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An approach to define a robust set of environmental tools for car parts manufacturer.
Hery Andriankaja
Ecodesign PhD student Faurecia Interior System Product Group (R&D centre)
60110 Méru Cedex, France E-mail: [email protected]
Gwenola Bertoluci
Associate professor in design and ecodesign Industrial Engineering laboratory, Ecole Centrale Paris
92220 Châtenay Malabry, France. E-mail: [email protected]
Pr. Dominique Millet
DEM Lab ‘design and ecodesign methodology laboratory’ Responsible SUPMECA – Toulon 83000 Toulon, France
E-mail: [email protected]
Copyright © 2009 MC2D & MITI
Abstract: Various environmental engineering metrics have been developed and quoted by stakeholders (EU regulations, experts and scientists) for supporting ecodesign approaches. LCA is known as the most efficient method for the product environmental impact evaluation, but it does not directly fit the design team needs [7]. Skills and time are also required to use such tool, which are not currently available within the designers. Our research is based on the assumption that the environment must be introduced (1) progressively and (2) completely i.e. impacting several departments and not only environmental department. The overall aim of this paper is also to define a set of environmental indicators suitable for Faurecia (a car equipment manufacturing company), associating indicators used in LCA (dealing with the impacts evaluation methods), and environmental engineering metrics currently used in the automotive sector. The other part of the research task is building an information system (environment referential and indicators) which allows eco assessment on different innovation and development project by this company. Keywords: Life cycle assessment (LCA), GaBi software, automotive interior parts, LCA indicators, impact categories, environmental engineering metrics.
March 26-29
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1 Introduction
In recent years, the automotive sector (car makers and equipment manufacturers) have been subjected to the increase of environmental constraints, such as exhaust gas emission reduction, weight reduction, use of biomaterials, vehicle recycling (ELV1 directive: 95% of the vehicle, in weight, must be recyclable in 2015), integration of recycled materials. The main source of pressures is legislations, which becomes more severe in vehicle emissions. (New directive EC2/715/2007 – EU3 adopts Euro5 and Euro6 for passenger cars, for example). Furthermore, anticipation of radical technological changes, especially in vehicle motorization aspects will lead automotive sector to think about two points:
� Is there a risk of environmental impacts transfer?
� Do other environmental impacts emerge in the future? (which are not considered yet or negligible today)
In face of these eventualities, Faurecia company, which is a world size car equipments maker, needs first to measure the environmental impacts of it products. Also, for sustainable production, the company should clarify what set of environmental indicators gives the best information today, and what kind of indicators will be needed in the future? Our aim, in this research task, is based on: (1) identifying the potential of LCA for Faurecia; (2) drawing up what are, and will be, the right set of environmental indicators, and the frame which could support them, to get a robust system of environmental tools, and finally (3) how to integrate them by Faurecia’s design team. In this paper, we first describe the Faurecia's design team need (Interior System Products Group) in terms of environmental indicators. Secondly, a methodology is proposed to study the soundness of environmental engineering metrics quoted by stakeholders. Thirdly, we
1 ELV: End of life vehicle 2 European Commission 3 European Union
talk about what information Faurecia could get from environmental impacts assessment with LCA indicators today, by leading a detailed LCA case study with a passenger car interior part (dashboard) , and commenting another LCA case study result (seat cover). Then we can make a current statement, and imagine a future trend of LCA needs in ecodesign. Finally, from the association of those several needs, we can define the right set of environmental indicators for setting up a robust DFE system of tools.
2 Faurecia’s design team presentation
and their needs in term of
environmental indicators.
It is very important to analyze the user’s need before creating product or service (NF X 050 – user’s need request). A short description and information is done here:
2.1 Faurecia’s design team presentation
An interview with each department of the design team has been led to identify first the roles and the environmental requirements, the shareholders (suppliers and customers) which could be involved in Faurecia’s processes. From this, we have identified first that there are 4 main actors in the product development by Faurecia ISPG (interior system product group): - Innovation and research department: is composed of project leaders and researcher engineers, who develop innovation ideas into concrete solutions. This department is especially involved in the Faurecia’s innovation process, and owns the industrial property. - Industrial design department: is composed of designers who work especially with draft, perceived quality and product functionalities. At Faurecia, this department is involved in the earliest stage of the product development (5 to 10 years before serial production). - Concept engineering department: Is composed by a team of development engineers who are involved in the heart of the product design phase. They establish the contract bill of each project and the product definition; provide the bill of materials, which allow leading product life cycle assessment.
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- Competence center: is composed by a team of engineers with different specialities, to ensure the assistance of the product/processing development way, from the earliest stage to the serial production. This department owns the knowledge Management tool, and the Eco design team, is included in this competence centre. Furthermore, we can quote the strategic departments, respectively Commercial engineers and the Purchasing department. They
are the most important departments in term of communication and exchange with, respectively, car manufacturers and product suppliers. We object those departments to ensure efficient environmental communication with the shareholders. The Engineering Direction is the head of ISPG R&D center and subject of governing the activities of all departments to be in agreement with the politic and strategy of Faurecia group.
