LIFE CYCLE ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF INDUSTRIAL SYMBIOSIS NETWORKS: A METHODOLOGY FOR MULTI-LEVEL MODELING AND ANALYSIS

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) are state-of-the-art methods for holistically measuring the environmental and economic performance of industrial symbiosis networks (ISNs). ISNs have multiple stakeholders involved that require different levels of environmental and economic performance insight for specific organizational goals. This thesis developed the unified multi-level matrix-based model for life cycle environmental and economic evaluation of ISNs (UM3-LCE3-ISN) methodology. UM3-LCE3-ISN is outlined in a formalism that explains the steps for model construction and multi-level analysis of the LCA and LCC results. Through manipulation of the demand vector in the model, the network-level LCA and LCC results can be disaggregated to the levels of individual companies and resource flows. The methodology also factors in the time-value of money for economic evaluation. UM3-LCE3-ISN is tested on three industrial symbiosis case studies to demonstrate how the methodology is generic and can be applied to any type of ISN.