The EU-funded project TREASoURcE reaches its conclusion after 4 years of research and collaboration. Throughout the project 3 different value chains were upgraded by implementing circular economy solutions. Circular economy demonstrations were completed for the cases chemical recycling for circular plastics, 2nd life EV-batteries for energy storage systems, and bio-waste streams for biogas and biofertilizers. This was quite successful, also due to the close collaboration with key stakeholders, including municipalities and producing companies.
As the project took place within the EU’s Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI), TREASoURcE had a particular focus on transitions to a circular economy on a city and regional level. Circular economy solutions were implemented in selected regions (Finland, Norway, Sweden) to then demonstrate the conditions under which these solutions perform well. On this basis, replication guidance was formulated for other regions to be able to implement similar circular economy solutions.
Due to its focus on regional transitions, GreenDelta as the leading sustainability assessment partner had a special role in the project. As common sustainability assessment approaches, such as with life cycle assessment, tend to disregard the external conditions of product life cycles, such as the market dynamics or resource availability, GreenDelta set out to develop a novel sustainability assessment approach.
The new approach turned out to be one that combines Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with System Dynamics (SD). In the project we called it System Dynamics Sustainability Assessment (SDSA). SD is an approach that allows to model with stocks and the change of these stocks over time. Furthermore, feedback loops can be included, allowing to model real-life systems. This was particularly interesting for the project since it was found that whether or not a circular economy solution is successful (in terms of selected sustainability indicators) highly depends on the regional conditions. Supporting regional conditions are e.g. key for having a noticeable effect on markets.
GreenDelta therefore developed an SDSA framework, the SD software capabilities, and applied an SDSA to the 3 project cases. For the software, an SD feature was developed for openLCA, making it the first LCA software to enable SD modelling. SD is an extremely flexible system modelling approach that allows for the implementation of many research topics popping up in the LCA world, including regional LCA, dynamics LCA, prospective LCA, rebound effects, planetary boundaries, etc.
Regarding the 3 cases looked at in the project, very insightful results were produced with SDSA. In the case of recycling plastics, the regional assessment found that chemical recycling is still quite a novel and inefficient technology, meaning, similar to mechanical recycling, it is constraint by the quality of the input feedstock. In the case of second life batteries it was found that these only perform well under certain conditions, namely in the case of peak-shaving activities. The biowaste case performed well in all circular economy scenarios, as producing biogas for one improved the local electricity mix, and bio fertilizer, second, improving the regional nutrient cycle.
All in all, the TREASoURcE project contributed to a big step for sustainability assessments and system modelling. Now it is time for you to get involved and come up with your ideas of how to use SD with LCA. Several materials were made available to support your SDSA projects:
The SD models that were developed for the 3 cases can be found here, to be imported and run in openLCA: https://nexus.openlca.org/model/System%20dynamics%20models
The newest version of openLCA now includes system dynamics modelling capabilities. Find some guidance here: https://greendelta.github.io/openLCA2-manual/advanced_top/system_dynamics.html