2018-06-21
Cecília Leite, director of IBICT, and Costanzo Fisogni, project manager at DELBRA
The seminar "Circular Economy and Life Cycle Assessment: Opportunities and Threats from Critical Materials" was held last Tuesday (19/06) in Brasilia, as part of the 6th Brazilian Conference on Life Cycle Assessment – GCV2018, at the Espaço Memorial Darcy Ribeiro in the University of Brasilia (UnB).
The project was born from a joint effort involving the Brazilian Institute of Science and Technology Information (IBICT) and the Centre for Mineral Technology (CETEM) – both reporting to the Ministry of Science, Technology, Communications and Innovation (MCTIC) – in collaboration with the Joint Research Centre (JRC) as part of the European Union-Brazil Sector Dialogues Support Facility. Tiago Braga, IBICT’s Head of Technologies Applied to New Products, believes that this alliance has been fundamental.
“The Sector Dialogues had a brilliant turn in the 9th Call for Papers as it prioritised projects developed jointly by Brazilian and European institutions. We need more projects for sharing information between Brazilian and European researchers on LCA, the circular economy, social LCA, eco-innovation so that we can build the best solutions and a better world to live in,” says Mr. Braga.
The purpose of the project is to present an environmental picture of opportunities and threats involving niobium in Brazil using the Circular Economy and the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a conceptual basis. According to Costanzo Fisogni, project coordinator with DELBRA (EU Delegation in Brazil), this project is an example of a partnership between the European Union and Brazil that goes beyond a mere dialogue.
“There are concrete actions. We have more than 30 projects underway and we are approving another 15 under the 10th Call for Papers. Most importantly, we will be going from theory into practice and will be working with the team, the specialists who are dealing directly with the problems faced by the countries and will support them in the search for solutions, " says Mr. Fisogni.
Findings
Marzia Traverso, Head of the Institute of Sustainability in Civil Engineering at RWTH Aachen University (Germany), and Efigênia Rossi, a researcher with the Department of Production Engineering (SEP) at the University of São Paulo (USP), presented the preliminary findings of their research, as well as the next steps to achieve the project’s goals.
The LCA approach will be used to measure the environmental impacts caused by the current production model so as to look at the interplay of these impacts with the proposed circular economy.
"In our technical mission to Europe, we visited several companies, such as AcelorMittal, Renault and Philips, and gained insight into some aspects of the circular economy that are already embedded into the production of niobium-based products. It was interesting to see how people now have a circular economy mindset in their everyday lives and talk about it in a matter-of-fact way,“ says Ms. Rossi.
At the request of the JRC, a Social LCA approach will also be applied to see if this tool can be used as an input to assess the criticality of mineral raw materials.
“No one cared about the Social LCA until recently. However, disasters and scandals began to happen, and media coverage has fuelled the concern of companies with this aspect, which has a direct impact on their reputation. The Social LCA measures both negative and positive impacts. For example, we look at the environmental impact of niobium on people's lives, but we also consider the social benefits this industry provides to a community, such as employment opportunities, a source of income,” explains Ms. Traverso.
The next stages of the project include data collection, validation of LCA indicators and finally application of these indicators.
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