4.7 Review

Social life cycle assessment of biodiesel production at three levels: a literature review and development needs

Journal

JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION
Volume 52, Issue -, Pages 205-216

Publisher

ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.03.026

Keywords

Biodiesel production; Company, region, and state levels; Decision support; Life cycle assessment; Social impacts

Funding

  1. Ecotool project (FP7, Marie Curie Action)
  2. Academy of Finland [127681]
  3. Academy of Finland (AKA) [127681, 127681] Funding Source: Academy of Finland (AKA)

Ask authors/readers for more resources

Assessment of social impacts of products and services has gained increasing interest in society. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool developed to estimate the impacts of products and services from cradle to grave. Traditionally LCA has focused on environmental impacts, but recently approaches for social life cycle assessment (SLCA) have also been developed. Most of them fairly address social performances of business, but the aim of this paper is to analyse the possibilities and development needs in the complementary approach, which is the evaluation of social impacts in LCA. We review the field in general and take a closer look at the empirical case of biodiesel production, which is a timely topic globally in view of the climate change mitigation objectives. The analysis is carried out at three levels - company, regional, and state level. Despite active development in the field of SLCA, we conclude that in many cases it is not yet possible to carry out a comprehensive SLCA. Finally, we outline lines of research that would further improve the methodological and empirical basis of SLCA at various levels of decision-making. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.7
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
Article Green & Sustainable Science & Technology

Relative evaluation of probabilistic methods for spatio-temporal wind forecasting

Lars odegaard Bentsen, Narada Dilp Warakagoda, Roy Stenbro, Paal Engelstad

Summary: This study investigates uncertainty modeling in wind power forecasting using different parametric and non-parametric methods. Johnson's SU distribution is found to outperform Gaussian distributions in predicting wind power. This research contributes to the literature by introducing Johnson's SU distribution as a candidate for probabilistic wind forecasting.

JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION (2024)

Article Green & Sustainable Science & Technology

Comparison of ethane recovery processes for lean gas based on a coupled model

Xing Liu, Qiuchen Wang, Yunhao Wen, Long Li, Xinfang Zhang, Yi Wang

Summary: This study analyzes the characteristics of process parameters in three lean gas ethane recovery processes and establishes a prediction and multiobjective optimization model for ethane recovery and system energy consumption. A new method for comparing ethane recovery processes for lean gas is proposed, and the addition of extra coolers improves the ethane recovery. The support vector regression model based on grey wolf optimization demonstrates the highest prediction accuracy, and the multiobjective multiverse optimization algorithm shows the best optimization performance and diversity in the solutions.

JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION (2024)

Article Green & Sustainable Science & Technology

A novel deep-learning framework for short-term prediction of cooling load in public buildings

Cairong Song, Haidong Yang, Xian-Bing Meng, Pan Yang, Jianyang Cai, Hao Bao, Kangkang Xu

Summary: The paper proposes a novel deep learning-based prediction framework, aTCN-LSTM, for accurate cooling load predictions. The framework utilizes a gate-controlled multi-head temporal convolutional network and a sparse probabilistic self-attention mechanism with a bidirectional long short-term memory network to capture both temporal and long-term dependencies in the cooling load sequences. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method, which can serve as an effective guide for HVAC chiller scheduling and demand management initiatives.

JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION (2024)

Article Green & Sustainable Science & Technology

The impact of social interaction and information acquisition on the adoption of soil and water conservation technology by farmers: Evidence from the Loess Plateau, China

Zhe Chen, Xiaojing Li, Xianli Xia, Jizhou Zhang

Summary: This study uses survey data from the Loess Plateau in China to evaluate the impact of social interaction on the adoption of soil and water conservation (SWC) technology by farmers. The study finds that social interaction increases the likelihood of farmers adopting SWC, and internet use moderates this effect. The positive impact of social interaction on SWC adoption is more pronounced for farmers in larger villages and those who join cooperative societies.

JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION (2024)

Article Green & Sustainable Science & Technology

Study on synergistic heat transfer enhancement and adaptive control behavior of baffle under sudden change of inlet velocity in a micro combustor

Chenghua Zhang, Yunfei Yan, Kaiming Shen, Zongguo Xue, Jingxiang You, Yonghong Wu, Ziqiang He

Summary: This paper reports a novel method that significantly improves combustion performance, including heat transfer enhancement under steady-state conditions and adaptive stable flame regulation under velocity sudden increase.

JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION (2024)