Social impact assessment of products can be approached through different methodologies that need to be adapted to the particularities and features of the studied subject. Thus, the Social Life Cycle Assessment methodology can be used to assess different innovative practices of product manufacturing, under a circular economy approach, by identifying potential positive as well as negative impacts along products’ life cycle. This paper presents the results of the Social Life Cycle Impact Assessment of a reference product from the Spanish meat industry using existing and new innovative methods of social impact analysis. Worker discrimination, health and safety for workers, consumers and local community were identified as the social aspects with relevant significance into the business or for the influence on customer’s perception of the products studied. Therefore, results can represent a reference scenario for the future assessment of innovative solutions in the Spanish meet sector. Despite the scarce use of Social Life Cycle Impact Assessment, this case study is a good example of how this innovative kind of assessment can be helpful for companies to identify their weak and strong social performance areas and design strategies to improve in Social Responsibility Management.

The use of electric and electronic equipment has been increasing dramatically in the last years and entails an important amount of waste containing many valuable metals which could constitute an important source of raw materials if appropriately recycled. In this paper, an expression has been developed to value waste of electric and electronic equipment that are sent by users to an appropriate recycling plant. The user obtains in turn eco-credits, which can be later exchanged through different incentives. The eco-credit expression is based on the raw material content of the given device, assessed through an indicator called thermodynamic rarity, which rates minerals according to their scarcity in the crust and the energy required to mine and refine them. Additionally, the state of the device, lifetime and recyclability of the materials are considered in the equation. The expression has been applied as a case study to a working tablet and an LED lamp.

In this paper, experimental tests of a hybrid trigeneration pilot unit based on renewable energy sources are presented and analyzed. The plant provides electricity by coupling four photovoltaic/thermal collectors and a micro-wind turbine, fresh water by means of hybrid desalination (membrane distillation, and reverse osmosis), and sanitary hot water coming from the photovoltaic/thermal collectors and an evacuated tubes collector. Plant design was previously modeled to cover the power, freshwater and sanitary hot water for a typical family home (four residents) isolated from the power and water networks. The hybrid pilot unit has been tested from May 2017 to March 2018 in Zaragoza (Spain). Results from those tests show that daytime assessment of power, freshwater and sanitary hot water produced allowed a good coverage of scheduled energy and water demands. Flexible operation due to the combined production of power and heat was also observed. State of charge of the batteries and the temperature of the sanitary hot water tank are the key control variables, which allow to give priority to power, freshwater or sanitary hot water production according to the ordered demands or economic incentives. Environmental assessment of the pilot unit along its life cycle also has shown very low impacts with respect to the conventional supply of energy and water.

In this paper, the design of a system providing electricity by coupling photovoltaic/thermal (PVT) collectors and a wind turbine (WT), sanitary hot water (SHW) coming from the PVT and evacuated tube collectors (ETCs) and fresh water (FW) produced in two seawater desalting facilities (membrane distillation, MD, and reverse osmosis, RO), has been carefully analyzed by means of a dynamic model developed in TRNSYS®. This analysis is compulsory to operate a lab-scale pilot plant that is being erected at Zaragoza, Spain. A new model-type has been included in TRNSYS® in order to include the MD unit in the scheme. A sensitivity analysis of some free-design variables, such that the ETC surface, PVT and ETC tilt, water storage tank, batteries capacities, and mass flow rates delivered to the SHW service and/or feeding the MD unit has been performed in order to propose the definite design of the scheme. The proposed base case was able to produce up to 15,311 L per year in the MD system and cover an electric energy demand of 1890 kWh. Coverage of SHW, water (including RO and MD) and power is respectively 99.3%, 100% and 70%. However, daily and yearly assessment of FW, SHW and power produced with the optimized design gave a better coverage of water and energy demands for a typical single family home. The improved and definite design was able to increase its MD production in 35% and the electric energy in 7% compared with base case.

In this paper, the comprehensive approach provided by the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) iri water management is shown. It includes the LCA of the diverse water supply alternatives within a region but also the LCA of further water uses. The case study is the Segura Basin, a dry area in the southeast of Spain with important water demands. Thus, external alternatives like water transfers and desalination are required to partly balance the reduced natural water availability. The paper firstly shows the environmental impacts of water supply alternatives, depending on its contribution to the water balance in the watershed. Secondly, the LCA of water use in that water stressed area is also analysed, in order to compare both impacts. The target is to analyse if alternatives reduce the global impact of water supply and to compare that damage with that derived from water use. Both LCA approaches are integrated by using the Eco-Indicator 99 method.Results show that seawater desalination has the highest impact, but external solutions as the Tajo-Segura water transfer are also impacting solutions when low water volumes are delivered. The lowest impacts are found for local natural resources. Regarding the freshwater use, highest impacts are due to agriculture, since water consumed exceeded its natural resources. It has been demonstrated that diversification of water supply alternatives considerably increases the environmental impact of the use of water in scarce areas. Consequently, water users and policy makers should be aware of hidden costs to guarantee the water supply in these regions. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

abstract The production of potable water from brackish water, tertiary treatments of treated wastewaters for irrigation and other allowed uses, and several industrial processes which use recycled water are the most important applications of electrodialysis (ED). During the last years, the number of pilot initiatives focused on renewable energy powered desalination has grown, being one of the most promising combinations of the ED powered by photovoltaic (PV) systems. ED combined with renewable energies becomes attractive for being a mature technology, which requires direct current (DC) power and is easily adapted for variable energy conditions. The present paper shows the design, installation, testing, and monitoring of a 100% isolated PV–ED system which is feasible for a commercial scale. The testing tasks have been performed in a 4 m3/h commercial-one stack electrodialysis reversal plant powered by two solar PV fields in parallel. For the DC energy required in the stack, a solar PV field has been designe...

The use of two axes tracking systems has been widely implemented because of the higher rates in energy production that these systems can achieve. However, the reduction of the PV modules cost makes the economic advantage of these tracking systems not so evident and this has aroused the interest of analysing them from other points of view such as efficiency or energy performance and environmental impact.Most of the existing LCA studies related to Photovoltaic systems are focused in the comparison of the different technologies used for cell production; some reports include also the module assembly, but there is little information regarding the environmental impact caused by the complete solar photovoltaic plant.In this paper, a Life cycle analysis of two types of installations (with and without solar tracking) in different geographic locations is presented. The methodology, based on recognized international standards, provides the best framework for assessing the most relevant factors causing the environmental impacts and gives relevant information for further improvements. The results also allow the comparison of different solutions and the calculation of the Energy and Environmental Payback time of both configurations. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.