2.2 Synthesis of the “environmental” need:
The expressed environmental requirements from the departments presented above, in terms of environmental criteria and indicators, could be resumed in table 1, as following: Main departments Environmental criteria Indicators
Greenhouse gas emission (use phase contribution)
mass
Greenhouse gas (production phase contribution)
Energy consumption
Non renewable resources depletion
Raw materials consumption Consumable mat. Consumption (in exception water)
Pole of competences
Water use Water consumption greenhouse gas (use phase contribution)
mass
Non renewable resources depletion Rate of recycled materials integration Greenhouse gas emission
Concept engineering
CO2 emission -production CO2 emission – use phase contribution
Recycling index Dismantling easiness Mass Weight reduction
Industrial design
Non renewable resources depletion Rate of biomaterials integration Recycling index
Rate of parts recyclability Dismantling time
Greenhouse gas emission (use phase contribution)
mass
innovation
Non renewable resources depletion Rate of biomaterials integration Table 1- A report of the design team needs in term of indicators.
3 Typology of Environmental engineering
metrics:
3.1 State of the art account: FAURECIA group and the green attitude.[28]
“Protecting our planet and preserving its
natural resources have become major issues for our society”.
Industry and transportation, which play a key role in this, must now accept the challenge of environmentally friendly operations. The automotive industry is the first to be subjected to increasingly restrictive regulations. As
partners to the world’s automakers, equipments suppliers play a crucial role, providing them components that enable to minimize the environmental impact of their products.
For many years already, Faurecia has been working closely with the automakers in a proactive initiative which aims to bring improvements to every stage of a product's life: • Reducing vehicle weight (weight
reduction): vehicle weight is one of the key factors governing fuel consumption
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and consequently CO2 emissions.
• Eco-responsible innovation: from the sustainable development perspective, the use of natural and therefore renewable materials is becoming increasingly important.
• Low-VOC materials: The amount of volatile organic compounds (VOC) mainly from solvents contained in the synthetic materials used in vehicle interiors is reduced to a minimum by the use of "low-VOC" products. VOC are responsible for the familiar "new car" smell but can be toxic.
• Recyclability: in parallel with the
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, reducing the amount of waste remaining at the end of life is becoming a major concern. The European ELV (End-of-Life Vehicles) directive requires recyclable materials to make up 95% of the vehicle weight in 2015. Faurecia takes this environmental factor into account right from the product design stage.
• Diesel Particles Filter: the particles filter eliminates 99% of the soot particles contained in diesel engine exhaust emissions. They are collected in the honeycomb substrate of the filter and then burned off when the exhaust gases are heated to a high enough temperature, a process triggered by the Electronic Control Unit. This stage is called regeneration.
3.2 Methodology description:
Faurecia Group has already created ten expert ecodesign positions to monitor day-to-day practice in defining a series of environmental
engineering metrics to control the environmental strategies described above (Faurecia Excellence System features – feb.07). This means that the company is not anymore a beginner in ecodesign implementation. However, in face of the environmental context evolution, the sustainable development perspective with eco-responsible innovation, the entire automotive sector has to readjust environmental strategies by identifying what kind of indicators to use today and in the future, to ensure sustainable activities and needs. To explore this question, bibliographic analysis is led, and also a checking on customers’ environmental specifications to be respected by Faurecia in the contract bills. From this, a synthesis of about 40 indicators, from literature, legislation and customers’ voice (x) were raised. They are called here as “environmental engineering metrics” from stakeholders.
3.3 Synthesis:
Environmental engineering metrics detailed here are related by: - Scientists and environment Experts [10], [19], [37]-[43]; - Legislation [31], [32]; - 5 car makers (CM) leaders in eco design implementations. - Faurecia’s eco design strategies. The table 2 shows a sample of this environmental engineering metrics typology. Then, they are evaluated by relative importance to each category of observed car makers (customers), and by Faurecia’s status, about what are already treated (o) or not yet but worth-considered (y).
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Table 2- An extract from the typology of environmental engineering metrics, showing each source type.
4 LCA case studies with GaBi software of
automotive interior parts
This chapter focuses on the concrete LCA case studies of Faurecia’s equipments. As announced in the beginning of this paper, the objective here is to find how indicators used in LCA are able to evaluate the product environmental impacts and, how they are useful to design team in terms of environmental information.
4.1 Life cycle assessment framework:
LCA is an ISO 14040 normalized methodology, as summarized in the draft (figure 1):
GaBi4 software: a few reminder Before starting LCA case study reporting, let us describe succinctly the principle of GaBi software, the used tool to realize exhaustive LCA, and we still use as a reference tool in our research.
