Life Cycle Assessment approach and Sustainable

Development as Complex Engineering Problem

8th Semester, Sections B & E

Instructor: Muhammad Waseem

Department of Civil Engineering
University of Engineering and Technology
Peshawar

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 Course Objectives
• Sustainable development: The objective is to
encourage the students in exploring the challenges
that society is facing and to understand the role of Civil
Engineers in the society. To understand the
interactions between the Civil Engineering profession,
physical infrastructure, and social institutions.

• Disaster Risk Management: The purpose of this

course is to provide an introduction to the roles of
Engineers and Planners in Disasters response and
preparedness. Engineers and Planners are concerned
with the long-term aspects of disaster: the processes
of pre-disaster mitigation and post disaster recovery.
The course will only minimally touch on disaster
response and emergency preparedness.

• To introduce students with the tools and approaches

to deal with complexity and uncertainty
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Course Outline
Week Weekly Lectures CLOs PLOs Remarks

1 Introduction to sustainability the Humanity and 1 7 To be taught from Class Notes"

environment and its state; IPAT Equation;
Sustainability Challenges
2 Development of Public policy; Role of civil 1 7 Class Notes, Chapter 2 of "Sustainability a
engineers in the society; Sustainability and Public comprehensive foundation"
Policy; Environmental Risk Management Assignment No. 1,

3 Definitions; Sustainable Development; Complex 1 7 Lecture Notes

engineering Problems. Introduction to the tools
and approaches for solving complex problems
4 Definitions; Sustainable Development; Complex 1,2 7 Lecture Notes
engineering Problems. Introduction to the tools
and approaches for solving complex problems,
Triple Bottom Line
5 Definitions; Sustainable Development; Complex 1 5,7 Lecture Notes
engineering Problems. Introduction to the tools 1. Age of Sustainable Development
and approaches for solving complex problems, 2.
Life Cycle Assessment Sustainable Development in Practice: case
studies for Scientists and Engineers
6 Qualitative mapping and modeling of complex 2,3 5,7 Complex engineering problem
problems on VENSIM (Systems Thinking
Software)
7 Quantitative mapping and modeling of complex 2 5,7 Complex engineering problem 3
 Course Outline
Week Weekly Lectures CLOs PLOs Remarks

9 Overview of Disasters; Basic Disasters Concepts and Social Contexts of 1 7

Disasters
10 Hazard, Vulnerability and Risk (Probability and Statistics) Concepts 1 7

11 A broad understanding of Disaster Risk Management, including 1 7

prevention / preparedness before Disasters and recovery /
reconstruction after Disasters.
12 Disaster Mitigation-Recovery policy and Disaster risk management of 2 7
national level with practical system and laws

13 Creation of Pakistan emergency management system 2 7

14 Introduction to risk management tools 1 7

15 Flood Risk Management 1 7

16 Earthquake Risk Management 1 7

Final Term Exam 1,2,3 5,7

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 Reference Books

Appendix
Chapter No. 1 5
Re-Cap from the Previous Lecture
1. Triple Bottom Line
2. Causal Loop Diagrams

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 Learning Objectives

1. Life cycle assessment (LCA)

2. Recent growth of China
3. Sustainable Development as holistic complex problem
4. Planetary boundaries

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 Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Source: Lorenz M Hilty

http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-material-use-factsheet ,reserachgate 8
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Source: Slide share 9

 Life Cycle Assessment
•LCA is understanding material and energy flows to and through
different kinds of human-created systems.

•This is essential for framing problems that need to be solved in a

holistic way.

•Topics such as recycling and reuse of materials, energy efficiency,

organizational structures ,supply chains, the social impacts of
decisions and the economics of product developments.

