Evaluation of CE strategies with focus on the estimation of potential economic value loss due to resource dissipation in LCA
Résumé
Resource dissipation (RD) is a phenomenon that has been identified as a barrier towards circular economy (CE) due to causing potential losses of value and functionality in the technosphere along the life cycle (LC) of products. Concerns around the availability and accessibility to critical resources make relevant the development of methods that allow to identify the impacts associated to these losses.
In this contribution, we propose the Economic Value Dissipation Potential, an impact assessment method in life cycle assessment (LCA) that integrates two aspects in the evaluation of RD: the identification of dissipative flows, and the potential value loss associated to them. First, the method proposes a function that estimates the fraction of a mass flow that can be considered dissipative based on the comparison between a global average minimum grade in primary sources and resource concentration in dissipation compartments. Next, the method assigns a value to this flows based on the integration of the price and economic importance of the analyzed resources to model a potential value loss due to dissipation.
A first application of the method allowed to obtain characterization factors (CFs) for 13 resources based on average information from the literature. These factors were applied to a case study on LIB recycling through hydrometallurgy. Improvements were made to the LC inventory (LCI) to achieve the level of granularity required to assess the impacts of RD.
Limitations for a wide application of the method are associated to the level of detail in LCIs required, but not currently found; the limited number of resources characterized by the method; and, the need to regularly update the CFs due to the dynamic nature of prices, economic importance and global average minimum grades. The results of the application based on economic considerations, provide complementary information to current impact assessment methods, therefore having the potential to support decision-making processes based on LCA.