4 GaBi (Ganzheitliche Bilanzierung) which means literally “global balance” is from the abbreviation of the department Life Cycle Engineering (German "GaBi") at the Chair of Building Physics (German "LBP") - Stuttgart University (Germany)… The LPB-GaBi group have created together with its spin-off company “PE International GmbH” the GaBi software database system, and they form a world size working group in the field of Life cycle assessment, since 1992.
GaBi's life cycle modelling structure is, in the simplest case, a plan of several processes with elementary flows, such as resources entering each process and a product, and the emissions leaving each process. The processes are then linked by the goods-flows (economical flows) as described below, in figure2. [26] The users can drag- and-drop material datasets of GaBi's database and add own processes and flows which are easily created in an intuitive way.
4.2 First Case study: Dashboard environmental impact assessment
a. Goal One objective of this first stage of the research is also dealing with the validation of relevant
Environmental criteria and indicators REFERENCES NEEDS
Criteria Indicators Units Literature extract. Company CM. requirements
Masui 2000
Schmidt 2006
CE 715/2007
FAURECIA CM1
CM2
CM3
CM4
CM5
Pollution de l’air Mass of air pollutants (NOx, CO, PPM, HC) on vehicle use phase.
[kg] x x x o x x x x x
Greenhouse effect CO2 emission [kg] x x x o x x x x x
Materials Rate of renewable
materials [%] part x o x x x x x
Rate of recycled
material integration [%] part x x o x x x x
recyclability Easiness to access qualitative x x
Dismantling time [s/part] x
Energy Energy consumption [MJ] y
VOC indoor Total VOC emission [µg/g] o x x
…/…
Figure1: framework for LCA according ISO 14040 (photo: PE Europe GmbH).
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environmental indicators from LCA, which could feed a DFE toolbox (environmental impacts evaluation tools) for the company. For this, we have proposed to begin with the following assessments, which are defined as the objective of dashboard LCA case study:
- Assessment of an existing automotive interior part (current solution A), precisely a dashboard for a passenger sedan car type (D class), in order to measure its environmental burden and life cycle phases which contribute the most to the environmental impact.
- Comparison of the environment burden from the total life cycle of 2 concepts of the dashboard: The current solution A, and a new designed prototype B, based on integration of functions and lightweight strategy. Environmental impact evaluation of both concepts of dashboard is done with CML2001 method.
b. Scope definition
• Product description The dashboard is supplied to the car maker by Faurecia in Germany (site not identified exactly, but there are 10 Faurecia ISPG’s production plant in Germany). The products subject of studies here (Figure 3) are composed of 4 main subassemblies: the IP (instrument panel) (1 vs. 1’), the CCB (cross car beam) (2 vs. 2’) which is the IP
reinforcement, the airduct module (3 vs.3’) and the glove box module (4 vs.4’). Those are also components affected by changes in the new designed prototype. (Table 4) Moreover, the material split is available in table 3, which indicates globally that plastic mass is almost made of polypropylene (PP) – glass fibre (GF) filled in both structures.
c. Integration of functions The prototype dashboard is quite similar to the one currently produced in general appearance. However four major components are affected by changes in the new design, which represent about 75% of the overall weight of dashboard. The differences and implications of the new design are due principally to integration of functions that could be summarized as following: - The IP structure is increased in weight due to its reinforcement. This allows energy absorption in case of a passenger knee impact (passenger knee bolster is suppressed). Furthermore, the redesign of the glove box frame permits load absorption in case of a side impact .It takes the role of the suppressed CCB (cross car beam) frame on passenger side: only driver side (tripod) is kept to support the steering column.
Figure2: an example of a GaBi plan modelling with included processes and flows. (M.A Wolf &al.2002)
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Figure 3: Exploded view of the two concepts of dashboard.
Table3: parts subject to environmental assessment in the current and prototype dashboard.
Current model A Prototype B
Subcomponent Materials weight (g)
Subcomponent Materials weight (g)
IP Insert PP-GF10 2200 IP Insert PP-LGF30 3696 multifunction holders PP-GF10 2063 Airduct PP-LGF30 1008
glove box inner PC-ABS 566 glove box inner PP-LGF30 628,32
glove box bottom PC-ABS 604 glove box bottom PP-LGF30 257,6 cross car beam (CCB) Steel 6025 cross car beam (CCB) Steel 3937,08
Table 4: parts affected by changes in the prototype dashboard.
