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Accounting for greenhouse gas emissions from the degradation of chemicals in the environment

  • NON-TOXIC IMPACT CATEGORIES ASSOCIATED WITH EMISSIONS TO AIR, WATER, SOIL
  • Published:
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

The degradation of chemicals in the environment is often excluded from life cycle assessment (LCA) studies. This paper describes a method to account for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from degradation, namely carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O).

Materials and methods

A multi-media fate model is proposed to estimate the distribution and degradation of chemicals released to the environment. The environmental distribution, along with emission factors and assumptions for each compartment (air, water, soil and sediments), is used to calculate emissions of CO2, CH4 and N2O associated with the initial release of a chemical to either the air, water or soil compartments. These emissions, along with global warming potentials (GWP), are converted to CO2 equivalents from degradation (GWPdeg). The method is described and evaluated with nine organic chemicals.

Results and discussion

Applying the proposed method to the example chemicals shows that all the end products (CO2, CH4 and N2O) have the potential to significantly contribute to GWPdeg, depending on the chemicals’ composition and environmental fate. These emissions, taken to represent the end-of-life stage of these nine chemicals, are shown to be significant when compared with the corresponding cradle-to-gate emissions. For three of the nine chemicals, the degradation emissions in the environment exceeded the cradle to gate phase.

Conclusions

The method enables the accounting of GHG emissions that are currently neglected in many LCA and carbon footprint studies. The model has been parameterized for a generic environmental scenario, but it can be adapted for more site-specific conditions. Uncertainty in this method is associated to the potential lack of chemical-specific data to use in fate modelling, the generic evaluative environment used in fate models and the uncertainty associated with emission factors. A Monte Carlo analysis on the latter shows that the highest uncertainty is expected for chemicals where N2O emissions are the main contributor to GWPdeg.

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Notes

  1. Recently derived from biomass, i.e. plant or animal sources, as opposed to fossil sources, e.g. peat, coal, oil, etc.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Prof. Xavier Domènech (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain), M. Phil. Chris Finnegan (Unilever, UK), Dr. Roger van Egmond (Unilever, UK), Dr. Antonio Franco (Unilever, UK) and Denis Kan-King Yu (Unilever, UK), for their valuable comments during the preparation of this work. The comments from three anonymous reviewers helped to significantly improve the clarity of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre, Unilever, Sharnbrook, MK44 1LQ, UK

    Ivan Muñoz, Giles Rigarlsford, Llorenç Milà i Canals & Henry King

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  1. Ivan Muñoz
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  2. Giles Rigarlsford
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  3. Llorenç Milà i Canals
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  4. Henry King
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ivan Muñoz.

Additional information

Communicated by Michael Z. Hauschild

Electronic supplementary material

Supplementary material includes a spreadsheet to calculate GWPdeg and a pdf document including a diagram with the generic environment, a literature search on methane oxidation in sediments, a list of parameters used in the equations, chemical-specific data used for the chemicals in the case study, the calculations for these chemicals and a detailed description of the Monte-Carlo Analysis.

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Muñoz, I., Rigarlsford, G., i Canals, L.M. et al. Accounting for greenhouse gas emissions from the degradation of chemicals in the environment. Int J Life Cycle Assess 18, 252–262 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-012-0453-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-012-0453-4

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