Using life cycle assessment to achieve a circular economy

Claudia Peña; Bárbara Civit; Alejandro Gallego-Schmid; Angela Druckman; Armando Caldeira-Pires; Bo Weidema; Eric Mieras; Feng Wang; Jim Fava; Llorenç Milà i. Canals; Mauro Cordella; Peter Arbuckle; Sonia Valdivia; Sophie Fallaha; Wladmir Motta

doi:10.1007/s11367-020-01856-z

Using life cycle assessment to achieve a circular economy

Claudia Peña^*, Bárbara Civit, Alejandro Gallego-Schmid, Angela Druckman, Armando Caldeira-Pires, Bo Weidema, Eric Mieras, Feng Wang, Jim Fava, Llorenç Milà i. Canals, Mauro Cordella, Peter Arbuckle, Sonia Valdivia, Sophie Fallaha, Wladmir Motta

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

115 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The current global interest in circular economy (CE) opens an opportunity to make society’s consumption and production patterns more resource efficient and sustainable. However, such growing interest calls for precaution as well, as there is yet no harmonised method to assess whether a specific CE strategy contributes towards sustainable consumption and production. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is very well suited to assess the sustainability impacts of CE strategies. This position paper of the Life Cycle Initiative (hosted by UNEP) provides an LCA perspective on the development, adoption, and implementation of CE, while pointing out strengths and challenges in LCA as an assessment methodology for CE strategies.

Original language	English
Journal	International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
Volume	26
Issue number	2
Pages (from-to)	215-220
Number of pages	6
ISSN	0948-3349
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-020-01856-z
Publication status	Published - Feb 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The Life Cycle Initiatives acknowledges the reviewers who were part of the internal review process of this paper: Sven-Ol?f Ryding, IVL, Sweden; Alessandra Zamagni, Ecoinnovazione, Italy; Raul Carlsson, RISE, Sweden; Tatiana Vakhitova, Ansys Granta Materials, UK; and Atta Ajayebi, University of Exeter, UK.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE part of Springer Nature.

Keywords

Circular economy
Circularity
Complementary methodologies
Life cycle assessment

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Peña, C., Civit, B., Gallego-Schmid, A., Druckman, A., Caldeira-Pires, A., Weidema, B., Mieras, E., Wang, F., Fava, J., Canals, L. M. I., Cordella, M., Arbuckle, P., Valdivia, S., Fallaha, S., & Motta, W. (2021). Using life cycle assessment to achieve a circular economy. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 26(2), 215-220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-020-01856-z

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Peña, C, Civit, B, Gallego-Schmid, A, Druckman, A, Caldeira-Pires, A, Weidema, B, Mieras, E, Wang, F, Fava, J, Canals, LMI, Cordella, M, Arbuckle, P, Valdivia, S, Fallaha, S & Motta, W 2021, 'Using life cycle assessment to achieve a circular economy', International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 215-220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-020-01856-z

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AU - Fallaha, Sophie

AU - Motta, Wladmir

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Using life cycle assessment to achieve a circular economy

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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