- Airduct module becomes a main part of the new designed structure, and also reinforced. In that way, it can ensure the load distribution in case of a side impact. - The other functions supported by the multifunction holders are also shifted to the IP structure in the new designed prototype. Then multifunction holders are reduced to airduct module in the prototype, as described above. - Material and characteristic changes: PP-GF10 (polypropylene-glass fibre 10%) and almost PC-ABS (polycarbonate – acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) are replaced by PP-LGF30 (polypropylene - light glass fibre 30%), known
as "stamax" in the market. This new concept deals in fact with the strategies for increasing the passenger glove box capacity (4’) and reducing the total weight of the dashboard.
d. Function and Functional unit According to the equipment manufacturer (Faurecia 2008), a dashboard is the main interface between the driver and the vehicle. The dashboard supports the style, functionalities (steering column, electronic components), comfort (air conditioning, glove box) and safety (airbag deployment). In our case study, the functional unit is defined as: one dashboard which could fit the appropriate sedan type vehicle, gasoline motorization,
Current model A Prototype B Subcomponent
Materials weight (g) Subcomponent
Materials weight (g)
IP Insert PP-GF10 2200 IP Insert PP-LGF30 3696
multifunction holders PP-GF10 2063 Airduct PP-LGF30 1008
glove box inner PC-ABS 566 glove box inner PP-LGF30 628,32
glove box bottom PC-ABS 604 blove box bottom PP-LGF30 257,6
glove box foam PUR 25 glove box foam PUR 25
glove box skin PUR 185 glove box skin PUR 185
glove box insert PC-ABS 435 glove box insert PC-ABS 435
airbag hinge PC-ABS 55 airbag hinge PC-ABS 55
IP foam PUR 1008 IP foam PUR 1008 IP skin PUR 1080 IP skin PUR 1080 cross car beam Steel 6025 Cross car beam Steel 3937,08 Total weight 14246 Total weight 12315
Fig 3a) current solution A Fig 3b) New designed prototype B
1 3
2
4
4’
1’
2’ 3’
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during its useful life, set at 200000km (life cycle mileage).
e. Life cycle hypotheses and system
boundary
The product system considered here is the vehicle dashboard which is composed by 4 main components: CCB (cross car beam), IP (instrument panel), multifunction holders, and passenger glove box modulus. The physical limit of the studied system is then the vehicle cockpit. All vehicle systems apart from the cockpit module are not taken account in the scope definition. End of life statements: EoL (end of life) impacts (car shredding and sorting technologies) and reverse logistic underestimated: lack of data precision. Otherwise, we can make a statement that 2 basics scenarios of the dashboard EoL could be compared: scenario1: CCB is recycled and plastic parts are landfilled. scenario2: CCB is recycled and plastic parts are incinerated in MSW for energy recovery. In the environment profile evaluation and comparison, the basic scenario 1 is chosen as the end of life destination of dashboard. Manufacturing hypothesis
The product plant localization is supposed to be in Germany, but unspecified. As there are ten production plants for ISPG in Germany, it is more evident that dashboard is locally manufactured. Raw materials acquisition in the case of complex polymers (plastic compound such as PP-LGF, PC-ABS...) production processes are not specified in this study. Some datas from suppliers are not available and not provided in the GaBi initial database. Only the rates of each compound material are precised. Moreover, the table 5 resumes the manufacturing hypothesis, dealing with the subcomponents class, according to their supply chain. Also, for internal manufactured parts, we can make the following statements for Faurecia’s politic on industrial waste management: plastic (unspecified) [waste for recovery]; PUR: polyurethane [waste for recovery]; Steel: steel scrap [waste for recovery]. All information dealing with materials acquisition for internal parts manufacturing, such as suppliers and their localization, distance supplier/Faurecia’s plant (S/P), way of transportation are shown in table 6.
Hypothesis Statement
underestimated taken account notification Manufactured parts (Faurecia) x Modules and relative subcomponents subject to
changes in the new concept.
Bought out parts x Not affected by changes, lack of datas Parts assembled by carmakers x Not affected by changes, lack of datas Studied parts processing x GaBi modelling process plastic parts welding x Lack of datas CCB parts welding x GaBi modelling process Table 5: manufacturing phase hypotheses overview.
Materials suppliers mean dist.S/P and transport. mat. aspect Origin PP-GF SABIC 500 km – truck 25 tons granulate Holland PP-LGF SABIC 500 km– truck 25 tons granulate Holland PC-ABS DOW 150 km– truck 25 tons granulate Germany PUR DOW 150 km– truck 25 tons no statement Germany
Table 6: information for raw material transportation modelling.
