturer Selecting a Sustainable Packaging
System for Self-leveling Compounds
Authors: [1*Daniel Philipp Müller, 1Michael Hiete https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6379-3480]
Affiliation(s): [1Department of Business Chemistry, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany]
Corresponding Author: [*Daniel Philipp Müller, Helmholtzstr. 18, 89081 Ulm, Germany;
daniel-1.mueller@uni-ulm.de; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2756-0310]
Sustainability Assessments of the Packaging Systems for Mortar
1 Methods
To answer the research question, to identify the most sustainable packaging system among
those under study, an approach based on product LCSA is used. The so-called functional unit
is the measure all impacts are referred to and used for comparison. It is defined here as the
amount of packaging needed to transport one kg of dry mortar from the bottling to the
application on the construction site. A number of adaptions of the LCSA approach were made.
First, only decision relevant impacts are accounted for. For example, since the aim is to
compare packaging systems and the packaging system has only marginal influence on the
mortar, for example, losses during handling or from aging, the life cycle impacts of the mortar
are outside the system boundaries and thus neglected. It is also irrelevant for the decision
problem at hand whether cementitious mortar or calcium-sulphate based leveling compound
is used. For life cycle costs, only costs for the mortar producer are accounted for and for social
impacts only health impacts at the construction site resulting from the choice of the packaging

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system are considered. A number of parameter values were determined or estimated based
on typical situations in the case study company (cf. Table 1).
Table 1: Parameter values for the case study.
Parameters
Assumed value
Amount of levelling compound per construction site
4000 kg
Area to be levelled
90 m²
Average layer thickness of levelling compound
2 mm
Highest floor of building (for weight lifting/carrying)
3. floor
Distance of pallet to building (for weight lifting/carrying)
10 m
Tube length (mixing pump, OWC pump, pumping truck)
50 m
Annual turnover of levelling compound of company
600 t/a
Transport: distance of focal company to construction site
200 km
1.1 Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (ELCA)
The goal of this ELCA is to determine potential environmental impacts and to identify relevant
life cycle phases. Especially the use phase focusses on the distinction between the impacts of
different machineries. The ELCA is performed according to DIN EN ISO 14040 and 14044
from cradle to gate. Processes accounted for in the assessment are: manufacturing of the
packaging, transportation of the packaging from the manufacturer of the packaging to the
manufacturer of the dry mortar, bottling of the dry mortar including foils and pallets,
transportation to the construction site, application of the mortar and transportation of the used
packaging to the disposal company. The end-of-life (EoL) stage was excluded because the
comparability of the assessed packaging materials (paper, cardboard, polypropylene,
polyethylene and steel) in the EoL stage is limited. The paper used is largely recycled. The

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same applies to the steel used. The polypropylene and polyethylene used, on the other hand,
are only partially recycled, but mainly thermally recycled. If the selected ReCiPe approach is
used, this thermal recycling leads to a disproportionately high credit through saved emissions.
In this case study, the exclusion of the EoL stage thus leads to more conservative and more
comprehensible results. The system boundaries are shown in Figure 1. All packaging and
processes were modeled by using generic data from the ecoinvent 3.3 database (Hischier et
al., 2010). ReCiPe (Goedkoop et al., 2009) was used as life cycle impact assessment method
to enable a further aggregation of the impact categories (midpoint indicators).
Figure 1: ELCA System boundary.
The modeling of the manufacturing of paper bags, FIBC and OWC is straightforward since the
few necessary materials are well implemented in ecoinvent 3.3 database. The pumping truck
was modeled as a usual truck with additional mixing and pumping machines. Paper bags are
manufactured by putting a layer of HDPE foil and a bleached kraft paper layer onto a layer
unbleached kraft paper. FIBC consist of PP fabric coated with PP. OWC are built up from a
thick corrugated cardboard. For transport and material protection purposes all packaging,

