These studies are typically conducted independently by the various commodity associations.

To
facilitate alignment of these methodologies, a working group comprised of interested industry
organizations and their representatives was formed to propose uniform recommendations for key
methodological choices.

The completion and continued production of LCA studies by the individual metal and mineral
associations has fostered the need to develop a harmonized approach to life cycle inventory and
assessment methodologies within the industry.

This article offers guidance to align methodologies where appropriate, recognizing that complete
alignment of all aspects of the methodologies is not feasible due to the broad range of metal- or
mineral-specific issues which may require approaches unique to the given material and/or its
downstream uses.

Although a metal may be associated with relatively high potential impacts during its production, the
use phase and the recycling of the metal at end of life can help offset production impacts relative to
competing non-metal products. Essentially, a cradle-to-gate study does not capture many of the
benefits from using metals and is usually a poor system boundary choice for an LCA involving metals.

In fact, per ISO definition, an LCA is always cradle-to-grave: BLCA addresses the environmental
aspects and potential environmental impacts…throughout a product’s life cycle from raw material
acquisition through production, use, end-of-life treatment, recycling and final disposal (i.e., cradle-
to-grave)^ (ISO 14040 2006 and ISO 14044 2006).

Although omission of life cycle stages is tolerated in certain applications (e.g., type III environmental
product declarations following EN 15804:2012), it should be applied with caution and Bonly
permitted if it does not significantly change the overall conclusions of the study^ (ISO 14044 2006).

Drone >> Grey area of the aviation sector (not in electronics, neither vehicles)

Nonetheless, a cradle-to-gate system boundary does have its place. Many of the metal associations
involved with this research have produced cradle-to-gate studies of their metals in order to provide
the LCA community the necessary data for external, cradle-to-grave studies performed by other
practitioners.

Good practice stipulates—and ISO 14044 (2006) mandates—that any exclusion should be disclosed
in the LCA report so that the audience knows which processes are excluded as well as the governing
rationale for excluding those processes.

Comparative studies should include all phases of the life cycle. In cases where certain phases are
both (1) difficult to characterize and/or calculate and (2) identical between the alternative products,
these phases can be omitted and the justification explained in the documentation. However,
because the excluded burdens affect the relative results (e.g., percentage differences between
alternatives), all results must be reported as absolute differences.

The science that supports the characterization of impacts varies in quality from category to category.
Some categories, such as global warming potential, are well-established and have a high level of
consensus in the LCA community. Other categories, such as toxicity, biodiversity, or resource
depletion, rely on more controversial assumptions and methods and are thus less widely used and
accepted in LCAs.

Harmonization of LCA methodologies for the metal and mining industry

However, such assessments are complex, depend on boundary conditions, are impacted by local
regulations and laws, and often suffer from incomplete information, especially when conducted for
technologies at an early stage of their development, i.e., with a low level of technology readiness,
including technology readiness levels (TRLs) 1 through 3.[14–16]. Consequently, it is hardly sur-
prising that problems associated with their use arise. For exam-ple, comparisons of assessment
results can lead to incorrect interpretations if these results were obtained by different assessors,
assumed different regional locations, were performed with varying methods, or used methods that
are either too generic or were defined for other product categories.[17,18]

A common ground is important as, for example, illustrated in another global effort by the work of
the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, seeking to “develop recommendations for
voluntary climate-related financial disclosures that are consistent, comparable, reliable, clear, and
efficient, and provide decision-useful information to lenders, insurers, and
investors”(https://www.fsb-tcfd.org/). The payoff for these efforts is clear: comprehensive,
consistent, and transparent LCAs/TEAs and reporting of their results will facilitate funding decisions
and pro-mote sustainability-driven technology development. In fact, this is, of course, the case not
only for CCU technologies but also for any new technologies

The Need for and Path to Harmonized Life CycleAssessment and Techno-Economic Assessment for
CarbonDioxide Capture and Utilization

Evaluation approaches with a single indicator, such as Carbon Footprint, are certainly more
attractive than LCA due to their simplicity [7], but may result in oversimplification. With particular
regard to electricity generation technologies, recent studies [8] confirm that focusing only on GHG
emissions may lead to wrong conclusions concerning their environmental consequences. As a matter
of fact, many renewable energy technologies do have an impact on water, ground, wildlife,
landscape, therefore the mere evaluation of CO2 emissions results limitative. Thus, a range of key
indicators must be considered to evaluate the sustainability of energy generation technologies [9]
and a LCA approach is desirable to avoid impact shifting from one life cycle phase to another [10].

Although different tools to ensure a correct implementation of LCA have been developed [18–20],
the individual interpretation of methodological aspects plays a key role, generating different and
inconsistent results. Furthermore, renewable energies plants are characterized by a wide range of
power, technologies, configurations, and applications.

Finally, since the resulting life cycle impacts of a power plant are closely related to the lifetime
period used to carry out its LCA, a reference value of the lifetime for each technology (equal to the
median value resulting from published data) was also selected for the data harmonization of all
technologies considered. Different technologies are characterized by different lifetimes.

Firstly, when only the outputs of the LCI of the system in terms of emissions were available,
equivalent factor tables were used to refer each emission to its impact category.

