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Material suppliers and industrial metabolism

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Abstract

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is not sufficiently tailored to the analysis of strategic environmental problems of material suppliers. Sustainable development calls for a reduction by a factor of 10 to 20 in the material intensity of the economy, a situation which leads to dramatic shifts in markets for raw materials. Furthermore, a material supplier might have major improvement options in the material’s numerous downstream uses. LCAs, however, can’t cover these two aspects. An adapted form of Substance Flow Analysis (SFA) may be an answer. This approach defines a system in relation to the flow of a specific material through society. All environmental interventions related to the material are inventoried. An emission evaluation indicates the dominant environmental bottlenecks, given the current market volume of each application of the material. This helps to identify improvement options and strategic choices in market portfolios. Scenario analysis on potential measures can further indicate changes of material flows — and thus markets — in the system. The approach is illustrated with a case study on chlorine.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. TNO Centre for Technology and Policy Studies, P.O. Box 541, NL-7300, AM Apeldoorn, The Netherlands

    Arnold Tukker

  2. Norsk Hydro Research Centre Porsgrunn, P.O. Box 2560, N-3901, Porsgrunn, Norway

    Avtar S. Jasser

  3. Centre of Environmental Science, P.O. Box 9518, NL-2300, RA Leiden, The Netherlands

    René Kleijn

Authors
  1. Arnold Tukker
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  2. Avtar S. Jasser
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  3. René Kleijn
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Correspondence to Arnold Tukker.

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Tukker, A., Jasser, A.S. & Kleijn, R. Material suppliers and industrial metabolism. Environ. Sci. & Pollut. Res. 4, 113–120 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02986292

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