Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to present the availability of studies that are related to life cycle assessments (LCA) in Austria since 2000. This study also includes a review of available water and carbon footprint studies along with an analysis of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) database pertaining to Austria. The review seeks to explore potential research gaps and to identify needs for similar studies in the country while quantifying the number of available studies that are available to the general public or as background information in other LCA studies.
Methods
Online searches using Google, Google Scholar, Scopus, and ScienceDirect were conducted using various keywords to find LCA studies. Keywords included: life cycle assessment, LCA, and Austria, as well as water and carbon footprinting. Results were limited to English language studies.
Results and discussion
A total of 15 studies that pertain directly to LCAs in Austria were found. In addition, four reports for water footprinting and six reports for carbon footprinting were found, and 77 GRI reports. The majority of the LCA studies were only accessible by way of restricted journals.
Conclusions
The majority of the studies focused on the energy and manufacturing sectors. This was expected, due to exports that make up a large portion of the Austrian economy. Nevertheless, LCA research appeared to be driven by academic sources, rather than industry. Therefore, most of the studies were limited to paid subscriptions and thus were not easily accessible by the general public.
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
1 Introduction
Austria is a landlocked European country with a total area of 84,000 m2 of mostly mountainous terrain. The country has an open economy consisting mainly of small- and medium-sized enterprises with exports of goods and services accounting for 47% of the gross domestic product (GDP) (Nations Encyclopedia 2018). However, the most important industry in the country is tourism (Österreich Werbung Vienna 2016). Austria produces about 65.3 billion kWh of energy, of which up to 79% is supplied by renewable energy sources (International Energy Agency 2016), indicating that the country has a strong environmental consciousness.
The primary aim of this study was to determine the availability of life cycle-related studies in Austria. The study focused on life cycle assessments (LCA), carbon, and water footprinting studies in particular that are available to the public and non-specialists, as well as LCA practitioners. To satisfy this need, emphasis was placed on data that was both freely available as well as in restricted, paid for academic databases. Additionally, the number of GRI reports was investigated to determine the general environmental reporting practices of industrial players as a pseudo-comparison with what is expected to be an academic outcome of the prior searches.
2 Methods
Online searches were conducted using a similar method as found in (Maepa et al. 2017; Bodunrin et al. 2018; Burman et al. 2018; Croft et al. 2018; Engelbrecht et al. 2018). Google/Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, and Scopus were used to find documents published between 2000 and 2016. Non-exclusive searches using the keywords “life cycle assessment,” “LCA,” “carbon footprint,” “water footprint,” and “Austria” were used in order to find articles, reports, and conference papers that contained these keywords. Additionally, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) database reports for Austria (2016 only) were included to get a sense of the reporting tendencies of companies.
It is possible that some studies have been overlooked during the search method used here; however, the aim of the review is to assess the availability of easily accessible material to everyday users who would generally employ the above keyword searches and would not be knowledgeable about individual researchers in the country. German language reports were not included in the results and only reports written in English were considered. In addition, other life cycle management studies, e.g., social life cycle assessment and organizational life cycle assessment were excluded as explicit key words.
3 Results
The analysis conducted located 15 life cycle assessment-related studies pertaining to Austria (Table 1). The documents covered a wide range of topics. Material production and energy-related studies each comprised four reports and building construction studies yielded an additional three reports. The remainder of the reports is related to battery recycling, wastewater treatment, and the food industry.
In terms of carbon footprint studies, only six reports were found (Table 2). Four of these studies were for the food industry. Four of the six studies were accessible without paid subscriptions. For the water footprinting studies (Table 3), three studies focused on the agriculture and dairy industries while one study was a general countrywide report.
The GRI database search yielded 77 reports from organizations within Austria for 2016 (Table 4). The search included reports for all reporting criteria of GRI-3, GRI-3.1, GRI-4, non-GRI, and GRI-cited reports. Of all the reports, 46 reports (60%) were GRI-4 reports, 22 reports (29%) were non-GRI, and nine reports (12%) were GRI-cited reports.
4 Discussion
Since Austria has a strong industrial background, it was expected that more consideration would be given to power generation and material production. LCA reports on these two sectors accounted for 53.3% (~ 27% each) of the total LCA studies documented within this review. Additionally, construction accounted for 20%, recycling and wastewater treatment 13.3% (~ 7% each) and the food industry the remaining 13.3% (Fig. 1a). Of the studies found, 11 (73%) were obtained via paid channels while the remaining four (27%) were freely accessed through online searches (Fig. 1b). Conversely, 67% of the carbon footprinting studies was freely accessible, while 50% of the water footprinting studies was also freely available. Hence, much of the work on LCAs that pertain to Austria is not easily accessible to the public via free channels.
