An integrated full cost model based on extended exergy accounting toward sustainability assessment of industrial production processes

Abstract

Existing methods for the sustainability assessment of industrial production processes have considered the values of natural resource use and ecosystem services. However, these methods mainly focus on monetary measures of natural capital cost and ignore some other costs, including human health effects, biodiversity loss and indirect exergy consumption in labor employment. The integrated ecological cumulative exergy consumption accounting method was proposed to improve the existing extended exergy model and provide a comprehensive perspective of the full cost of production including natural resources, human resources and environmental cost. The improved model is illustrated by its application for the steel-making process in China. Of the total cost of the steel-making process, the human resources cost (investment) accounts for only 9.7%. Contrary to the traditional cost evaluation, the result of this case study shows that classical economic assessment cannot reflect an overall ecological sustainable level of the steel-making process. The integrated method framework can be used to assess sustainability in a different spatial scale.

Graphic abstract

Appendix

List of acronyms

Abbreviation	Full expression	Unit
A land	Area of land occupation by solid wastes	ha
C ref	Reference value amount	CNY
DALY	Disability-adjusted life years	year
Eco-LCA	Ecologically based life cycle assessment
ECEC	Ecological cumulative exergy consumption	sej
ECECNR	Ecological cumulative exergy consumption of natural resources	sej
ECECHR	Ecological cumulative exergy consumption of human resources	sej
ECECENV	Ecological cumulative exergy consumption of environment	sej
EExbioL	Equivalent exergy of biodiversity loss	sej
EExERO	Equivalent exergy of environment resources occupation	sej
EExenv,air	Equivalent exergy of emissions of air pollutants	sej
EExenv,water	Equivalent exergy of emissions of water pollutants	sej
EExenv,solid	Equivalent exergy of environment impact of solid wastes	sej
EExNR	Equivalent exergy of natural resources	sej
EExHR	Equivalent exergy of human resources	sej
EExHH	Equivalent exergy of human health effect	sej
EExNonR	Equivalent exergy of nonrenewable resources	sej
EExRR	Equivalent exergy of renewable resources	sej
EMR	Exergy-to-money ratio	sej
Exin	Total exergy influx to a society over time	sej
ExProd	Exergy of a product.	sej
G	Gibbs free energy per unit mass of water relative to reference sea water	4.94 J/g
LCA	Life cycle assessment
M air	Mass of dilution air needed	g
M i	Mass of i pollutant emission	g
M water	Mass of dilution water needed	g
M solid	Mass of solid wastes discharged	g
MoneyAAS	Average annual salary of labor	CNY
N kinetic	Kinetic energy of dilution air moved by the wind	J
N chem	Chemical available energy of water	J
ρ	Average thermal capacity of air gases or water	J/K
Q rr	Quantity of renewable resources	g
Q nr	Quantity of nonrenewable resources	g or J
R solid	Land occupation ratio of solid wastes	ha/t
SLi	Potential species loss of i pollutant	species × year × kg−1
T e	Higher new-equilibrium temperature	°C
T 0	Average environmental temperature	°C
T DALY	Unit emergy allocated to the human resource per year	sej/year
Trair	Transformity of wind	sej/J
Trchem,water	Transformity of global flowing water chemical potential in river	sej/J
Trland	Transformity of land area sustained	sej/ha
Trnr	Transformity of nonrenewable resources	sej/j, sej/t, sej/kWh or sej/m3
Trrr	Transformity of renewable resources	sej/j, sej/t, sej/kWh or sej/m3
TrSL	Unit exergy that maintains the survival of a species	sej × year−1×species
Trwind	Transformity of wind	sej/J
v	Average wind speed	m/s