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except the PT, are being placed on a euro pallet covered with a LDPE foil and are all together
wrapped by an extra layer of shrinking foil. The life span of euro pallets is assumed to be 5
years resulting in a usage of 625 times.
1.2 Social Life Cycle Assessment: Health Risks
A complete social life cycle assessment was beyond the scope of the case study company.
Instead, health risks of the construction workers are assessed. There are two main risks for
craftsman working with self levelling dry mortar. On the one hand, the physiological stress
caused by the lifting, carrying and processing of the heavy mortar and on the other hand, the
high dust load caused by the emptying of the mortar packaging and subsequent stirring (BG
Bau). The key indicator methods (KIM) are available as a special screening method. These
can be used by medical laypersons and provide solid results on the potential health hazards
of physical activity during a working day (DGUV, 2017; Klussmann et al., 2017b; Klussmann
et al., 2017a). The result of the key indicator methods gives a score that can be divided into
four categories. Merely in the first category there are no improvement actions recommended.
In the second category, untrained persons may be overstressed, in the third category, trained
persons may be overstressed, and the fourth category represents a very probable overstress
in which actions for mitigation are necessary (Caffier et al., 1999; Steinberg, 2007).
The aggregation of the results is more complicated here because the existing special screening
methods do not yet include aggregation schemes. The individual results for the ergonomic risk
of several activities must not be added up. For an overall result over several activities, however,
an evaluation is possible which considers the frequency of the risk categories that arise. For
this purpose, the risk factors 0 for category 1, 1 for category 2, 5 for category 3 and 10 for
category 4 were introduced. To this end, the factors relating to all the activities of the packaging
system are summed up. In the result, the targeted significance of the KIM is lost, from when
on an activity has a risk potential. In order to include this risk nevertheless, the points are
scaled and do not increase linearly.

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Table 2: Key indicator method: categories and necessary actions.
KIM Lifting, holding, carrying / Pulling and pushing / Manual work processes
points
Description
Actions are …
Rating
< 10
low stress
not necessary
0
10 to < 25
increased stress
reasonable
1
25 to < 50
significantly
increased stress
indicated
5
≥ 50
high stress
necessary
10
1.3 Life Cycle Costing (LCC)
A conventional LCC covering the internal monetary costs of the mortar manufacturer in
combination with an environmental LCC (eLCC) was conducted. The eLCC covers the whole
life cycle (LC) and especially includes the costs arising to the customer due to their decision
for a packaging system. The terms conventional and environmental LCC were introduced by
UNEP (2011) and adapted by Hauschild et al. (2018). Only decision relevant costs, i.e. costs
arising from the packaging system decision, were considered. For the manufacturer, these
include acquisition costs of the packaging materials and aids, freight costs from the warehouse
to the construction site ad disposal costs after use. Labor costs for filling the mortar and, in
case the customer books the pumping truck, additional labor costs for the crew of the pump
truck were considered. For the customer, personnel costs incurred on the construction site are
by far most relevant. In addition, material costs for tools and machines which may differ
depending on the packaging system were considered. For aggregation all considered costs
were summed up regardless of whether they are costs for the focal company or for the
customer. Due to the comparative approach, the costs charged are expressed in monetary
units.

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1.4 Environmental Life Cycle Assessment
The ELCA results are shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3. Two things stand out directly, firstly that
the OWC has about six times more ReCiPe points (the more, the worse) than the paper bags
and secondly that the FIBC has less than half of the paper bag points. To understand what
causes the significantly different potential environmental impacts, the life cycle stages in Figure
3 must be considered.
Figure 2: Environmental LCA results structured according to the damage categories.
For all packaging systems the manufacturing of packaging including the production of raw
materials, is a major driver for environmental impacts. Looking at the packaging materials of
the paper bag, FIBC and OWC, one could assume that the potential environmental impact

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would be in a similar range. The paper bag consists of two layers of kraft paper and an inner
layer of HDPE. The FIBC consists of PP fabric and the OWC of thick corrugated cardboard.
Apart from the different raw materials, there is a crucial difference between the packaging. This
difference is the amount of packaging needed to pack one kg of mortar. To pack one kg of
mortar, 4.6 g paper bag, 1.1 g FIBC but 37.5 g OWC are needed. This explains why the FIBC
performs very good in terms of material efficiency and why the OWC performs particularly poor.
Figure 3: Environmental LCA results structured according to the life cycle stages.
Figure 3 also shows that the machinery and electricity needed for handling the packaging on
the construction site makes up only a small fraction compared to the production of packaging.
Looking at the transport, only the transport from the focal company to the construction site

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matters. Here, the pumping truck has the disadvantage of a slightly inefficient freight mass
ratio compared to the other types of packaging.
To conclude, in our study, the FIBC clearly has the lowest potential environmental impacts.
The paper bag systems together with the pumping truck are on the same order of magnitude.
Only the OWC is significantly worse.
2 Results
2.1 Life Cycle Costing
Figure 4 shows that except for the OWC, costs for the focal company are for all other systems
on a comparable level. The OWC results in higher costs due to the high acquisition costs, that
are 7 to 9 times higher than that of paper bags or FIBC per kg mortar. Even the acquisition
costs of the pumping truck are, calculated over a lifetime of 15 years, less than half of the OWC
per kg mortar.

