Webinar – Incentives for energy recovery in LCA for plastics

Date:Thursday, 21 January, 2021 Time:10:30 - 12:00

Welcome to a webinar with results from the project “Incentives for energy recovery in LCA for plastics”. Tomas Ekvall, Chalmers University of Technology, will present the project and its results, together with Maja Nellström and Marie Gottfridsson, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute. The presentations will be followed by questions from and discussion with attendees at the webinar.

The project “Incentives for energy recovery in LCA for plastics” (funded by the Swedish Envionrmantal Protection Agency) builds on the recently reported project “Modeling of recycling” (funded by Re:Source), which aimed to analyzing and debating how to model recycling in life cycle assessments (LCA) and similar environmental assessments. The project team found a risk that LCA can give wrong incentives, favoring energy recovery over material recycling. In the current project, the aim is to investigate to which extent this is a problem for waste plastics and if a closer look on how to model energy recovery can solve the problem. The focus is on the methods for Product Environmental Footprint (PEF). The possible solutions investigated includes Factor B in the PEF methodology, but also a wider systems perspective on energy recovery that includes impacts on the imports of waste and related impacts on the waste management in other European countries.

 

The webinar is directed to researchers, industry and policy-makers with an interest in the PEF methodology and/or in how to model waste management in LCA.

 

Download presentation

 

 

Presenters

Tomas Ekvall
Tomas Ekvall is an internationally recognized expert on life cycle assessment. His 30+ years of experience from research in systems analysis includes heading the national research programme Towards Sustainable Waste Management and the more recent project Modeling of Recycling. He currently runs his own company as researcher and advisor in LCA methodology and is an adjunct professor in environmental systems analysis at Chalmers University of Technology

Marie Gottfridsson
Marie Gottfridsson has a Master of Science in Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology with a Master’s degree in Industrial Ecology. She has been working at IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute for two years and is currently involved in several LCA based projects related to plastic waste.

Maja Nellström
Maja Nellström has a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology with a Master’s degree in Industrial Ecology. She has worked at IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute for about a year, mainly in projects related to sustainable plastic use. Currently, she is involved in several plastic related projects.

This webinar is arranged by Swedish Life Cycle Center as part of the project Incentives for energy recovery funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. The webinar is also part of a series of webinars arrange within the project Innovation cluster for the life cycle perspective, 2020-2024 funded by the Swedish Energy Agency and partners in Swedish Life Cycle Center.