Creating LCA datasets for agricultural based products such as ...

Food sector: sugar from cane, sugar from beet, corn starch, wheat flour, cocoa powder, chocolate drops, coconut, sunflower oil, soy protein, soy bean oil, rape seed oil, linseed oil, palm oil, palm oil shortening, … etc.

Biofuel sector: sunflower oil, sun flower methyl ester, soy bean methyl ester, rape seed oil, rape seed methyl ester, jatropha oil, ethanol from straw, ethanol from wheat, ethanol from cane, ethanol from sugar beet, ethanol from corn, SunFuel from wood, … etc.

Other: cigarettes

Creating LCA datasets for different agricultural products and various renewable resources (cotton, flax, hemp, soy bean, kenaf, jute, sisal, oil palm, rapeseed, linseed, corn, wheat, triticale, sugar beet, sugarcane, sunflower, coconut tree, cocoa, tobacco, jatropha, poplar short rotation coppice, rubber tree (caoutchouc), pine, , etc…) grown in various countries

Creating, maintaining and updating a LCA database on agricultural production for the Software System GaBi 4.

Fertilizers and pesticides, tractors & passes, agricultural equipment. The database furthermore contents several industrial intermediate products for e. g. producing biopolymers and bio fuels.

LCA on the entire life cycle of cigarettes from tobacco production, processing, manufacture, packaging, transport until butt and packaging disposal

University of Kassel-Witzenhausen

Industry, universities and divers research establishments

A Life Cycle Assessment was performed for the Chesapeake Bay Region (USA) to allow an environmental comparison between the current practice of spreading chicken litter on the local fields and the proposed practice of utilizing the chicken litter as a biomass fuel source to generate electricity. Environmental impacts have been calculated for different scenarios to get information on how the environmental impacts will change when the chicken litter is burned to produce energy (future scenario) instead of used as fertilizer in corn production (current scenario). A complete system with defined system boundaries and functional units was set up to be able to compare the scenarios.

The objective of the study is to provide the ministry with comparable information on the environmental performance of different materials and products based on renewables (such as celluloses, fibres, fats, oils, proteins, starches and other polysaccharides). The study will focus on the material use of renewables, not on the use as energy.

Collection and summary of available data from literature on the environmental performance of the bio-ethanol production from sugar cane in Brazil

Agentur für nachhaltige Nutzung von Agrarlandschaften (ANNA, Germany) and Agroscope Reckenholz (FAL, Switzerland)

2005 – 2007

LBP University of Stuttgart

2005 – 2007

University of Hamburg, IKP University of Stuttgart, Knauf Consulting

Complete modeling of the entire chain of SunDiesel production starting from forestry production (residual wood versus primary wood) and transport via conversion processes up to combustion of SunDiesel in cars.

The study demonstrates that incineration of biodegradable plastic (on the basis of poly lactic acid) is more sustainable than simply disposing it. For the presentation of the results different emissions (CO2, N2O) as well as energy consumption were selected. At the end the advantage of the incineration regarding sustainability is obvious in comparison to the land filling of biodegradable plastics.

LBP University of Stuttgart

LCS, Sto and BASF

2001 – 2003

Environmental profile of biodiesel produced out of used vegetable oil and primary biodiesel from palm oil, rapeseed and soy bean.

Eco-profiles of different seat cover materials (leather, leatherette (PVC, PUR), Alcantara, cotton, wool)

Various energy recovery facilities for wooden products were examined and modeled. Eco-profiles were developed, depending on the technical standard of the machinery and the product’s relative content of actual wood. These showed which of the internal analyses and optimum realization concepts for wood products would fulfil, or even exceed, legal requirements.

The guideline assists companies of the forest and wood-based industries as well as the wood-manufacturing industry to better communication their environmental advantages. The guideline enables the wood industry to effectively prepare and profitably adopt internal established (environmental) information. It highlights how environmentally relevant data can be generated pragmatically, and provides most value for the company or business, its employees and customers, and finally the environment.

Modelling of detailed LCI-datasets of cropping, processing and part production of fibre-fleeces and other fibre-reinforced parts of various primary and recycled natural fibres (flax, hemp, cotton, sisal, coconut, wood fibre etc.)

The study is a critical analysis of the results obtained in the UBA-study “LCA of baverage packaging II” published in 2000.

Maximale Nutzung von nachwachsenden Rohstoffen zur Förderung regionaler Stoffkreisläufe - Beurteilung der Hemmnisse und Möglichkeiten auf dem Gebiet des Bauwesens

LCA Model of incineration of different wooden products