•Also termed as "the science of sustainability"

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Objectives of LCA
• LCA's are carried out for two main reasons:
• to analyze all the steps in a product chain and see which use the
greatest amount of energy and materials or produce the most waste

• to enable comparisons among alternative products or supply chains

and to see which one create the least environmental impact

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Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
International Organization for Standardization (1997) defines LCA as:

• “A compilation and evaluation of the inputs, outputs and the

potential environmental impacts of a product throughout its life
cycle”

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Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
LCA methodology is standardized by ISO standards (1997-1998 a-c)

1. Goal and Scope Definition (ISO, 14041)

2. Inventory Analysis (ISO, 14041)
3. Impact Assessment (ISO, 14042)
4. Interpretation (ISO, 14043)

Source: Slide share 13

 Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Goal and Scope Definition (ISO, 14041)

• Definition of purpose and intended use

• System and its boundaries
• Functional Unit
• Data quality and assumptions and limitations of study

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Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
Inventory Analysis(ISO, 14041)
• Purpose of this phase to identify and quantify the environmental burdens
in the product life.
• The burdens are defined by material and energy used in the system and
emissions to air, liquid effluents and solid wastes discharged into the
environment
• It includes:
• detailed definition of the system under study;
• data collection;
• allocation of environmental burdens in multiple-function systems; and
• quantification of the burdens

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Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
Impact Analysis
Environmental burdens are
translated into Impacts
• Classification
• Characterization/ Multiplication
• Normalization
• Valuation / Weighting

www.slideshare.com
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 Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
Interpretation
• Identification of major burdens and impacts;
• Identification of ‘hot spots’ in the life cycle;
• Sensitivity analysis; and
• Evaluation of LCA findings and final recommendations.

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 Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

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Simple calculation example in LCA

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 Economic growth parameters
Measuring the size of Economy:
• Economists typically summarize a country’s overall economic development by gross domestic
product (GDP) per person.
• GDP: GDP measures the market value of total production ( goods and services) within the
physical boundaries of the country in a given time period (i.e, year).
• GDP/capita: Gross domestic product per capita (GDP per person) is simply GDP divided by the
population of country.
• Since, GDP is the size of the overall economic pie, the GDP per capita is the size of the average
slice per person.
• GDP per capita, which gives an indication of the relative living standards across countries
• GDP of Pakistan/Capita: The Gross Domestic Product per capita in Pakistan was last recorded at
1,357 US dollars in 2019.
• GWP: It is the combined GDP of countries of world
• GNP. It is the measure of production of native person or corporation abroad excluding the
domestic production by foreigners
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 Economic Growth Parameters

• GNP: Gross national product (GNP) is an estimate of total value of all the final products
and services turned out in a given period by the means of production owned by a country.
• Example: Suppose the country is an oil exporter, and the government owns two-thirds of
the oil, while foreign companies own one-third. The GDP would count all of the oil
produced within the country, but national income would include only the two-thirds of the
oil owned by the government. We give the name gross national product (GNP) to the
income-based measure.
• Economic Growth Definition: Economic growth, in simplest terms, measures the change
in GDP over a given period. Economic growth signifies an increase in GDP.

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 Economic growth parameters

• “Rule of 70”; a thumb rule for economic growth, or can generally be used for any kind of
growth.
• The idea explains; Consider the growth rate of the world economy, say 2% per year
increase of the GWP per person. Take 70 and divide it by annual growth rate, i-e, in this
case 70 divided by 2, we get 35.
• From this we determine the number of years it takes for the economy to double in size.
• So an economy growing 2% per year will double in 35 years.
• if the global growth heats up to 4% per year, the doubling time therefore drops by half, to
17.5 years (= 70/4).

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 Growth of China

• China in recent times have shown the world, what growth really means.
• There has been no example of rapid economic growth more remarkable than
China. Since 1978, China has been among the fastest-growing economies in the
world.
• Remember the rule of 70. A growth of 10% means that China has been doubling
its GDP roughly every 7 years (= 70/10). This is amazing.
• China’s economy has grown at this rate for almost 35 years, which means their
GDP doubled 5 times in 35 years, (= 35years/7 years per doubling). It also means
that the economy has grown roughly by a factor of (2^5).

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 Growth of China

• To appreciate China’s
accomplishment in
economic growth, a
comparison of Shenzhen
city in 1980 and now:
• In 1980, Shenzhen was a
small, mainly rural village
of some 30,000 people, as
seen in the figure.

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 Growth of China
• Now, just after 3 decades, with
nearly 10 million people, this
modern metropolis city is
incomparable with its roots.
• More than 200 million people
have flocked from the
countryside to cities like
Shenzhen in search of new jobs
in industry and services.
• China has become the world’s
largest trading country and the
industrial workshop of the world.

