Life Cycle Approaches for Sustainable Brownfields Cleanup Russell Sirabian Battelle April 5, 2011 APRIL 3-5, 2011 | PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

3-5, 2011 | PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA What does LCA do for us? Consistent approach to characterize impacts of actions in terms of selected metrics – For example emissions of greenhouse gases & other pollutants, consumption of energy and other resources, etc. – Combined metrics referred to as environmental footprint – Approach can be prescribed methodology or software Helps us make those wise decisions – Select remedy with low environmental footprint Must meet threshold requirements – Select footprint reduction techniques that make sense and target the activities with the highest impact

3-5, 2011 | PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA What is the status of LCA Tools? Commercially available LCA software – Used by industry for many years – Robust but not specific for remediation – May be too costly & complex for many remediation projects Tools and methods used by private practitioners – Customized for remediation – Proprietary software preventing wide application Free tools for remediation (SRT TM and SiteWise TM ) – Customized for remediation and easy to use – Not as robust and comprehensive as commercially available software

3-5, 2011 | PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA What did I learn from working on and using SiteWise TM ? Different tools result in different numerical outputs – Is that a problem? – No, as long as the conclusions are the same, for example Alternative 1 has significantly lower footprint than Alternative 2 Largest footprint is from pump operation and carbon regeneration – Need to consider objectives of LCA and the tool used Help make sustainable decisions For remediation industry, analysis must be efficient and cost effective or else it will not be done routinely

3-5, 2011 | PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA What else did I learn? Tools must be transparent – Regulators, stakeholders and clients want to understand what was done – Limitations and uncertainties exist and should be disclosed Boundary conditions considerations – Some metrics are local issues and others are global For material production where manufacturing takes place remote from site, it may make more sense to include only global metrics (e.g. GHG but not particulate emissions) Need for more footprint factors that can be placed in publically available tools

3-5, 2011 | PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA What else? Experience will help us know where we can simplify and still meet our objectives Must select functional unit for each application of LCA – E.g. site closeout versus one year of operation More work is needed to determine how to incorporate results into the remedial process – How to select metrics and determine weighting factors – What do metrics really mean to stakeholders – Next level may include estimating impact of emissions In terms of what? Introduces more uncertainty – How to fit into selection criteria

3-5, 2011 | PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA In Conclusion If we want to improve sustainability of our remedies we need LCA to help us make wise choices LCA takes many forms – Practitioners can decide what is best for their site – Numerical outputs do not need to be the same for each LCA method as long as the objectives are met and overall conclusions are consistent Available tools are a great start but we need more work – Achieve optimum level of complexity to meet objectives efficiently – Determine how to use LCA results to make real improvements in sustainability and benefit stakeholders – We need to keep working together