Of the 77 listed GRI entries, the financial services sector was the largest contributor with 12 entries (16%). The constructions and construction materials industries provided eight entries (11%), followed by the energy and energy utilities industries that comprised seven entries (9%). These are the largest contributors to the GRI database, however, combined, they contribute just over a third of the total number of entries, illustrating that there are contributions from a number of diverse industries.
The reports found in this study were all published after 2007; an unexpected result, given that the 12th SETAC Europe Annual meeting was held in Vienna in 2002 and that LCA was highlighted as an important aspect of the meeting (Rebitzer et al. 2002). Some studies before 2007 could be found, for example (Jungmeier et al. 2002; Jungmeier et al. 2003; Unger et al. 2004), but required a modified search method or stricter search restrictions by date, both options of which were outside the scope of this work. Additionally, these studies were not for Austria only or were written by Austrian authors about non-location specific topics. The authors also noted a possible problem with older work, in that PDF documents are less likely to be internally searchable, further limiting a search engine’s ability to find appropriate results.
Comparing these findings to a search within the ecoinvent v3.4 database, the authors were able to find 350 datasets. While this number is a total of allocation and consequential datasets, for unit and system processes, cutoff by allocation and point of substitution, even if the total is conservatively divided by six, this gives approximately 87 datasets. This value is higher than the 15 studies found through online searches. Additionally, the authors noted over 18,000 reports were listed for Austria in the openLCA Nexus (https://nexus.openlca.org). However, only 8286 were freely available and it appeared if many were published in German so not applicable to the aim of this paper.
5 Conclusions
The scope of this review was to evaluate life cycle assessment-related data as they pertain to Austria. It was found that a large number of LCA-related documents were only obtainable by way of paid means, with a few being freely accessible through online searches. Austria’s major exports are within machinery, metallurgical products and textiles and this was reflected in the proportion of LCA studies focused on them, especially with the energy consumption in their production processes.
Using the method as presented here, it is noted that a large number of studies were not available by typical searches as would be performed by non-specialists, e.g., Google and that the majority (over 99.5%) were seemingly hidden in either ecoinvent or the openLCA Nexus.
References
Bodunrin MO, Burman NW, Croft J, Engelbrecht S, Goga T, Ladenika AO, MacGregor OS, Maepa M, Harding KG (2018) The availability of life-cycle assessment, water footprinting, and carbon footprinting studies in Brazil. Int J Life Cycle Assess 23(8):1701–1707
Buchner H, Laner D, Rechberger H, Fellner J (2014) In-depth analysis of aluminum flows in Austria as a basis to increase resource efficiency. Resour Conserv Recycl 93:112–123
Burman NW, Croft J, Engelbrecht S, Ladenika AO, MacGregor OS, Maepa M, Bodunrin MO, Harding KG (2018) Review: life-cycle assessment, water footprinting, and carbon footprinting in Portugal. Int J Life Cycle Assess 23(8):1693–1700
Croft J, Engelbrecht S, Ladenika AO, Macgregor OS, Maepa M, Bodunrin MO, Burman NW, Goga T, Harding KG (2018) Review: the availability of life-cycle studies in Sweden. Int J Life Cycle Assess. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-018-1510-4
Engelbrecht S, Ladenika AO, MacGregor OS et al (2018) A discussion on the availability of life-cycle assessment studies in New Zealand. Int J Life Cycle Assess 23(8):1708–1713
Frischknecht R, Wyss F, Knöpfel SB, Stolz P (2015) Life cycle assessment in the building sector: analytical tools, environmental information and labels. Int J Life Cycle Assess 20:421–425
Gingrich S, Kušková P, Steinberger J (2011) Long-term changes in CO2 emissions in Austria and Czechoslovakia—identifying the drivers of environmental pressures. Energy Policy 39:535–543
Hietala S, Smith L, Knudsen MT, Kurppa S, Padel S, Hermansen JE (2015) Carbon footprints of organic dairying in six European countries—real farm data analysis. Org Agric 5:91–100
Hörtenhuber SJ, Weißhaidinger R, Lindenthal T, Zollitsch WJ (2014) Water-use and impact-weighted water footprints–methodological approach and case study for two Austrian milk production systems. In: 9th international conference on life cycle assessment in the agri-food sector (LCA food 2014), pp 565–574
