Can the Paris Agreement stop global warming?

184 Pages·2017·5.66 MB·English

by  Kristian Mølhave

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Can the Paris Agreement stop global warming?
Howalt Owe, Selina; Pedersen, Jens Olaf Pepke
Publication date:
2016
Document Version
Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record
Link back to DTU Orbit
Citation (APA):
Howalt Owe, S., & Pedersen, J. O. P. (2016). Can the Paris Agreement stop global warming?. Abstract from
Sustain-ATV Conference 2016, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark.

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November 30th 2016, 9:00-18:00

Venue: DTU, Technical University of Denmark

Registration in Glassalen, bldg 101, 8:00-9:00

www.sustain.dtu.dk
Refer to the website for updated information
Table of Contents
• Sustainability in 2 minutes
• Sponsors
• Alphabetic overview of Sessions A-W
– Organized into Talks, Laptop and Poster presentations
• Poster session X: Exhibitors and company presentations
• Participant list
• Fundraisers stand
www.sustain.dtu.dk
Refer to the website for updated information
Sustainability
“Sustainable development seeks to meet the
needs and aspirations of the present without
compromising the ability to meet those of the
future” [1] The many challenges are also targeted with
research: The EU Commission states that
A sustainable society is considered to involve a “Sustainable development will be an
balanced interplay of three main elements to overarching objective of Horizon 2020” and
meet the needs of present generations without allocates 60% of the budget to this [2]. The
compromising the possibilities of future Danish Forsk2020 has also made the technical
generations to meet their own needs [1]: challenges in creating a sustainable society an
important factor in their scope.

- The environmental boundary conditions that set
the limits on resource supply, waste disposal and Sustainability is hence becoming a core
environmental pollution; consideration for research and development,
both in terms of finding technological
- How the economy balances production and
solutions to the increasing number of societal
consumption processes within – or currently
challenges, but also as a fundamental
beyond - the environmental constraints;
requirement to any technology being
- How society politically and culturally decides to
developed for it to have a place in the future
manage the social effects of the above constraints
market of a sustainable society.
given by the short and long term consequences of

our activities.
The Sustain Conference at DTU started out in

2014 as a conference where everyone
Our developing knowledge of our own
involved in research at DTU from PhD students
environmental impact imposes limits on our
to Professors could meet to share their
activities, while our expectations to the quality of
knowledge and inspire each other to create
life we wish to have requires expansion of
the best possible teams and solutions for
activities.
solving the challenges.
Radically improved efficiency of our technologies

are urgently needed in order to reduce both
The conference is now actively opening to
reliance on scarce resources and the long term
invite researchers and industry to create a
effects on the environment and the climate, but
yearly recurring forum for sustainable
also to handle the longer term demographic
technology in Denmark, and facilitate
changes and the increase in material wealth in
formation of collaborations between
developing economies.
academia and industry.

Society's growing awareness of the many
The conference is divided into several parallel
challenges is causing a gradual but unavoidable
sessions, and these broadly speaking cover the
change in our perspective on technology, from
main societal challenges on sustainability with
the traditional optimization of economic cost with
regards to technology and the main
the specific technological performance to a much
technology domains at the host DTU and in
broader view including environmental impact and
Denmark.
performance in terms of resource efficiency
etc.These considerations are becoming
increasingly important in how we direct R&D and [1] United Nations General Assembly (1987) Report of the
World Commission on Environment and Development: Our
assess emerging technologies.
Common Future. http://www.un-documents.net/our-
common-future.pdf
[2] “Horizon 2020 - The Framework Programme for
Both citizens expectations and policies are
Research and Innovation” Communication from the
evolving with this changing perspective. In 2015 Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the
UN formulated 17 Sustainable Development European Economic and Social Committee and the
Goals that aims at making a series of important Committee of the Regions 30.11.2011.
changes to create a more sustainable world over
the next 15 year.
Sponsors
The Sustain conference is grateful for the support from:
Plenum Talks
Welcome by Rector Anders Overgaard Bjarklev, DTU
Katrine Krogh Andersen, Dean of Research, DTU.
Mogens Lykketoft
"UNs development goals for 2030 in a technology perspective"
Lene Lange, DTU,
"The importance of green technologies to reach the SDG's -a Danish
opportunity to contribute -and to benefit!"
John F. Pedersen,
Communication director, Siemens.
"Danish Environmental Technologies in Siemens."
Claus Stig Pedersen,
Head of Corporate Sustainability, Novozymes
"Novozymes strategic alignment to the UN Global Goals"
Torben Klitgaard,
Director, BLOXHUB,
"Innovation Urbanization – new mindsets, new solutions"
Helle Katrine Andersen,
Head of Section, DANVA
"The role of a dedicated global water goal and Danish water technology for
improving environmental, social and economic sustainability"
Concluding comments by Henrik Kærgaard, Niras

See schedule on
www.sustain.dtu.dk
Session
A

Oral
Presentations

See session details and schedule on
www.sustain.dtu.dk
Range of technology choices in life cycle assessment of environmental
treatment technologies: An example of a solid waste landfill model

