Certification initiatives are product-focused, rely on standards and use sustainabilitymetrics to inform end-users on the provenance of commodities. In the metals sector, thephenomenon of formal certification programs has recently gained traction. Four initiativesare reviewed to illustrate the status and prospects of metal certification. The prime caseis the Conflict Free Smelter Program operated by the global electronics industry. Thisscheme has developed and applied standards on mineral chain-of-custody, including use ofthird-parties to audit smelters and refineries all over the world. Additional programsdiscussed are the Green Lead Project, Fair Trade and Fair Mined gold, and the ResponsibleJewellery Council. Collectively these initiatives address a variety of sustainabilitycriteria, including social, economic and environmental dimensions, but focus only onprecious and specialty metals (Au, platinum group, Pb, Sn, Ta and W). Metalscertifications programs are building capacity and infrastructure compared to matureprograms in agriculture and other commodity sectors. Opportunities and issues for growthof metals certification are considered.

Since sustainability and environmental issues rose lately, lightweighting has been the point of interest for automotive and aerospace sectors. Lightweighting reduces the fuel consumption of the vehicles and as a result of this reduces emissions. Aluminum, especially wrought aluminum alloys, have large potentials for dramatic weight reduction of structural parts while maintaining the safety and performance. Wrought aluminum alloys are used in automotive skin, bumpers and suspension parts etc. Lightweight suspension parts improve the ride quality and handling, additional to fuel consumption and emission reduction. Holistic life cycle approach takes into account the material flows and related information flows in order to achieve these material flows through the life cycle of the components as well as performance characteristics not only in technical and economic terms but also environmental and social terms. It is necessary to have seamless information flow through the life cycle of the components that could be enabled by the closed-loop product life cycle management (PLM). Closed-loop PLM may also help collection of life cycle information which is necessary to generate performance characteristics and distribution of performance characteristics among life cycle actors.

In regard to the sustainability of future cities, an increase in sustainable energysources needs to be managed. Therefore, the German government decided on increasing theratio of green energy up to 20% by 2020. In accordance with this, offshore wind energyparks will be constructed, as they provide the advantage of lasting air cleanliness andpreserving natural resources. To ensure construction safety, wind energy mills areconstructed using ductile steels of large thickness. Here, an application of high-strengthsteels provides the possibility of reducing the amount of material while constructionsafety is still ensured. Considering the long life cycle of wind energy mills’ foundationstructures and the recyclability of the steel grades used, their construction becomes arelevant factor in reducing CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the use of less material reducesCO2 emissions.Due to existing safety concepts, however, the application of high-strength steels is onlyconditionally allowed. Thus, the current study concerns the development of a safetyconcept based on the existing concepts to allow the application of high-strength steels.Furthermore, as the structural steel parts need to be joined, an energy-efficient weldingprocess is utilised: electron beam welding. The structural steel parts and weld joints areinvestigated with respect to their mechanical properties by analysing their loadability incombination with safety concepts. The load on the material is evaluated to ensureconstruction safety. In addition to the investigation of safety requirements, the suppliedmechanical properties are investigated. As the weld joints show different properties fromthe base material, the joints are considered the critical part. The joints areinvestigated concerning strength and toughness. Afterwards the mechanical properties arecorrelated with the wind energy structures. The prevention of failure is fulfilled whenthe mechanical properties of the weld joints exceed the required mechanicalproperties.

The goal of zero-waste is one of the main challenges of modern steel industry, which over the past 20 years has been committed to increase the recovery and the use of by-products generated during the ironmaking and steelmaking processes. Among the main by-products generated during iron and steel production, such as slags, dusts and sludges, slags constitute about 90% of the total. Slags are currently used in various fields (such as cement production, road construction, environmental recovery in landfill covers, as fertilizer and soil conditioner, etc.) according to their chemical features, which depend on production process origin. In Italy, in particular for example, BF (Blast Furnace) slag is used for cement production while BOF (Basic Oxygen Furnace) slag without iron (inert slag) is used as landfill cover, in compliance with Italian legislation. In Germany, BF and BOF slag use as fertlisers and liming materials has a long tradition. Although in recent years slag use has increased, the application for agriculture purposes needs to be further investigated. Slag can be used as a soil conditioner (high content of Ca and Mg), Si supply (improves the crops resistance to pests and diseases), P fertilizer production and micro-nutrients supply. Use of slags can affect human health and environment, because of heavy metal content, which can leache to groundwater or be transferred to surface water. The assessment of risk to the environment based on slag application requires further investigation. This represents an opportunity for both the steel and fertilizer industries to promote natural resources savings, CO2 emission reductions, landfill waste prevention as well as social awareness of sustainability of some industrial activities. The BOF slag has been shown to be useful as liming material for acidic soil amendment and it can replace commercial fertilizers. Different effects on crop yields and on soil parameters can be found, depending on soil characteristics and climate conditions. In Middle Europe, with humid climate, lime losses through leaching of up to 0.5 t CaO/ha have to be replaced with liming material to prevent acidification. Evaluation of long-term field trials with slag liming materials can give information about the impact of slag applications on crop management and the environment. In Mediterranean regions, such as in Italy, arable soils rarely show acidic characteristics. Alkaline soils from coastal areas are often rich in sodium content, due to seawater intrusion and irrigation with saline water. The aim of this research is also to investigate the application of BOF slag to these soils, in order to assess the effect of Ca contained in slag in balancing negative Na effects. This paper is based on the preliminary study and experiments carried out within an ongoing RFCS (Research Fund for Coal and Steel) project.