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 Recent growth of China

• With transformation to modern economic growth, several aspects of China’s have also
transformed and improved.
I. Low Child mortality.
II. Improved public health.
III. Economic shift from rural to urban.
IV. Shift from agriculture to industrialization.
V. Raised and strong educational standards.
VI. China now turns out more PhD per year than any other place in the world.

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 Downside with China’s economic growth

• We must not leave the impression that all is well with China’s economic growth.
• The three serious downsides are:
I. Firstly, the rapid transition from rural to urban and farming to industry have
disrupted the lives of millions of families, causing mass migration within China.
II. Second, the inequality of income. Workers in urban areas have advanced in living
standards, while those left behind in countryside remained stagnated
(undeveloped).
III. Third, the physical environment has been devastated, with massive pollution.
• China, in short, has achieved rapid economic growth but has not yet achieved sustainable
development, meaning growth that is also socially inclusive and environmentally
sustainable.

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 Sustainable Development Concept
1. Sustainable Development as an Analytical and Normative Concept:
“Normative”, generally means relating to an evaluative standard. A norm in this normative
sense means a standard for evaluating or making judgments about behavior or outcomes.
“Normative means good or desirable behavior”
What is Sustainable Development?
• “Sustainable development is the organizing principle for meeting human
development goals while simultaneously sustaining the ability of natural systems to
provide the natural resources and ecosystem services based upon which
the economy and society depend.”
• Sustainable development is a central concept for our age. It is both a way of
understanding the world and a method for solving global problems. Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) will guide the world’s economic diplomacy in the coming
generation.
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 Sustainable Development an Analytical Concept
• In order to discuss sustainable development, the first point to consider is our crowded
planet. There are now around 7.2 billion people on the planet, roughly 9 times the 800
million people estimated to have lived in 1750, at the start of the Industrial Revolution.
population continues to rise rapidly, by around 75 million people per year. Soon enough
there will be 8 billion by the 2020s, and perhaps 9 billion by the early 2040s (Sustainable
Development Solutions Network [SDSN] 2013a, 2, 5).
“World population in 2020 is 7.8 billions”
• The reason to discuss the above statistics is to point towards the issue that, “every class of
human race, either poor, middle class or rich, every person wants to put their part in
economic growth in order to improve their living standards.
• In short 7.2 billion people are looking for economic improvement. They are doing so in a
world economy that is increasingly interconnected through trade, finance, technologies,
production flows, migration, and social networks. The scale of the world economy, now
estimated to produce $90 trillion of output per year (a sum called the gross world product,
or GWP), is unprecedented (SDSN 2013a, 2).

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 Sustainable Development an Analytical Concept
• -Humanity is changing Earth’s climate, the availability of fresh water, the ocean’s flow
patterns, and the habitats of other species. -These impacts are now so large that they are
adversely affecting the functioning of key processes such as the cycles of water,
nitrogen, and carbon upon which life depends. They are extremely dangerous and
unexpected in the span of humanity’s 10,000 years of civilization.

• -We arrive at sustainable development. As an intellectual approach,

sustainable development tries to make sense of the interactions of
three complex systems: the world economy, the global society, and
the Earth’s physical environment.

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 Sustainable Development an Analytical Concept
• It is a holistic(interconnected) framework, in which society aims for economic, social,
and environmental goals. Sometimes the following shorthand is used: SDGs call for
socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable economic growth.”
• To achieve the economic, social, and environmental objectives of the SDGs, a fourth
objective must also be achieved: good governance.
• For example: Governments must carry out many core functions to enable societies to
prosper. Among these core functions of government are the provision of social services
such as health care and education; the provision of infrastructure such as roads, ports,
and power; the protection of individuals from crime and violence; the promotion of basic
science and new technologies; and the implementation of regulations to protect the
environment.
• -Thus, the normative side of sustainable development envisions four basic objectives of
a good society: economic prosperity; social inclusion and cohesion; environmental
sustainability; and good governance by major social actors, including governments and
business.
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 Embracing Complexity
• In addition to being a normative (ethical) concept, sustainable development is also a
science of complex systems.
• System:
“A system is a group of interacting components that together with the rules for
their interaction constitute an interconnected whole, in order to achieve a certain goal.”
• For Example:
i. The brain is a system of interacting neurons; the human body is a system of some
10 trillion individual cells, with those cells interacting in systematic ways in
various organ systems (circulatory system, nervous system, digestive system, etc.).
ii. The economy is a system of millions of individuals and businesses, bound together
in markets, contracts, laws, public services, and regulations.