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Figure 4: Life cycle costs for the focal company and the customer.
The costs for the customer vary considerably between the packaging systems, this is due to
the different equipment that is additionally required at the construction site to work efficiently
with the packaging. Personnel costs also play a major role here, because, with powerful pumps
and large containers, more mortar can be processed in the same time. Especially for large
construction sites this advantage is significant. The visualized scenario analysis will give a
better understanding of these interlinkages (see below). But in this specific case, it needs to
be analyzed why the „paper bag 03“ packaging system is the least costly. From the point of
view of the manufacturing company, the acquisition costs of the packaging are low. The
processing, filling and storage of paper bags is almost fully automated, which results in low
labor costs. For the customer, on the other hand, this is due to the machines and tools included

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in the balance sheet. The packaging system “paper bag 03“ is processed on the construction
site with a mixing drum with a powerful agitator. The mixing drum holds 75 kg of mortar and
can be moved around the construction site on rollers. In the traditional processing with a hand
mixer, as with “paper bag 01”, it takes more than three times as long to mix the same amount
of mortar.
2.2 Social Life Cycle Assessment: Health Risks
Figure 5 shows the risk points for the relevant operations on the construction site as a function
of the quantity of mortar processed. The background color indicates if the physical stress for
craftsmen is so high that actions should be taken, according to Table 2.

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Figure 5: Risk of physical overload according to KIM. Most harmful working steps on the construction site when
handling the leveling compound packaging systems.
The highest physical stress is reached by manually pouring out the mixed levelling compound.
Slightly less stress occurs when carrying the 25 kg bags. Both work steps are necessary when
using the „paper bag 01“system. The usage of mixing pumps will decrease the physical stress
significantly. The combination of paper bags with mixing pumps will also lead to less physical
stress and enable the processing of up to 9500 kg mortar with a moderate health risk for the
craftsmen. The lowest physical stress is achieved when using OWC, FIBC or the pumping
truck. The mortar is handled fully machine-operated here. Overall Figure 5 shows, when
planning with large amounts of mortar on a construction site, packaging systems that are
machinery supported should be selected.
The second focus evaluating the health risks lies on the whirled-up dust while handling the dry
mortar. The German professional association of the construction industry made a 4-scale
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
02000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000
Risk [points]
Amount leveling compound processed on one construction site [kg]
carrying 25 kg bags (paper bag 01+03)
mortar pouring from bucket (paper bag 01)
empty mortar from paper bag in mixing pump (paper bag 02)
hold pump hose to pour out mortar (FIBC 01 + Pumptruck 01)

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classification of dust exposure, recommending different actions for different concentrations of
dust based on technical rules of the BAuA (2016, 2010, 2006). These actions are substitution
of packaging systems for lower concentrations, technical adjustment for medium
concentrations and organizational and personal actions for high concentrations but below 10
mg/m3. If the concentrations are higher, one should no longer work in that area. The
classification depends directly on the choice of the packaging system, so separate aggregation
is not necessary. Table 3 shows that when working with the "paper bag 01" system,
organizational actions like mixing the mortar outside or personal actions like wearing a dust
proof safety mask should be considered. Technical actions are available as industrial vacuum
cleaners. From the perspective of dust exposure "PT 01" and "OWC 01" are considered as low
dust techniques and are good substitutes for the other systems.
Table 3: Dust concentration when handling the self-leveling compounds at the construction site.
STOP-classification
Dust concentration
in mg/m³
Rating
Packaging systems
Substitution
< 1,25
1
"PT 01", "OWC 01"
Technical actions
< 3
2
"FIBC 01", "Paper bag
02+03"
Organizational
actions
3 - 10
3
"Paper bag 01"
Personal actions
> 10
4
-

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