International Energy Agency (2016) Austria - energy system overview. In: Energy Syst. Transform
Jungmeier G, Werner F, Jarnehammar A et al (2002) Allocation in LCA of wood-based products experiences of cost action E9. Int J Life Cycle Assess 7:369–375
Jungmeier G, McDarby F, Evald A, Hohenthal C, Petersen AK, Schwaiger HP, Zimmer B (2003) Energy aspects in LCA of forest products. Int J Life Cycle Assess 8:99–105
Koller M, Sandholzer D, Salerno A, Braunegg G, Narodoslawsky M (2013) Biopolymer from industrial residues: life cycle assessment of poly(hydroxyalkanoates) from whey. Resour Conserv Recycl 73:64–71
Kravanja P, Könighofer K, Canella L, Jungmeier G, Friedl A (2012) Perspectives for the production of bioethanol from wood and straw in Austria: technical, economic, and ecological aspects. Clean Techn Environ Policy 14:411–425
Lindenthal T, Markut T, Hörtenhuber S et al (2010) Greenhouse gas emissions of organic and conventional foodstuffs in Austria. In: International Conference on LCA in the Agri-Food, pp 319–324
Maepa M, Bodunrin MO, Burman NW, Croft J, Engelbrecht S, Ladenika AO, MacGregor OS, Harding KG (2017) Review: life cycle assessments in Nigeria, Ghana, and Ivory Coast. Int J Life Cycle Assess 22:1159–1164
Michlmair M (2008) Life-cycle design of residential buildings: appearance and reality of ecological assessments. Life-Cycle Civ Eng:397–402
Nations Encyclopedia (2018) Austria - overview of economy. In: Advameg
Neururer C, Smutny R, Treberspurg M, Sellner G (2013) Environmental life cycle assessment of office buildings - analysis of determinants. CESB 2013 PRAGUE - Cent Eur Towar Sustain Build 2013 Sustain Build Refurb Next Gener, pp 1–4
Österreich Werbung Vienna (2016) Austria - Trade and Industry
Pierer M, Winiwarter W, Leach AM, Galloway JN (2014) The nitrogen footprint of food products and general consumption patterns in Austria. Food Policy 49:128–136
Pucker J, Jungmeier G, Siegl S, Pötsch EM (2013) Anaerobic digestion of agricultural and other substrates – implications for greenhouse gas emissions. Animal 7:283–291
Raab M, Brunklaus B (2013) Ecological food products - new roles and responsibilities for retailers. In: 6th International Conference on Life Cycle Management
Rebitzer G, Windsperger A, Pennington D, Jolliet O (2002) Science and application of life cycle assessment 12th SETAC Europe annual meeting, 12–16 may 2002 in Vienna, Austria. Int J Life Cycle Assess 7:251–252
Schaubroeck T, De Clippeleir H, Weissenbacher N et al (2015) Environmental sustainability of an energy self-sufficient sewage treatment plant: improvements through DEMON and co-digestion. Water Res 74:166–179
Shen L, Patel MK (2010) Life cycle assessment of man-made cellulose fibres. Lenzinger Berichte 88:1–59
Siegl S, Laaber M, Holubar P (2011) Green electricity from biomass, part I: environmental impacts of direct life cycle emissions. Waste Biomass Valoriz 2:267–284
Soimakallio S, Saikku L (2012) CO2 emissions attributed to annual average electricity consumption in OECD (the organisation for economic co-operation and development) countries. Energy 38:13–20
Terinte N, Manda BMK, Taylor J, Schuster KC, Patel MK (2014) Environmental assessment of coloured fabrics and opportunities for value creation: spin-dyeing versus conventional dyeing of modal fabrics. J Clean Prod 72:127–138
Thaler S, Gobin A, Eitzinger J (2017) Water footprint of main crops in Austria. Die Bodenkultur J L Manag Food Environ 68:1–15
Theurl MC, Haberl H, Erb K-H, Lindenthal T (2014) Contrasted greenhouse gas emissions from local versus long-range tomato production. Agron Sustain Dev 34:593–602
Unger N, Beigl P, Wassermann G (2004) General requirements for LCA software tools
Vanham D (2012) A holistic water balance of Austria – how does the quantitative proportion of urban water requirements relate to other users? Water Sci Technol 66:549 LP–549555
Vanham D (2013) The water footprint of Austria for different diets. Water Sci Technol 67:824–830
Xará S, Almeida MF, Costa C (2014) Life cycle assessment of alternatives for recycling abroad alkaline batteries from Portugal. Int J Life Cycle Assess 19:1382–1408
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Responsible editor: Mary Ann Curran
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ladenika, A.O., Bodunrin, M.O., Burman, N.W. et al. Assessing the availability of life cycle assessments in Austria. Int J Life Cycle Assess 24, 614–619 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-018-1524-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-018-1524-y