Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T23:58:18.973Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Materials, beyond Life Cycle Thinking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2012

J.-P. Birat*
Affiliation:
ArcelorMittal Global R&D, Maizières, France
Get access

Abstract

Materials have been central to the development of civilization, as they constitute thebackbone of our society and of our technology, as all things are made of materials and allof them are made by tools mainly made of metals, and especially iron and steel. In modernlanguage, they have become central to the sustainability of our society. Speaking about ormeasuring this relationship, however, is complex. Life Cycle Thinking is an important toolfor doing this, but it was not developed with materials in mind and it focuses only onthat small part of sustainability related to environmental impacts. Economic and societalissues require other methodologies and all these complementary visions have to beaggregated in order to report properly on sustainability matters. To advance towards sucha new tool, called the New Metrics, an Initiative called SOVAMAT was launched 10 years agoand a Community has shaped up, binging together academics from a broad array of hard andsoft disciplines, materials producers from metals to plastics, glass, paper/cardboard,concrete, carbons, wood, etc., and materials users, including meta-users who work onecodesign, for example. The agenda of the Initiative is moving forward, improving existingmethodology, extending it and aggregating various tools towards the final target of theNew Metrics. The SOVAMAT Community meets regularly in annual seminars called Society andMaterials or SAM. This paper explains the questions addressed by the Initiative and someof its early successes.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© EDP Sciences 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

