Julian M. Allwood’s research while affiliated with University of Cambridge and other places

... As a result, almost all flights must Decarbonizing the global steel industry in a resource-constrained futurea systems perspective [23] systems and operations Claire Davis Reuse, remanufacturing and recycling in the steel sector [24] systems and manufacturing Julian M. Allwood Material efficiency at the component level: how much metal can we do without? [25] systems and construction Cyrille Dunant What is the embodied CO 2 cost of getting building design wrong? [26] application innovation Laurine Choisez ...

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Sustainable metals: integrating science and systems approaches

... The construction industry, particularly the concrete sector, is a major consumer of natural resources and a significant contributor to global CO₂ emissions (Blaifi et al., 2023;Guendouz et al., 2023aGuendouz et al., , 2023b. Cement production alone accounts for approximately 7% of these emissions, primarily due to the calcination of limestone and the combustion of fossil fuels during manufacturing Dunant et al., 2024;Guendoyz;Boukhelkhal, 2018a). ...

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Combined effect of recycled alternative waste materials for cement and sand substitution: impact on bio-concrete mechanical properties

... Few authors have referenced the impacts of the flow of materials through the economy (e.g. Allwood and Cullen, 2012;Allwood, 2014), while Cooper (2005) emphasized the sufficiency of resources, at a fundamental level: "a circle is a circle, zero-waste means zero waste and a closed loop is a closed loop". Thus, the terminology associated with the circular economy is misrepresentative, reenforcing the deceiving idea that the nature of the economy can somehow inform a revolution in sustainable economics because it is a closed, zero-waste, circular system (Skene, 2018), bringing an ideological agenda with hypothetical-normative utopia generating uncertainty into contributions to sustainability and depoliticizing sustainable growth (Corvellec et al., 2022). ...

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Plastics’ circular economy for the Galápagos Islands? Exploring plastics governance with implications for social and ocean equity in a UNESCO World Heritage Site

... Subsidies are also implicit in the unequal carbon taxation applied to energy. In particular, the carbon taxing of electricity and the exemption for domestic gas consumption imposes a significant price disparity between the two and disincentivises domestic electrification, a key source of economic and employment growth over the coming decades (Stephenson & Allwood, 2023). By charging 5% instead of 20% Value Added Tax (VAT) on domestic fuel bills, the UK effectively subsidises gas by the missing 15%. ...

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Is reaching net zero a growth and prosperity plan? Economics, tools and actions for a rapidly changing world

... Inspired by our recognition of this specific material inefficiency, we re-examined the process of deep-drawing and in 2015 invented the process of folding-shearing [28][29][30] illustrated in figure 6. ...

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Material efficiency at the component level: how much metal can we do without?

... For example, it is possible to reduce iron with hydrogen, but hydrogen must be manufactured, and in turn, if it is made without emissions, it depends on either emissions-free electricity or carbon capture and storage. The reality of these limits is reflected in some recent analyses on resource constraints for decarbonizing the foundation industries [13][14][15]. ...

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Material efficiency at the component level: how much metal can we do without?

... In the UK construction industry, concrete makes up over 80% of material mass and contributes around two-thirds of embodied carbon, compared to steel at 22% and clay products at 7% [23]. Chen et al. [20] show that using supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), like GGBS or Fly Ash, is the most common and cost-effective way to reduce the environmental impact of concrete, promoting sustainable construction. ...

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Whole‐Life Embodied Carbon Reduction Strategies in UK Buildings: A Comprehensive Analysis

... A chronic misallocation of the UK's abundant housing stock (Tunstall 2015) means three-quarters of UK households have either just enough or not enough living space (Gough et al. 2024). This creates wellbeing problems in cramped households (Samuel 2023), whilst excess space due to under-occupation has consequences for energy sufficiency and therefore the climate (Drewniok et al. 2023;Huebner & Shipworth 2017). Such disequilibrium between those with too much space and those without enough could be resolved in a perfect market-one where house moves are cheap and easy to make, and movers have complete choices with incentives to downsize (Meen & Whitehead 2020). ...

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‘Rightsize’: a housing design game for spatial and energy sufficiency

... In addition, it allows a more sustainable use of valuable resources as well as savings in energy and greenhouse gas emissions. [1][2][3][4] Battery production waste like electrode scraps which occur prior to electrolyte filling differs significantly from end-of-life (EOL) cells as the active materials have not undergone any electrochemical processes. For the direct recycling of EOL cells, the recovered active material would have to be freed from surface impurities, reaction products and defects. ...

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Characterization of Li-Ion Cathode Materials Directly Recycled via Induction Heating from Production Scraps

... To estimate emissions, we use two recently-developed models and reparameterise them to reflect current data and alternative scenarios for housing in England: a high-resolution material flow analysis estimating the embodied carbon in housing construction developed by Drewniok et al. (2022bDrewniok et al. ( , 2022a, and the operational housing emissions model developed in Serrenho et al. (2019). Drewniok et al. (2022a) estimate the amount and type of materials used in the production of new dwellings by combining information about the proportion of different dwelling types from the English Housing Survey (EHS, 2020b) with case study archetypes for each dwelling type identified from letting agency or developers' websites. ...

Reference:

A home for all within planetary boundaries: Pathways for meeting England's housing needs without transgressing national climate and biodiversity goals