Trine Henriksen*1, Thomas F. Astrup1 and Anders Damgaard1
1: Technical University of Denmark, Environmental Engineering
*[email protected]
Limited data availability and local differences of environmental treatment technologies lead to the use of
sub-optimal data and choices of single datasets, where multiple data choices may be representative. The
use of data not representing the entire coverage of an LCA study can cause a bias in the result
interpretation and limit the robustness of the results. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the
relationship between the number of discrete data options and the goal and scope of the study. The
importance of the spread in LCA results and how this spread influences the LCA result interpretation is
assessed. The objective is obtained by performing a landfill model case study and presenting and discussing
results relative to the specificity of the coverage of the study (see conceptual approach in Figure 1).
The outcomes shows a trend of decreasing LCA result ranges with increasing level of specification of the
technological and geographical coverage of the study. For example, for global warming potential, the global
maximum value is 2.6 times larger than the global minimum value and, for human toxicity, carcinogenic,
the global maximum value is 45 times larger than the global minimum value. These ranges have the
potential to significantly influence the LCA results, and are interpreted as potential magnitudes of errors
introduced by the data choices. The results highlighted the pitfalls of choosing specific data to represent a
generic process, and vice-versa. The former will lead to precise, but inaccurate results, whereas in the latter
the obtained data represent a lower level of knowledge than the initial goal and scope.
To conclude, a detailed description of the coverage of the study and understanding of the technologies are
necessary for representative life cycle inventory modelling. This conclusions was described in a step-wise
approach for representative data choices and modelling. The outcomes shed light on the potential spread
caused by discrete data choices in the modelling of environmental treatment technologies.

Figure 1: Conceptual approach of this study. Arrow indicates the order of activities.

Sustain Abstract A-1
Activity-based Sustainability Assessment of Highly Automated
Manufacturing
Jan-Markus Rödger1*, Niki Bey1, Leo Alting1
1: Division for Quantitative Sustainability Assessment (QSA), DTU Management Engineering
*Corresponding author email: [email protected]
Sustainability of technology is a multifaceted endeavor and a main requirement from industry is to make it
a profitable business case with clearly defined targets. To achieve that, a new assessment framework and
applicable method [1] is presented which has been developed closely with industry. It uses a top-down
decision-making process known from financial target setting for each cost center and the well-known life-
cycle perspective according to ISO 14040 [2] in Sustainability Assessment. Thereby it is possible to allocate
absolute environmental thresholds of functionalities (e.g. “transportation”) down to smallest production
units by using activity-based target setting in a consistent way to lowers risks in the planning phase of
products and production.
Success factors (SF), specifications and parameters
are describing the manufacturability and therefore
the revenue potential of products. By combining
those with production and technology data, like
cycle time, energy efficiency and material
consumption as well as with expert opinion it is
possible to determine an allocation method that
predicts the so-called life-cycle targets (lct) for each
cost center in manufacturing. A linkage to life cycle
databases is established as well in order to predict
environmental impact of the activities holistically
(even divided into process, infrastructure and
overhead). This approach allows to identify
hotspots and can avoid sub-optimization within Figure 1 Sustainability Cone: Conceptual framework of merging life
the different production levels as well as cycle perspective, product and production to derive life cycle targets (lct)
thus optimizing product and production in an early planning phase [1]
between different environmental impact
categories.
This framework has been applied to a product life cycle of a standard passenger car, with emphasis on
highly automated manufacturing. Lct’s for production cells and widely used technologies in highly
automated car manufacturing will be presented followed by a discussion of how to use them in the decision
making internally and externally in reporting schemes
[1] J.-M. Rödger, N. Bey, and L. Alting, “The Sustainability Cone – A holistic framework to integrate
sustainability thinking into manufacturing,” CIRP Ann. - Manuf. Technol., vol. submitted, 2016.
[2] ISO 14040, “Environmental management - Life Cycle assessment - Principles and framework,”
Geneva, 2006.

Sustain Abstract A-2
On the need for integrating LCA into decision making

Yan Dong1,2*, Simona Miraglia1, 3, Stefano Manzo1,2, Stylianos Georgiadis1,4, Hjalte Jomo Danielsen Sørup1,5,
Elena Boriani1,6, Sebastian Thöns1,3, Michael Z Hauschild1,2
1: DTU GDSI, 2: DTU Management, 3: DTU Civil Engineering, 4: DTU Compute, 5: DTU Environment; 6: DTU
Food
*Corresponding author email: [email protected]
The need for sustainable solutions has gained attention both in academia and industry research due to
increasing demands of human beings, which are incompatible with limitations in resources availability.
Several methods, such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), were developed in the past decades to assess the
environmental profile of products and services. However, when decision makers have several alternatives
at hand to solve a problem, environmental performance is not the only criterion for choosing the best
alternative. Other criteria such as risks and economical costs and benefits that are associated with the
alternatives will also influence the final choice. Sometimes the most environmentally sustainable
alternative may not be the safest or cheapest one. How to make a balanced decision considering
environmental performance together with other criteria is not straight forward.
Decision analysis is broadly used to help decision makers identify the best solution among alternatives. The
decision is based on expected utility generation, which incorporates consequences (or impacts) associated
with each alternative. Depending on the research field and goal of the study, the included consequences
can be e.g. environmental impacts, property damages from natural hazards and/or human health impacts.
We examined the current decision analysis practice as it is applied in different research fields. The review
shows that generally environmental impacts are considered less often than the other consequences.
Meanwhile, LCA has been applied in many research fields to assess a wide range of environmental impacts
associated with products or services. There is a huge potential for integrating LCA into other decisions
analysis tools to include assessments of the environmental profile of alternatives. This will provide the
possibility of systematical inclusion of environmental considerations in the decision making process, thus
facilitating a more holistic decision. However, due to different scopes and purposes of LCA and other
decision analysis tools, the integration is not straightforward. The lack of consistency in e.g. system
boundaries and handling of uncertainty needs to be carefully managed.

Sustain Abstract A-3