Methods and Applications for Assessing Environmental Sustainability of Energy Technologies and Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Goal number 7 of the 17 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is specifically dedicated to energy, with, among others, an objective to achieve “sustainable energy”. Other SDGs can also be found relevant to energy systems, including SDG 12 on responsible consumption and production or SDG 13 directed at tackling climate change. Energy systems are key in supporting our socioeconomic systems, and include a large variety of technologies and systems behind the generation and provision of electricity and heat as well as transportation. In our striving to address global sustainability challenges, a transition from high-impact technologies and energy sources towards more environmentally friendly alternatives has been increasingly recognized as a necessary and urgent step. To ensure that such developments of energy systems are actually associated with more environmental sustainability, it is important to use comprehensive assessment tools and methodologies. In support of that effort, life cycle assessment (LCA) is paramount, owing to its holistic dimension in covering the entire life cycle of the systems and in encompassing all relevant environmental problems. This prevents occurrences of burden-shifting from one life cycle stage to another (e.g., use stage to production stage for example when switching from fossils to some renewables) or from one environmental impact to another (e.g., reduction of carbon footprint at the expense of other relevant impacts, like damages from toxic chemical releases on ecosystems and human health).

Over the years, LCA has been widely applied to energy systems, with a large proportion of studies applied to single technologies – typically to assist new developments with eco-design – although an increasing body of literature has also investigated entire large-scale systems, like assessments of national or regional energy policies. This Special Issue aims to gather state-of-the-art knowledge in the method development and application of LCA to energy systems, including technologies and systems related to all transportation modes and/or electricity and heat generation (either/both supply and demand sides). To meet this broad objective, I, therefore, invite you to submit contributions addressing the following topics (non-exhaustive list):

• Overall roles that LCA can play in supporting more environmentally sustainable energy systems.
• Use of LCA as a support to achieve UN SDGs related to energy (e.g. SGD no. 7), including development and application of life-cycle-based indicators for that purpose.
• Different uses of LCA for eco-design, identification of environmental hotspots, comparative studies, benchmarking of technologies or systems, etc.
• LCA applied to micro-, meso- and macro-scale systems, ranging from single technologies to power plants or entire utility company up to full systems like transportation in a given urban or (inter-)national system.
• Provision of life cycle inventories (LCI) for emerging technologies or systems to increase the availability of LCI for future LCA studies.
• Method development and application of LCA to energy system models as supports for energy policy-making (including both historical and prospective assessments)
• Combination of LCA with other assessment and management tools for energy decision- and policy-making
• Inclusion of absolute sustainability in the application of LCA to energy systems
• Use of life cycle sustainability assessment to integrate economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainability for energy systems

Assoc. Prof. Alexis Laurent
Guest Editor

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• LCA
• life cycle analysis
• life cycle assessment
• energy systems
• electricity and heat generation
• transport
• environmental impact assessment
• environmental sustainability
• sustainable development goals
• life cycle inventories
• energy policy
• energy transition
• renewables
• absolute sustainability
• energy technologies
• eco-design
• prospective assessments
• environmental burden-shifting
• human health impacts
• ecosystems damage