21 Sep PROMETIA held a webinar on lca and sustainability on 31 AUGUST
PROMETIA “Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and Sustainability” Webinar took place on 31 August 2021. The webinar focused on the sustainability assessment (targeting economic, environmental and social impacts) for mining, extractive metallurgy and recycling of major and minor as well as critical metals. There were 12 presentations given by both academic and industry LCA and sustainability assessment experts. The morning keynote sessions had four presentations, covering the current start-of-the-art methodologies, the challenges ahead and their applications in both ferrous and non-ferrous metals production industry. Capabilities and limitations of LCA and sustainability assessment were broadly discussed with various examples and case studies. The eight presentations in the afternoon sessions covered various on-going large EU research projects on metal resources, their availability and recoverability, integrating a life cycle thinking approach to assess the direct and indirect impacts of primary production or recycling from secondary resources.
The peak attendance was 104 from the total of 197 registered participants. There were lively discussions throughout the morning and afternoon sessions. In the end, PROMETIA organizers of this webinar, Dr. Patrick d’Hugues and Dr Yongxiang Yang, gave a brief summary and thanked all contributors and participants for making it a very interactive and successful event:
“It is the end of our seminar. We want to thank you all for attending it on behalf of Prometia, its President Andrzej Chmielarz and its Chairman Stéphane Bourg.
Thank you also to Benjamin and Antoine for co-sharing the sessions … and of course thank you to all contributors.
We hope and we think we reached our initial objectives, and we answered some questions:
Why technology developers in metallurgy and mineral processing and LCA/sustainability experts should work together?
- Because data and reliability of data are important. Process engineers can help produce and secure them.
- Because LCA expert will help process developers to eco-design and improve their processes.
Why is it important for industry and policy makers to have some tools to assess and compare processes?
- Because the market, the customers and the society want to be sure that the products are produced in the most sustainable way and do not accept green washing approaches anymore.
We also found today that there is a clear need for more research and debate to address the various environmental impacts associated to product manufacturing. There is of course the CO2 emission aspect but not only… For example, depletion/dispersion concepts were nicely addressed today and generated a lot of exchanges.
Finally, if we want to highlight some key words of today’s presentations, we can mention access to reliable data, transparency and collaborations. Prometia can help with that!
Again, Thanks to all”
Below you can download the webinar presentations.
AGENDA & PRESENTATIONS
10:00 – 10:10 Introduction
10:10 – 10:40 Principle of LCA applied to Processing and Recycling – B. Sprecher (TU Delft)
10:40 – 11:10 LCA of metals production : key challenges ahead and potential way forward – A. Beylot (BRGM)
11:10 – 11:15 Break
11:15 – 11:45 Carbon footprint of Boliden’s main metals – A. Babikian (Boliden)
11:45 – 12:15 Comprehensive view of sustainable hydrogen production routes for green steelmaking
– N. Jaeger, J. Suer, F. Ahrenhold (Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe AG)
12:15 – 13:30 Lunch Break
13:30 – 13:50 Metal resources indicators in LCA – From depletion of the geosphere to recoverability from the anthroposphere – E. Pirard, S. Belboom (Université de Liège)
13:50 – 14:10 Innovative methodology approach for integrating LCA and LCC, and metal lightweight materials case study – J. Ibañez, J. Díez, M. Santiago, D. Blanco, S. Martel, R. Barros (ICCRAM – Universidad de Burgos)
14:10 – 14:30 The sustainability assessment in the FineFuture project with a focus on LCA – L. Rigamonti (Politecnico di Milano)
14:30 – 14:50 Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment for a Circular Resource Economy – Comparing primary production of neodymium against recycling using an LCA approach – L. Smith (Materials Processing Institute) and L. Tijsseling (Minviro Ltd.)
14:50 – 15:00 Break
15:00 – 15:20 Influence of materials recycling processes in the life cycle assessment of energies – P. Judais, D. Hartmann (CEA/DES/ISEC)
15:20 – 15:40 LCA analysis of zinc cell recycling in Waelz kiln – K. Klejnowska (IMN)
15:40 – 16:00 Discussing the challenges in LCA studies for alumina pathways in EU funded research projects. – A. Preveniou (AdMiRIS P.C.)
16:00 – 16:20 Life Cycle Assessment methodologies for multi-functionality in the steel sector – M. Cruz Fernandez, P. Hodgson (Tata Steel in Europe – UK)
16:20 – 16:30 Conclusion
