26
F. Scrucca et al.
6 Conclusion
One of the main global environmental problems is represented by GHG emission
by human activities, that constitutes a significant contributor to the global warming
issue and the related worldwide negative effects. Consequently, the reduction of
GHG emissions has become in recent years one of the main efforts of the international community to cope with global warming thorough strategies towards a
climate-neutral world based on initiatives of decarbonisations and resource efficiency
policies.
The estimation of the GHG emissions has initially focused on the global and
national scales, but it has been gradually turned from this levels to more detailed ones,
such as cities, sectors, organizations, products and individuals. As a consequence,
a lot of approaches, methodologies and tools, characterized by different levels of
feature and complexity, have been developed for CF estimations.
Starting from a general overview on the concept of CF and the main differences
between its calculation at the organization and product level, this Chapter focused its
attention on the methodologies developed to calculate CF of products, also presenting
an overview of other CF-derived footprints and, in particular, of the Product Environmental Footprint methodology proposed by the European Commission. Then, a
discussion centered on key aspects such as functional unit, temporal dimension of
CF assessment, modeling approaches and specific relevant GHG emission sources,
highlighted that the LCA approach is the main used for CF estimation and that there
are some critical issues that affect the CF calculation model. The subsequent analysis of publicly available CF calculators supported by a review of relevant related
literature, provided an overall insight into the different typologies of tools and the
characteristics of the currently used approaches, confirming the already cited change
of focus of CF (calculators tailored for individuals activities and lifestyle resulted
the most widespread).
Given the above, the following considerations can be made as a conclusion of this
Chapter.
– LCA-based estimation represent the most used approach to calculate CF. However,
some critical issues are intrinsic in the definition of CF calculation model
and, despite CF well standardized as a methodology, different methodological
choices can lead to a difficult comparison of the results. Therefore, critical issues
have to be faced and harmonization initiatives should be evaluated to enhance
the comparability of CF case studies through the use of consistent methodological
choices.
– LCA-based estimation, as indicated by various research results (see Udara Willhelm [80]), neglect several uncertainties and this may result in a relevant variation of actual emissions and predicted emissions. Therefore, it is desirable that
new calculation approaches aimed at facing this issue will be explored. In this
regard, Udara Willhelm Abeydeera et al. [80] propose discrete event simulation
and system dynamics as newer approaches and also suggest the integration of
information technology related tools (such as Building Information Modelling
F. Scrucca et al.
6 Conclusion
One of the main global environmental problems is represented by GHG emission
by human activities, that constitutes a significant contributor to the global warming
issue and the related worldwide negative effects. Consequently, the reduction of
GHG emissions has become in recent years one of the main efforts of the international community to cope with global warming thorough strategies towards a
climate-neutral world based on initiatives of decarbonisations and resource efficiency
policies.
The estimation of the GHG emissions has initially focused on the global and
national scales, but it has been gradually turned from this levels to more detailed ones,
such as cities, sectors, organizations, products and individuals. As a consequence,
a lot of approaches, methodologies and tools, characterized by different levels of
feature and complexity, have been developed for CF estimations.
Starting from a general overview on the concept of CF and the main differences
between its calculation at the organization and product level, this Chapter focused its
attention on the methodologies developed to calculate CF of products, also presenting
an overview of other CF-derived footprints and, in particular, of the Product Environmental Footprint methodology proposed by the European Commission. Then, a
discussion centered on key aspects such as functional unit, temporal dimension of
CF assessment, modeling approaches and specific relevant GHG emission sources,
highlighted that the LCA approach is the main used for CF estimation and that there
are some critical issues that affect the CF calculation model. The subsequent analysis of publicly available CF calculators supported by a review of relevant related
literature, provided an overall insight into the different typologies of tools and the
characteristics of the currently used approaches, confirming the already cited change
of focus of CF (calculators tailored for individuals activities and lifestyle resulted
the most widespread).
Given the above, the following considerations can be made as a conclusion of this
Chapter.
– LCA-based estimation represent the most used approach to calculate CF. However,
some critical issues are intrinsic in the definition of CF calculation model
and, despite CF well standardized as a methodology, different methodological
choices can lead to a difficult comparison of the results. Therefore, critical issues
have to be faced and harmonization initiatives should be evaluated to enhance
the comparability of CF case studies through the use of consistent methodological
choices.
– LCA-based estimation, as indicated by various research results (see Udara Willhelm [80]), neglect several uncertainties and this may result in a relevant variation of actual emissions and predicted emissions. Therefore, it is desirable that
new calculation approaches aimed at facing this issue will be explored. In this
regard, Udara Willhelm Abeydeera et al. [80] propose discrete event simulation
and system dynamics as newer approaches and also suggest the integration of
information technology related tools (such as Building Information Modelling