J.-P. Birat, J.S. Thomas, SOVAMAT (SOCIAL VALUE OF MATERIALS), an Important Program Of The European Steel Technology Platform (ESTEP), EU/Asia Workshop on Clean production and nanotechnologies, Seoul, European Commission DG Research, ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/estep/docs/sovamat_seoul.pdf
J.-P. Birat, J.-S. Thomas, Beyond Life-Cycle Thinking : the SOVAMAT initiative and the SAM seminars, The 8th International Conference on EcoBalance, Tokyo, December 2008
European Commission, Research Directorate – General, Directorate I – Environment.; SAT – Workshop reports; Brussels 24-25 April and 14 June 2007
European Commission; Work programme 2008 – cooperation - theme 6 - environment (including climate change); ENV.2008.3.3.2.1. Sustainability Assessment of Technologies; European Commission C(2007) 5765 of 29 November, 2007
E. Rametsteiner, et al., Sustainability indicator development–Science or political negotiation? Ecol.
Indicat. (2009), doi :10.1016/j.ecolind.2009.06.009
D. Meadows, D. Meadows, J. Randers, W. Behrens, Limits to Growth, 1972, Universe Books
D. Meadows, J. Randers, D. Meadows, Limits to Growth. The 30-Year Update, Chelsea Green Publishing
S. Lazzari, J.-P. Birat, V. Guerin, J. Lamontanara, L. Rocchia, M. Tuchman, Life cycle management of applied to a vehicle component or sub-system, F2004V172, Fisica 2004, World Automotive Congress, 23-27 May, Barcelona, Spain
UNEP’s Internatonal Panel on Sustainable Resource Management and on-going work on the recycling of metals, T. Graedel, personal communication, 2009
Minerals, critical minerals and the US economy, Committee on critical mineral impacts of the US economy, National Research Council, 2008, p. 264
Marcel Boiteux, Faut-il changer l’ampoule?, Ecologie, Petit guide des idées fausses en matière d’éclairage domestique, Valeurs Actuelles, 26-03-2009
D. Müller, NTNU, personal communication, 2009
SAM-3 seminar, organized by TU Freibergs & ArcelorMittal, Freiberg, 29-30, April 2009
J. Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel : the fates of human societies, W.W. Norton & Co, 1997
N. Stern, The economics of Climate Change, the Stern review, Cambridge, 2007, p. 692
C. Rynikiewicz, The climate change challenge and transitions for radical changes in the European steel industry, 10th European Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production, ERSCP Anvers, 5-7 October 2005
M. Marzano, L’éthique appliquée, chapitre 7 : éthique et affaires, la responsabilité sociale des entreprises, PUF, Que sais-je ?, 2008, p. 127
SNV, WBCSD, Inclusive business, profitable business for successful development, March 2008; www.inclusivebusiness.org
IPCC, 2009 : Meeting Report of the Expert Meeting on the Science of Alternative Metrics [Plattner, G.-K., T.F. Stocker, P. Midgley and M. Tignor (eds.)]. IPCC Working Group I, Technical Support Unit, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, p. 75. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/supporting-material/expert-meeting-metrics-oslo.pdf
Dalhousie University (2009, April 10). Climate Change Leads To Major Decrease In Carbon Dioxide Storage. ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090408195557.htm
H. Thomas, A.E. Friederike Prowe, I.D. Lima, S.C. Doney, R. Wanninkhof, R.J. Greatbatch, U. Schuster, A. Corbière, Changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation influence CO2 uptake in the North Atlantic over the past 2 decades, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 22, GB4027, doi :10.1029/2007GB003167, 2008
M. Batty, Cities and complexity, Understanding Cities with cellular automata, Agent-Based Models and Fractals, The MIT Press, 2007, p. 565
J.-P. Birat, dLCA, SAM-2 seminar, organized by École des Mines de Nantes & ArcelorMittal, Freiberg, 24-25 April, 2008
A. Levasseur, P. Lesage, M. Margni, L. Deschênes, R. Samson, Assessing climate change and temporary carbon sequestration scenarios with dynamic LCA, SAM-3 seminar, organized by TU Freibergs & ArcelorMittal, Freiberg, 29-30 April, 2009
M. Fischer, J.P. Lindner, Dynamic LCA – time dimension in LCA, Example : ZUB Building, SAM-3 seminar, organized by TU Freibergs & ArcelorMittal, Freiberg, 29-30 April, 2009
E. Bellevrat, P. Menanteau, Scenarios and Economic Modeling, Proceedings of the 4th Ulcos seminar, 1-2 October 2008, to be published in revue de Métallurgie, 2009
IEA, Energy Technology Perspectives 2008, Strategies & Scenarios to 2050, OCDE-IEA, 2008, p. 643
M. Margni, A.M. Boulay, J.B. Bayart, C. Bulle, R. Rosenbaum, L. Deschênes, Characterizing the Impacts of Water Use in LCA : From the General Framework to an Operational Method, SAM-3 CONFERENCE, FREIBERG; 29-30 April, 2009
SAM-1 seminar, organized by IPTS and ArcelorMittal, Seville, 6-7 March 2007, http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/docs/SAM1_flyer.pdf
SAM-2 seminar, organized by Ecole des Mines de Nantes & ArcelorMittal, Nantes, 24-25 April, 2008
SAM-4 seminar, organized by Ecole des Mines de Nancy & ArcelorMittal, Nancy, 28-29 April, 2010
SAM-5 seminar, organized by ArcelorMittal, Nancy, 11-12 May, 2011
J.-P. Birat, The Greening of the Steel Industry, Gordon Research Conference, INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY, Transforming The Use Of Energy, Materials, Water And Wastes, August 17-22, 2008, Colby-Sawyer College, New London, NH, F. Duchin (chair)
R. Buonamici, P. Masoni, A. Zamagni, R. Heijungs, G. Huppes, J. Guinée, Procedures and framework for life cycle sustainability analysis, SAM-3 seminar, organized by TU Freibergs & ArcelorMittal, Freiberg, 29-30 April, 2009
See, for example, the Journal of Ecocritics, http://ojs.unbc.ca/index.php/joe/index, Isle, http://isle.oxfordjournals.org/, or IJE, http://osle-india.org/journal.html. and two classical books on the subject : Leo Marx (2000), The Machine in the Garden : Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America, Oxford University Press, and Lawrence Buell, The Environmental Imagination : Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture, Cambridge, MA and London, England : Harvard University Press, 1995