The use of light electric vehicles, drones, unmanned aerial vehicles, or cargo bikes constitute a
solution that can reduce the operational energy requirements in most of the cases analyzed [52,57]
even if the mileage toured is higher than that characterizing traditional vans. The capacity of new
delivery vehicle types is lower, and a higher number of tours are necessary to serve the same
number of customers. The spread of renewable electricity production is able to further reduce
operational well-to-wheel energy consumption increasing the sustainability level of the
electrification of the fleets employed for last mile deliveries [58]. The reduction of the operational
energy is always coupled with a reduction of some environmental impacts, such as the amount of
greenhouse gas emissions. Life cycle assessment (LCA) applications are performed by different
authors [59–61] to evaluate the overall benefits when the reduction of the operational energy
consumption of urban freight vehicles is followed by an increase of the use of energy storage
technologies or the necessity of new urban facilities. The importance of a life cycle approach is also
underlined by Taefi et al. and Patella et al. [62,63]. This article, analyzing the economic sustainability
of the application of electric vehicles in urban logistics, stresses the importance of long mileages and
long battery warranties as the precondition for their real competitiveness in substitution with
traditional internal combustion engines. Moreover, the high cost of the battery is still a strong limit
for the diffusion of electric vehicles and incentives are fundamental to guarantee their economic
competitiveness [37,64]. Furthermore, some literature works [65–67] showed a negative correlation
between the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the life cycle costs of the delivery system:
only in some specific cases it is possible to obtain a win-win scenario.

Droned advantage: Moreover, the localization of depots in the inner parts of the cities is becoming
complicated and scarcely affordable because of increasing land use values [69]. The sprawl of freight
facilities in the suburbs or in the external parts of the cities, where the price of land is lower,
contributes to increasing the length distances of the journeys.

Different studies [61,72,73] showed that e-commerce is more sustainable than retail pick-up or
traditional shopping. In a life cycle perspective, Weber et al. [74] showed that e-commerce delivery
systems are characterized by 30% lower primary energy consumption and CO2 emissions when
considering the warehouses energy demand, energy used in retail stores and headquarters,
electricity used for home computer shopping activities and data centers, fuel necessary for
transportation (from manufacturer to wholesale warehouse, from the wholesale warehouse to the
retail stores or distribution centers, for last mile deliveries), and packaging. The last mile delivery
represents, on average, the most important contribution with respect to total CO2 emissions
associated with e-commerce (32%). The wholesale warehousing energy use represents the second
contribution (31%) of the total emissions linked to the e-commerce delivery system, but a similar
share is registered also for traditional retail (26%). The main difference between the two systems is
linked to the increase of the packaging impacts in e-commerce and to the reduction of the energy
necessary for customers’ transport to retail stores that, in traditional retail shopping, plays a
preponderant role.

The drawback of the use of light weight green vehicles is the increase of the travelled distance as
shown by different authors [47,49,76]. The higher mileages travelled by green vehicle is can increase
traffic congestion and its negative externalities; off-peak deliveries are suggested by different
authors [49] to avoid worsening scenarios.

Fast and flexible deliveries: A positive delivery (or return) experience is essential in order to create
customers loyalty to e-retailers. Concerns with delivery remain a barrier for consumers shopping
online for physical goods, specifically when looking to shop cross-border. In addition, flexibility in
delivery location and flexibility in delivery time slots are becoming increasingly relevant to
consumers. Furthermore, tends to favor faster transportation modes can increase fuel consumption
exponentially and may lead to inefficient utilized transport capacities.
The Impact of E-Commerce Development on Urban Logistics Sustainability

Developments in numerous technologies have made it feasible for these organizations to perform
drone deliveries. Carbon fiber manufacturing costs have decreased from 25 to 10 $/kg over the last
20 years [6], [7], enabling the development of strong, lightweight airframes. Lithium polymer
batteries, with their relatively high energy density [8], have improved the flight times of UAVs
compared to alternative technologies such as nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal hydride

Vehicle Routing Problems for Drone Delivery

1 km driven to complete a delivery in an urban area.

According to the literature, the distance driven (km) rather than the payload (kg * km) is an
appropriate functional unit, which indicates that the service given is the distance travelled for a
delivery, regardless of the weight of the delivered packages [11,12,14–17,19,22]. (even though this is
true it does not work for the drones.

Last Mile Logistics Life Cycle Assessment: A Comparative Analysis from Diesel Van to E-Cargo Bike

Within this reviewed literature, both a vehicle kilometre and a vehicle life have been identified as
the most common functional units at the vehicle level.

First of all, there is lack of broad evidence for new powertrain concepts which are just entering the
market, particularly for heavy duty vehicles. This also leads to a situation where early adopters might
have a very different use profile compared to a mass market situation and may thus be only
representative for a short time period.

Determining the environmental impacts of conventional and alternatively fuelled vehicles through
LCA

However, as often occurs in popular platforms for on-demand transportation services,

crowdshippers might provide the service by engaging in new dedicated trips rather than by
modifying existing ones (Sampaio et al. 2019). This rebound efect might result in overall worsened
conditions (Qi et al. 2018).

Understanding user response to crowdsourced delivery services and developing efcient

implementation frameworks is fundamental to measuring external impacts, controlling unintended
efects, improving business models and establishing a sustainable service. The body of literature on
the topic of crowdshipping is quite limited due to its novelty and the lack of operational and
behavioral data (Cleophas et al. 2018).

Potential last-mile impacts of crowdshipping services: a simulation-based evaluation