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 Complex Systems
• Sustainable development involves not just one but four complex interacting systems.
i. It deals with global economy, that now spans every part of the world.
ii. It focuses on social interactions of trust, ethics, inequality and social support
networks in communities.
iii. It analyzes the change to complex Earth systems such as climate and ecosystems.
iv. It also studies the problems of governance, including the performance of
governments and businesses.
• Complex systems require a certain complexity of thinking as well. It is a mistake to
believe that the world’s sustainable development problems can be boiled down to one
idea or one solution.
• A skilled sustainable development practitioner needs to be a complex-systems expert,
acknowledging the complexity of the issues and looking to make a specific diagnosis of
each specific case.
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 Improvements in Global Health
• With the growth in GWP per capita and technological advancements, public health have
also improved.
• Advances in technology in agriculture and industry have also been accompanied by rapid
advances in health technologies, including medical advances such as antibiotics,
vaccinations, diagnostics, and vast improvements in surgery, as well as advances in other
fields with major health benefits, such as improved provision of water supplies, sewerage,
and household sanitation.
• In around 1950, the IMR (Infant mortality rate) was 13.4%, means for every 1000 children
who were born an estimated 134 would die at birth under 1 year. (= 134/1000)
• Now, it is heartening that IMR has come down sharply to 37 per 1000, means 3.7% which is
a great accomplishment of economic development and public health systems.
• With more children surviving and with health improving at older ages, the good news is that
we have higher life expectancy.
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 Improvements in Global Health
• During 1950 to 1955, the average life expectancy for entire world population was around 47
years.
• Today, the estimated life expectancy at birth is roughly 71 years. It is as high as 80 years in
high-income countries.
• This tremendous increase in longevity is another benefit of economic growth and
exemplifies the broad trend of improvement being achieved in most parts of the world.
• However, as discussed earlier in case of China that rapid economic growth is not sufficient
to ensure well-being. We must ensure that economic growth is environmentally sustainable,
so that it does not affect the earth’s life support systems such as soil productivity, safe
climate etc.
• Unless economic growth is combined with social inclusion and environmental
sustainability, the economic gains will always be short-lived.

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 Global Environmental threats caused by
Economic Development
• Other than climate, several of earth’s natural systems are also affecting:
I. Depletion of fresh water sources (underground aquifers).
II. Use of chemical fertilizers used for crop productivity.
III. Clearing forests to create new farmlands.
IV. Pollution caused by industrial processes, especially combustion of coal.
V. Raised ocean’s acidity dramatically could kill off massive amount of marine
life.

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 Planetary Boundaries
• Due to the use of natural resources with no
boundary limits that in turn caused several
devastating events around the globe such as
storms, floods, drought and heat waves and
many more, scientists have argued to identify
safe operating limits for the planet or define
“planetary boundaries”.
• The figure shows scientist’s visualization of
planetary boundaries. To read it, start at 12 o
clock and move clockwise.
• The red shaded area shows the scientists
assessment of how far the world is from
exceeding each of these boundaries.
• In case of nitrogen cycle and biodiversity loss,
we have already exceeded planetary boundaries.
• We need fundamental change of strategy for
using earth resources and to achieve sustainable
development.
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 Pathways to Sustainable Development
• Sustainable development consists of two parts:
i. Analytical part: To understand the interlinkages of the economy, society,
environment and politics.
ii. Normative part: To set sustainable development goals (SDGs) and to achieve them.
• To achieve sustainable development goals, we need to promote inclusive and sustainable
economic development and combine the economic, social and environmental and most
important of all good governance objectives.
• Good governance not only applies to government but also to private businesses.
• It means that both the public sector (government) and the private sector (business) operate
according to the rule of law, with accountability, transparency, responsiveness to the needs
of stakeholders, and with the active engagement of the public on critical issues such as land
use, pollution, and the fairness and honesty of political and business practices.