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Use phase allocation and cut off rule: “Fuel reduction value method”5 (FRV = 0, 1 to 0, 5 [l/100km*100 kg]) which is variable in function of the vehicle motorization (gasoline or diesel). In this case study for gasoline motor, the chosen FRV value is 0, 14 [l/100km*100kg]. The mileage ran by the considered vehicle during its life cycle is set at 200000 km. During its useful life, the vehicle causes various E impacts, related to washing, maintenance and fuel consumption (Schweimer & al.00, ft Muñoz&al 06). Fuel consumption could be allocated to the dashboard, as it is known that there is direct relationship between fuel consumption and the part weight, given by the following expression:
Part consumption [kg] =
10000
ileagelifecyclemMFRV ×××ρ (1)
In the numerical application: (1) - ρ = 0,74[kg/dm3]: is the density of the gasoline fuel. - FRV = 0,14 [l/100km*100 kg] as described above. - M [kg] is the part weight. - Life cycle mileage = 200000[km]. This allocation method consists of identifying first the decrease in fuel consumption per 100 km ran due to 100 kg weight reduction. In that way, we can cut off dashboard to the rest of vehicle, in order to calculate its own fuel consumption during the use phase. This method is used by Faurecia Automotive Seating Product Group division (Faurecia Autositze GmbH - Stadthagen Germany), and reused here for LCA studies ratification by Faurecia group. The following parameters are taken account to evaluate the E impact contribution of the part, during the vehicle use phase, related to the amount of fuel consumption calculated above: - CO2 emission factor: 3,124 [kgCO2/kg fuel] - SO2 emission factor: 0, 0037 [kgSO2/kg fuel]
5 Reinhard Eberle and Harald A. Franze - Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc. [33]
However, extra fuel consumption parameters, such as: motor size, gearbox technology, gear ratio change and driving conditions are out of the scope definition. Note: the “gas emission factor” is defined as the quantity of exhaust gas produced from combustion of 1 [kg] of fuel. Delivery stage hypothesis: No precise statement could be given, when dashboard leave the production plant to be assembled with the vehicle, in the car maker's plant. However, we have estimated the local way of transportation between Faurecia's and the car maker's plants: on road transportation - truck 25t diesel - distance 150 km (GaBi modelling). System boundary: (figure4) In the life cycle modelling, the following statements could be given related to flows: - Are taken account in good flows materials or parts which weigh more than 10g. - In term of energy consumption: electricity consumption in processing (materials and parts), Diesel for material transportation and part delivery, gasoline consumption during use phase are modelled in GaBi by respectively “EU25 Power grid mix”, “EU15 Diesel at refinery”, “EU15 gasoline free premium at refinery”.
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f. Inventory analysis extract: The following chart (table 7) gives an extract of the GaBi Life cycle inventory analysis (LCIA), in the case of the current model A of dashboard study. This sample is selected from the entire balance, in order to show the elementary flows which contribute the most in terms of punctions and rejects to ecosystem. All values are expressed in [kg].
Input elementary flows Total life cycle Use phase Delivery Manufacturing EoL (plastics landfill)
Energy resources 64,57567179 35,42205789 0,035296863 27,69877408 1,419542954
Material resources 1398,676282 18,06524546 0,023288965 1303,615688 76,97205932
- Non renewable elements 0,024321561 9,65E-10 7,79E-13 0,024321556 3,40E-09
- Non renewable resources 101,5378295 5,017945049 0,004145956 83,02675498 13,4889835
- Renewable resources : 1297,114131 13,04730041 0,019143009 1220,564612 63,48307581
Water 1173,287354 2,668575992 0,011118548 1122,315535 48,29212506
Air 122,4199065 10,35784728 0,008009568 96,9315115 15,12253817
Carbon dioxyde 0,51718403 0,020877137 1,49E-05 0,26295812 0,23333388
Nitrogen 0,86669589 1,10E-09 1,10E-12 0,866695874 1,49E-08
Oxygen 0,022989967 5,43E-10 5,57E-13 0,187911277 -0,164921311
Output elementary flows Total life cycle Use phase Delivery Manufacturing EoL (plastics landfill)
Emissions to air : 424,8871168 121,5549508 0,113437259 184,8998109 118,3189179
- Heavy metals to air 0,000287707 0,000142207 5,35E-08 7,78E-05 6,77E-05
- Inorganic emissions to air : 321,1341987 113,9299474 0,107777667 102,6505004 104,4459733
Ammoniac 0,00072676 0,000280264 5,63E-07 0,000431852 1,41E-05
Ammonium 2,50E-10 1,56E-11 1,11E-14 1,34E-10 9,99E-11
Ammonium nitrate 2,62E-11 2,81E-12 2,27E-15 1,34E-11 1,00E-11
Barium 7,10E-05 4,81E-05 4,76E-08 2,18E-05 1,06E-06
Beryllium 1,93E-08 4,26E-09 3,87E-12 1,31E-08 1,87E-09
Boron compound (unspecified) 2,64E-05 2,81E-06 2,37E-09 1,92E-05 4,30E-06
Bromine 9,03E-06 7,94E-07 6,59E-10 7,31E-06 9,21E-07
Carbon dioxide 254,3810961 109,6494008 0,103885207 47,22743431 97,40037576
Table 7: a GaBi life cycle inventory result extract.
From this, few comments could be made about impacts evaluation and critical life cycle stages. Manufacturing phase is critical in terms of resources depletion (both renewable and non renewable). On the other side, carbon dioxide emission influences the most emissions to air, in terms of quantity, and the dashboard use phase is the most critical in this greenhouse gas emission.
This balance interpretation is only related to quantity of punctions and rejects to ecosystem. So, it cannot help to qualify which substances causes more impacts to the environment. That is the reason why declination of LCIA balance into life cycle impact evaluation (LCIE) balance is needed, measured with LCA indicators with dealing methods and normalized by a regional or global scale
Material processing
Material transportation
Part Processing (Faurecia)
Dashboard use (vehicle use phase)
Dashboard end of life (basic scenarios)
Part delivery
Part assembly to vehicle (car maker’s plant)
Input/output elementary flows (exchanges with the ecosystem)
Economical (goods) flows
Not considered life cycle stages due to lack of datas, but included in the system boundary.
