Life Cycle Assessment of Household Consumption
Doctoral thesis of Andi Frömelt and doctoral thesis of Dominik Saner
The goal of this project is to model and assess current and future household consumption considering environmental performance and technical feasibility. Status quo and prospective life cycle assessments (LCA) of household consumption shall identify strategies to decrease the overall environmental impacts of production, transport, and disposal of goods and services in the areas of mobility, housing and nutrition. Thereby, a special focus is laid on mobility behavior, increasing use of shallow geothermal heat for housing, and direct and indirect energy and resource use for food. The analysis will compare local supply systems (i.e. particularly dispersed electricity and heat generation, etc.) with centralized energy supply systems in the context of the 1 ton CO2 per capita society and the goal of many municipalities to obtain a high degree autarky in terms of energy generation. These societal and environmental goals will lead to methodological issues about the coupling of scenarios with LCA, the choice of the correct functional unit and spatio-temporal systems boundaries and resolution for the assessment of household consumption and the selection of most appropriate set of indicators covering global (e.g. global warming) and regional environmental impacts (e.g. particulate matter formation).
Cooperation
Zernez Energia 2020 (CTI, No. 15042.1) [project finished]
THELMA (Technology-centered Electric Mobility Assessment), financially supported by CCEM and swisselectric Research [project finished]
Quantifying carbon flows in Switzerland: top-down meets bottom-up modelling
Andreas Froemelt, Arne Geschke and Thomas Wiedmann
Environmental Research Letters, vol. 16: no. 1, pp. 014018, Bristol: Institute of Physics, 2021.
A two-stage clustering approach to investigate lifestyle carbon footprints in two Australian cities
Andreas Froemelt and Thomas Wiedmann
Environmental Research Letters, vol. 15: no. 10, pp. 104096, Bristol: Institute of Physics, 2020.
Machine learning based modeling of households: A regionalized bottom-up approach to investigate consumption-induced environmental impacts
Andreas Froemelt, René Buffat and Stefanie Hellweg
Journal of Industrial Ecology, vol. 24: no. 3, pp. 639-652, Oxford: Wiley, 2019.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Quantification and Reduction Efforts in a Rural Municipality
Froemelt A, Mauchle M, Steubing B, and Hellweg S
Journal of Industrial Ecology, Vol. 22, Issue 1, pp. 92-105, 2018
Assessing Space Heating Demand on a Regional Level: Evaluation of a Bottom-Up Model in the Scope of a Case Study
Froemelt A, and Hellweg S
Journal of Industrial Ecology 21 (2), 332–343, 2017
FoodPrints of households
Saner, D, Beretta C, Jäggi B, Juraske R, Stoessel F, and Hellweg S
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 2015
Regionalized LCA-based optimization of building energy supply: method and case study for a Swiss municipality"
Saner D, Vadenbo C, Steubing B, Hellweg S
Environmental Science and Technology 48, 7651-7659, 2014
Housing and Mobility Demands of Individual Households and their Life Cycle Assessment
Saner D, Heeren N, Jäggi B, Waraich BA, Hellweg S
Environmental Science and Technology 47 (11), 5988-5997, 2013
Is it only CO2 that matters? A life cycle perspective on shallow geothermal Systems
Saner, D.; Juraske, R.; Kubert, M.; Blum, P.; Hellweg, S.; Bayer, P.
Renewable&Sustainable Energy Reviews, 14 (7), 1798-1813, 2010
Modeling housing energy demand and optimizing energy supply
Saner, D.; Vadenbo, C.; Steubing, B.; Heeren, N.; Froemelt, A.; Hellweg, S.
LCA XIV International Conference, San Francisco, CA , United States, 6-8 October 2014
A Model Faces Reality: Energy Demand of Swiss Residential Buildings
Froemelt, A.; Hellweg, S.
ISIE Conference 2015, Guildford, UK, 7-10 July 2015
About Shoes, Cucumbers, Beer and Cars: A Bottom-Up Household Consumption LCA-Model
Froemelt, A.; Walker, C.; Dürrenmatt, D.; Hellweg, S.
ISIE Conference 2017, Chicago, IL, United States, 26-29 June 2017
A Virtual Platform to Evaluate Policy Scenarios Targeting Environmental Impacts from Household Consumption
Froemelt, A.; Heeren N.; Buffat R.; Hellweg S.
ISIE Conference 2017, Chicago, IL, United States, 26-29 June 2017
Agriculture, Consumption, Decision Support, Energy, Energy Systems, Energy Technology, Food, Household Consumption, Housing, Industrial , Ecology, Land (use), LCA, LCI, LCIA, MFA, Mobility, Noise, Nutrition, Optimization, Production, Prospective Assessment, Regionalization, Resources Management, Scaling-effect, Scenario Analysis, Tool, Waste