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References
• Jeferry D Sachs (2014). Age of Sustainable Development
• Azapagic A, P Slobodan and Clift Roland (2004). Sustainable
Development in Practice: Case Studies for Engineers and Scientists
• Wikipedia ( Last accessed on April, 2020)
• https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rule-of-70.asp
• SlideShare ( Approaches of Life Cycle Assessment)
• https://www.pre-sustainability.com/news/characterisation-new-devel
opments-for-toxicity
• http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-material-use-factsheet
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Supplementary Material of the Lecture

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 Global Population (10,000 BC-Present)
• This figure measures the world population
over a very long stretch of time.
• This is the time when human beings shifted
from hunting and gathering their food to
growing it in one place.
• The period before agriculture is known as
Paleolithic Era (Paleo = old + lithic =
Stone).
• The period after the start of agriculture is
known as the Neolithic Era (Neo = new +
lithic = Stone).
• Around 1820 or so, humanity reached the
great milestone of a billion people on the
planet, then from 1820 to around 1930, in
roughly one century, the second billion was
added and so on.
• The reason for rise in world’s population
is the increased ability to grow more food
and feed a rising population.

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 Global Environmental threats caused by
Economic Development
• The figure shows fluctuating levels of CO2
in the atmosphere over the past 800,000
years.
• In general, CO2 rises and falls like the teeth
of a saw. These fluctuations are natural
because of the change in earth’s orbital
patterns around the sun.
• Scientists have shown that whenever the
atmospheric concentration of CO2 was
high, the Earth tended to be warm.
• At the right hand side of the graph, the
concentration of CO2 has shot up
abruptly. It is because burning of fossil
fuels.
• Notice that this is the highest level of
CO2 concentration reached in the past
800,000 years.

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 Age of modern economic growth

• Economic historians call the period since

1750 the “age of modern economic
growth.”
• Period of 1750 to 1850 is considered as
the Industrial Revolution.
• This period is considered as central
period for economic growth study.
• The figure shows the positive economic
growth starting around 1750.

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Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

• Global warming
• Ozone depletion
• Non-renewable resource depletion;
• Acidification;
• Eutrophication;
• Photochemical oxidant formation (photochemical or summer smog);
• Human toxicity;
• Aquatic toxicity.

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 Continuing Poverty in the Midst of Plenty
• In the present, we are living in the era of plenty.
Economic growth, as discussed earlier has
produced great wealth, such as China, but still most
parts of the world remain stuck in the extreme
poverty.
• The most urgent economic challenge on the planet
is to help populations still living at the edge of
survival to achieve economic growth and escape
from poverty.
• The picture shows a smallholder farmer hidden
behind a great bale of grain carried by his donkey.
No modern transport, no electricity grid.
• These farm households try to ensure enough annual
food production to feed themselves and their
families.

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 Continuing Poverty in the Midst of Plenty
• This picture shows the urban face of extreme
poverty.
• Often urban poverty borders right up against
great urban wealth.
• These people also have no reach to modern
sewerage system, household sanitation.
• They buy their water from water trucks,
because there is no piped water connections
to individual households, not even shared
public water stands.
• In short, these people are unable to secure
basic needs, such as health, electricity,
enough nutrition, safe water and sanitation.

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 Poverty and Extreme Poverty
• Poverty: Poverty is defined as “the lack of adequate income”.
• Extreme Poverty: It is a multi-dimensional concept. “The inability to meet basic
human needs for food, water, sanitation, safe energy, education and a livelihood.”
• Extreme poverty means that households cannot secure decent schooling for their
children. There may be no school nearby, or no qualified teacher, or a school that
charges tuition beyond the household’s income.
• About 2.5 billion people, can be categorized as living in extreme poverty.
• They worry about:
a. Whether they will have enough to eat.
b. Unsafe water can cause life threatening disease.
c. Malaria, as they cannot afford basic medical treatment.