Parts post process (Faurecia)
(figure4)
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(normalization). This is a very important step in LCA methodology according ISO 14040. In the case study, CML 2001 method has been chosen, because it has the least incertitude in measure. This is also the most used method and more consensual.
g. Life cycle impact evaluation The following LCA indicators in CML 2001 method are provided by GaBi weighting database, and are used to do LCIE of both concepts of dashboard:
• Abiotic Depletion Potential.
(ADP) [Kg Sb-Equiv.] • Acidification Potential. (AP)
[Kg SO2-Equiv.] • Eutrophication Potential. (EP).
[Kg Phosphate-Equiv.]
• Global Warming Potential. (GWP 100 years) [Kg CO2-Equiv.]
• Ozone Layer Depletion Potential. (ODP, steady state) [Kg R11-Equiv.]
• Photochemical Ozone Creation Potential. (POCP) [Kg Ethene-Equiv.]
As the aim is to find what LCA indicators among those quoted above give relevant information, the evaluation results are directly focused to the product entire life cycle, familiarly called “from cradle to grave”, to avoid superfluous. Then, the results presentation could be structured as following: - Life cycle impact evaluation table and profile of the current model of dashboard; - Life cycle profile comparison of both concepts of dashboard.
Environmental impact contribution balance and profiles view of the current dashboard:
Normalization : CML2001 –Dec.07, world Evaluation: CML2001 - Dec. 07, Experts IKP (Central Europe)
Total life cycle Use (U) Delivery (D) Manufacturing (P) EoL (plastic
landfill)
Abiotic Depletion (ADP) 9,72E-12 5,92E-12 5,91E-15 3,68E-12 1,17E-13
Acidification Potential (AP) 2,69E-12 1,01E-12 3,64E-15 1,53E-12 1,43E-13
Eutrophication Potential (EP) 1,62E-12 3,06E-13 3,20E-15 8,50E-13 4,65E-13
Global Warming Potential (GWP 100 years) 6,42E-11 2,69E-11 2,55E-14 1,31E-11 2,42E-11
Ozone Layer Depletion Potential (ODP, steady state) 4,94E-14 4,29E-15 3,17E-18 4,02E-14 4,93E-15
Photochemical. Ozone Creation Potential (POCP) 3,71E-12 1,29E-12 3,19E-15 2,21E-12 2,02E-13
Table 8: impacts evaluation of the current dashboard A.
Current dashboard life cycle profile
0,00E+00
5,00E-12
1,00E-11
1,50E-11
2,00E-11
2,50E-11
3,00E-11
3,50E-11
4,00E-11
life cycle phases
CM
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éc 0
7 w
orl
d
photochemical ozone creation potential
ozone layer depletion potential
global warming potential
Eutrophication potential
acidification potential
abiotic depletion potential
Use Delivery Manufacturing End of life
Figure 5: environmental profile of the current dashboard to identify the significant environmental impacts of dashboard in overall life cycle.
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current dashboard life cycle: contribution of different
phases to E profil
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
1 2 3 4 5 6
EoL(plastics landfilling)
Use
Distribution
Production
ADP AP EP GWP ODP POCP
Figure 6 is another representation of figure 5 to identify life cycle phase which contribute the most on each environmental impact of the dashboard.
Life cycle environmental profile comparison for both concepts of dashboard: (figure 7)
Figure 7: which concept is more environmentally friendly?
h. Life cycle interpretation
As the GaBi balance weighting is done with the normalization CML 2001 – world, the following statements could be raised, concerning the environmental profile of dashboards. Production and use phase have major impacts in overall dashboard life cycle. Regarding figure 6 and table 8, we can say that these two life cycle stages contribute, at least 80% in overall environmental impacts. Distribution
phase has not given relevant contribution compared to the other stages, and GWP is the most critical environmental impact in the dashboard total life cycle. Other impact categories are also relevant, in exception ODP which is not significant. In production phase of dashboard, it has been found that the impacts of whole plastic parts production are 50% greater than metallic parts production (cross car beam). Production phase balance is then worse for the prototype than for the current model, due to increase of plastic parts weight.
E profile comparison of the current and the prototype
dashboard in total life cycle
0,00E+00
1,00E-11
2,00E-11
3,00E-11
4,00E-11
5,00E-11
6,00E-11
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CM
L2
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ec
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orl
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current dashboard prototype dashboard
ADP AP EP GWP ODP POCP
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It has been identified also that the use of polyurethane (PUR) is the major source of environmental impacts in plastic material needs. However, according to the total life cycle profile (figure 7), preference is given to the new designed dashboard, which is slightly less aggressive to the environment than the current concept. This is the environmental reflection of the weight reduction strategy (the new designed dashboard weigh 2 kg less than the current model) and integration of functions, applied in the new designed dashboard. Component weight influences extremely use phase due to variation of fuel consumption and related substances emitted from fuel combustion.