Electric vehicles in Germany are expected to have an average lifetime of twelve years. During their long use-phase these vehicles rely on electricity from the power grid. A historic review shows that over the last twelve years the German electricity-mix has undergone a massive transition. Renewable energy sources are on the rise, while nuclear power is phased out. This trend is expected to continue. Since the environmental impacts of electric vehicles depend on the electricity-mix, this study performs a life cycle assessment that respects the transitions in the observed time-span. This study defines the new term “time-resolved LCA”, in contrast to conventional LCA- and dynamic LCA-methodology, as an LCA-approach which is based on statistical, time-resolved data. Time-resolved LCA aims at becoming a simple and feasible method to reduce model-uncertainty in LCA. The authors conclude that time-resolved LCA improves model-quality significantly. Most environmental impacts of electric vehicles decrease, when the more precise time-resolved approach is employed. Further implications of the new approach are outlined.

The future evolution of energy supply technologies strongly depends on (and affects) theeconomic and environmental systems, due to the high dependency of this sector on theavailability and cost of fossil fuels, especially on the small regional scale. This paperaims at presenting the modeling system and preliminary results of a research projectconducted on the scale of Luxembourg to assess the environmental impact of future energyscenarios for the country, integrating outputs from partial and computable generalequilibrium models within hybrid Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) frameworks. The generalequilibrium model for Luxembourg, LUXGEM, is used to evaluate the economic impacts ofpolicy decisions and other economic shocks over the time horizon 2006−2030. A techno-economic (partialequilibrium) model for Luxembourg, ETEM, is used instead to compute operation levels ofvarious technologies to meet the demand for energy services at the least cost along thesame timeline. The future energy demand and supply are made consistent by coupling ETEMwith LUXGEM so as to have the same macro-economic variables and energy shares driving bothmodels. The coupling results are then implemented within a set of Environmentally-ExtendedInput-Output (EE-IO) models in historical time series to test the feasibility of theintegrated framework and then to assess the environmental impacts of the country.Accordingly, a disaggregated energy sector was built with the different ETEM technologiesin the EE-IO to allow hybridization with Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) and enrich the processdetail. The results show that the environmental impact slightly decreased overall from2006 to 2009. Most of the impacts come from some imported commodities (natural gas, usedto produce electricity, and metalliferous ores and metal scrap). The main energyproduction technology is the combined-cycle gas turbine plant “Twinerg”, representingalmost 80% of the domestic electricity production in Luxembourg. In the hybrid EE-IOmodel, this technology contributes to around 7% of the total impact of the country’s netconsumption. The causes of divergence between ETEM and LUXGEM are also thoroughlyinvestigated to outline possible strategies of modeling improvements for future assessmentof environmental impacts using EE-IO. Further analyses focus first on the completion ofthe models’ coupling and its application to the defined scenarios. Once the coupling isconsistently accomplished, LUXGEM can compute the IO flows from 2010 to 2030, while theLCI processes in the hybrid system are harmonized with ETEM to represent the futuredomestic and imported energy technologies.

The technology of electrochemical energy storage (EES) is supposed to play a key role inthe near future for mobility systems characterized by electric vehicles as well as forstationary applications providing energy supply as they represent the interface betweentransport and energy networks. The performance of EES systems is closely linked to theapplied battery materials which contain metals often considered critical. For determiningcriticality of metals different approaches have been used which however evaluate suchmaterials for the economy as a whole. What has been missing up till now is the examinationof critical raw materials for individual technologies.Therefore it is intended to developa technology specific criticality indicator for battery materials.The focus of this paperis developing a method to indicate the significance of raw materials for electrochemicalactive materials used by lithium-ion batteries (LIB) which are currently very promisingEES for mobile and stationary applications. In order to implement this at first thefollowing three aspects were analyzed and put in relation to each other: importance ofelectrode materials, amount of metal in the active material and exploitable metalreserves. The combination of these factors resulted in a relevance index (RI) which allowsdetermining the relevance of raw materials in different types of LIBs. Based on this indexthe development of a technology specific criticality indicator has to integrate furtheraspects being the focus of future work.

In the context of a rapidly growing energy demand and concerns about global climate change, renewable energies and in particular photovoltaic (PV) power are considered long-term solutions towards secured energy supply and for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. However, is solar PV a truly sustainable solution? Climate change will certainly not be the only environmental issue we will have to deal with. Regarding the issue of mineral resources, current research efforts aim at reducing raw material consumption in the manufacturing of PV panels. But, how do we assess the environmental efficiency of a panel, especially concerning the raw material consumption? Moreover, the PV industry consumes raw materials which are principally produced in non-EU countries such as Cadmium (Cd), Gallium (Ga) and Indium (In). How do we consider the issue of critical substance and accessibility? Required materials for PV modules may also be used in other applications (for example Gallium and Indium in electrical appliance production). Should competitiveness between applications be taken into account in a sustainability assessment? Are we going to valorize the PV module ability to use substitute substances? In addition to responsible resource management indicators, many other aspects have to be taken into account in order to achieve a complete sustainability assessment, especially recyclability, viability of PV industry, equilibrium along the value chain or social indicators such as social acceptability... Designing sustainability metrics is a new and complex research field. The whole value chain has to be evaluated and all dimensions (environmental, economic, and social) need to be explored. The paper will discuss the issues in defining sustainability metrics and propose some methodologies and a system of indicators to lassess the sustainability of a PV module.