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 Extreme Poverty as per GDP
• This color coded world map shows the GDP
per person around the globe.
• As a general principle, economies with low
GDP per capita also tend to be places where
households live in extreme poverty.
• The map gives us a clear picture that the
poorest countries in the world are
concentrated in tropical sub-Saharan Africa.
• The next poorest region, also home to large
number of people living in extreme poverty
is, South Asia. Though the GDP is still
higher than in Africa, but due to vast
population many people still lives in extreme
poverty.
• Also, regions in South America and Central
Asia that are landlocked have poverty due to
geographical difficulty.
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 IMR due to Extreme Poverty
• This color coded world map shows the
infant mortality rate (deaths of children
under 1 year per 1000 births) due to
extreme poverty.
• Once again, the concentration of child
mortality lies in tropical Africa and parts
of South Asia.
• More than 300 children die under 1 year,
per 1000 births in African region.
• This is due to facing a burden of disease
and unavailability of basic health care.

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 Wealth and Poverty
• In countries where majority of the population
has escaped from extreme poverty, still
contains significant pockets of poverty.
• This picture shows the example of Brazil, as
most of the poor are able to meet their basic
needs (cannot be categorized as extreme
poverty) but are still vastly poorer than their
richer urban neighbors.
• There are practical approaches in sustainable
development that can help even poorest of
the poor to meet their basic needs.
• Many organizations like Community Health
Workers (CHWs) brings health care to
people who otherwise be disconnected from
the health system.

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 Global Environmental threats caused by
Economic Development
• Over time, human beings have greatly developed economically. Gross world product per
person, now at 12,000 per person, combined with a global population of 7.2 billion people,
means that the annual world output is at least 100 times larger than at the start of the
Industrial Revolution.
• Keeping in mind the field of sustainable development, humans have made serious threat to
the natural environment.
• Large-scale economic activity is changing the Earth’s climate, water cycle, nitrogen cycle,
and even its ocean chemistry.
• Also humans using so much land is causing depletion of other species on planet, driving
them to extinction.
• This crisis is affecting every class of people (rich & poor).

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 Global Environmental threats caused by
Economic Development
• This picture shows Manhattan during Superstorm
sandy, one of the strongest storms to hit the
Eastern Seaboard in modern times.
• Scientists determined that human-induced
climate change greatly amplified the impact of
the storm.
• In 2012, the ocean level off the Eastern Seaboard
of the US was one-third of a meter high than a
century earlier, the result of global warming
causing a rise in ocean levels around the world.

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 Global Environmental threats caused by
Economic Development
• Not only Superstorm sandy was
climate-related shock to US.
• This picture shows crops, suffered
major losses as a result of a mega
drought and heat wave in the
Midwest and western
grain-growing regions in the United
States.
• Drought conditions have continued
to burden some parts of the U.S.
West since then, with California in
an extreme drought as of 2014.

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 Global Environmental threats caused by
Economic Development
• Bangkok experienced astounding floods in
October 2011. Indonesia experienced heavy
flooding in early 2014, while Australia suffered
another devastating heat wave.
• All these events massively damaged property,
loss of life, disruptions to the global economy
etc.
• The floods in Bangkok, for example, flooded
automobile parts suppliers, shutting down
assembly lines in other parts of the world when
the parts failed to arrive.
• One thing is clear that all these disasters are
varied, but source is one broad category,
climate-related catastrophes.

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 Pathways to Sustainable Development

• Sustainable development is considered as scientifically and morally based problem

solving.
• We indeed have a lot of problems covering different aspects such as inequality in wealth,
life threatening diseases, technology systems deployed crossing planetary boundaries
and many more.
• So, we need globally interconnected/coordinated efforts in short period of time in order
to change our trajectory to Sustainable Development.
• We need to work hard in determining new creative paths to achieve and ensure inclusive
and sustainable growth.
• The basic path to achieve this, is to describe the problem, identify a key framework
and analyze the problem and determine how to actually achieve SDGs.

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Various Scopes of LCA
• Cradle-to-grave: includes the entire material/energy cycle of the
product/material, but excludes recycling/reuse.
• Cradle-to-cradle: includes the entire material cycle, including
recycling/reuse.
• Cradle-to-gate: includes material acquisition,
manufacturing/refining/fabrication (factory gate), but excludes
product uses and end-of-life.
• Gate-to-gate: a partial LCA looking at a single added process or
material in the product chain.