4.3 Second case: automotive seating LCA results reporting [18]
In this paragraph, a LCA case study report, done with car seat cover into account of automotive industries, is exposed and commented. This LCA report is entitled: “Comparison of different Car seat upholstery material made of Leather, Leatherette and different Fabrics”. For this, and regarding again interest to the objective of this paper, we report directly on
the life cycle environmental profile of assessed materials, in order to find: - What are LCA indicators that authors used to evaluate the impact of each solution for the car seat upholstery, and how about their soundness on each concept of product? - Which impacts are more relevant, and where, in their life cycle stages, the seat covers contribute the most to environmental impacts? Before exploration of those questions, it is better to define first the functional unit set in this LCA case study. According to the authors, the functional unit is 10 m2 of seat cover used in automotive seating during the vehicle life cycle mileage of 150000km. Also, to assess products, 3 LCA indicators are used: - Global warming potential (GWP) [kg CO2/Seat cover (10 m²)] - Eutrophication potential (EP) [kg PO4/Seat cover (10 m²)] - Photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP) [kg ethene/Seat cover (10 m²)]. The result of studies in terms of environmental profile could be summarized in the following figures (8; 9; 10):
Figure8: Global Warming Potential of the different seat cover Life Cycle (use phase of 150 000 km)
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Figure 9: Eutrophication Potential of the different seat cover Life Cycle (use phase of 150 000 km)
Figure10: photochemical ozone Potential of the different seat covers Life Cycle (use phase of 150 000 km)
Comment on the assessment results from the seat cover case and confrontation with dashboard: Environmental impacts related to End of life treatment are negligible for all kind of materials, measured by the 3 indicators. Use phase is relevant in term of POCP, but the production phase contributes the most to environmental impacts, on each material solution. Further, there is a huge difference between the profile of leather varnished and the other materials, by information from each indicator, and the most unfavourable balance is
given to the leather upholstery. The impacts of leather upholstery production result from the superposition of 3 main segments: (hide production, leather processing and varnishing) - Hide production is the most complex step because it must take account agrarian processes: cattle rising and the fodder production, necessary to fatten cattle. - Leather processing consists of hide conversion into leather (tanning), which is an energy-consuming stage. - Varnishing is among coating processes, which is source of organic and inorganic emissions to air.
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According to the authors [18], hide production has for all impact categories the highest influence. More than 90% of GWP, EP and POCP are accounted for the agricultural production of the hides. It has been discovered also that EP is widely more significant in the case of seat cover than in the dashboard study. Surely, it is due to rejects into water during the upholstery materials processing. Again, leather is a famous contributor to EP. On the other hand, we suppose that if the three other indicators (AP, ADP and ODP) used in the case of dashboard do not appear in the case study of seat cover, they had not given interesting information. (as this LCA case study is done by the PE international team who is the owner of GaBi software, widely before our case study of the dashboard). The objective in both LCA studies is then to characterize the most relevant common environmental indicators and their soundness, in case of different type of vehicle equipments. It is identified finally that from the 3 indicators: AP, ADP and ODP, which are not mentioned in the evaluation of seat cover, AP and ADP have given information in the case of dashboards evaluation, especially ADP. This indicator is characteristic of “non renewable resources depletion”, and it is significant in dashboards case, because “crude oil” and “iron ore” are both non renewable resources used as raw materials for dashboard manufacturing. Only ODP was not heard in term of soundness on both case studies. This is the “today” point of view, with the “today technologies”. But with the “future” technologies, today imagination is that another environmental profile will occur. (cf. § 4.6) Both « today » environmental characteristic of products and the “anticipation” approach imply that environmental profile evaluation is variable in function of the nature of the assessed product (case studies). Further, it means that indicators used in environmental assessment are also subject of relative variation and update, since it is not possible to define all existent environmental indicators in a definitive list and to use them simultaneously.
4.4 What information could interest the company and the design team from LCA?
It is known that the contexts, in which life cycle assessments are useful for manufacturing industries are: [14] - Establish environmental focus (product-oriented environmental policy, for example) - Industrial important decisions (make or buy? for example) - Design choices (concept, component, material, process) - Environmental documentation (environmental information to customers). Indicators used in LCA has given results of product environmental impacts quantification, and life cycle interpretations for both LCA case studied above have demonstrate (1) what kind of information could give those indicators and (2) how to identify which process, material or parts and life cycle stages are main sources of environmental impacts . However, regarding the customer’s needs in terms of environmental engineering metrics, indicators such as “rate of recycled material integration”, “total VOC indoor” could never be informed by LCA. Then, resort to non-LCA indicators will be the rescue for those kinds of information. So, we can make the hypothesis that if the company wants to be sustainable in product development and environment policy, LCA indicators should be integrated among (1)the current engineering metrics already treated today, (2) or subject to be taken account, but not yet. From this, an upgradeable and need-adapted DFE system of tools could be set up as an eco-design methodology, while there is no universal adapted tool for eco-design implementation in industry. [3], [24], [25].
4.5 The current and the future statements of LCA needs in eco-design:
The LCA case studies could reveal us the importance of why to consider CO2 emission as a major environmental impact today, and why the vehicle use phase is critical for this. With current engineering metrics, CO2 emission is measurable (by the ADEME method for example).
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Today, Industries focus on various strategies to reduce CO2 emission, and other vehicle exhaust emissions. In the future, with other vehicle technologies, (electric or entire bio fuel vehicles for example), other impacts may become as or more relevant than those considered today. In this case, only LCA indicators could reveal what are the relevant impacts and what are the dealing life cycle stages, to give the right environment referential. As a conclusion, we could interpret that from LCA, there are some impacts which are measurable today with some current environmental engineering metrics. This case allows Faurecia to evaluate her products environmental profile in an easier manner than LCA. Moreover, customers’ requirements, legislation constraints, and Faurecia’s own environmental politic oblige her to use mixed LCA and non-LCA indicators. LCA indicators are needed to detect the eventual important variation of products environmental profile in the future, by anticipation of radical technological changes. Researching LCA case of the Future Transportation Technology (hybrid, hydrogen or electric vehicle), is among our on-going
bibliographic research task, in order to argument the need of LCA indicators for those future trends.
4.6 How to define a suitable set of environmental indicators for a robust system of tools?
Finally, this approach aims at defining a set of indicators which is a resultant of several needs, based in the hypothesis that “if we proceed by association of: • Indicators used in LCA, • Indicators controlling the environmental
strategies of Faurecia, • Environmental engineering metrics
approved by stakeholders, a resultant set of environmental indicators suitable for Faurecia is obtained for building a robust system of evaluation tools accepted by the design team, answering the customer’s requirements, taking account the future trends of the market and approved by environment experts. The list of the emergent indicators is presented in figure 11:
Figure 11: The resultant set of environmental indicators (version1), to be implemented in a system of evaluation tools.
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As shown in the figure above, coloured indicators are those who are used in LCA, and the rest are considered as environmental engineering metrics. However, this list could not be considered to be valid for the entire range of Faurecia’s products, because even in a same family of products, materials composition and processes are subject of continuous variation. So, already at this level of product evolution, the environmental profiles are not the same. Further, it means that the ability to identify permanently the right environmental indicators for product assessment should be required for setting up a robust system of tools. (Application of the comment in § 4-4)
5 Conclusion
The paper has described the first deliverables of an on-going research project. The issue of this paper is first to highlight why LCA indicators is useful for Faurecia, in order to be sustainable in the automotive sector activity. Also, the contribution of this article is to attract our thinking about how to well define environmental indicators, by joining the three concepts described above (§ 4-7). The following points were also highlighted in the paper:
� The results from the LCA case study of dashboard is compared with another LCA case result, done with the seat cover, in order to observe the more relevant environmental impacts, and the variation of information from LCA indicators in function of assessed automotive component.
� On the other side, typology of environmental engineering metrics could give the soundness of current metrics quoted by stakeholders in literature, required by car makers, and those already treated or not by Faurecia, to control the company’s strategies.
� The Faurecia’s design team need in indicators has been deduced from the interview report, done with each department responsible (Competence centre, Style, Concept engineering…).
Then, the realized tasks, still now, had permit to define a first list of indicators suitable for Faurecia for raising an upgradeable system of tools. However, LCA study, in several number of Faurecia’s products, so in the same family as in different ranges, will be led to complete and to update this indicators panel and to enrich databases. Moreover, continuous evolution of material/process solutions in product design phase (§ 4-7) oblige developing system of tools which takes account, and
allows this upgradeability of indicators panel, to avoid non representative environmental profile by obsolescence. In fact, this notion will be reflected by different steps of the system maturity, related to: - the variability of actors among design team, who are involved in the system of tools, as it is more realist that in the initial version of this system, only some actors inside the design team could be taken account, with the eco design team. (Scientific upgrade) -The range of vehicle interior products (in term of scope coverage) that the system could assess: dashboard, door panel… (Technical upgrade) However, no statement could be raised at this moment about the system of tools configuration, as this is the next stage of this research work. Building a mock-up of this evaluation system of tools, and its integration in the Faurecia’s design processes are the next principal works that we have to lead in this research /.
Acknowledgements:
The authors wish to thank a lot Faurecia Interior system product group R&D centres both local (Méru - France) and in Hagenbach (Germany) for allowing to led and publish the LCA result of dashboards, provided eventual confidential information. A great recognition is also addressed to Stephan SHÖNE, Eco design Expert by Faurecia Automotive seating PG (Faurecia Autositze GmbH - Stadthagen Germany), to his help and support for providing documents and advices about life cycle modelling and parameters.
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