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In our latest newsletter, you can read about biogas, food waste, fossil-free plastic materials, and carbon capture and utilization. Don't miss out on this opportunity to stay up to date on some of our latest research results.
The project "Se min brukte kjole" (See my used dress) is a research project whose main purpose is to generate knowledge that can be used to promote and actually increase the rate of reuse of textiles in the Oslo area.
However, there is a lack of data concerning the available products and their volumes, data on environmental effects and knowledge on business models for reuse. More specifically, there is no overview of how much of the collected textiles are suitable for reuse in Norway, there is a lack of environmental data and documentation that can support reuse, and barriers and opportunities in the Norwegian market for textile reuse are not known. Actors in the field of reuse thus have little to rely on when creating new business models.
The project will gather data that can be used by actors in the reuse market, to inform consumers about the environmental footprint of reused products and motivate them to change their purchasing habits. Furthermore, the project will provide data and knowledge that can be used to influence the authorities for facilitation and incentives for increased reuse.
The project is financed by RFF Oslo, was initiated in March 2023 and will run until the first trimester of 2025. The project is led by NF&TA, and the consortium consists of a wide range of actors in the textile industry that cover production, collection and reuse activities.
NORSUS leads the first three work packages in the project, which deal with the data on available product and their volumes, with life cycle data for environmental assessments and with creating a market for used clothing.
There is broad consensus about the importance of moving from linear to more circular food systems. But can we find good indicators to measure the effect of this? In a new article NORSUS researcher Hanne Møller and colleagues discuss circularity indicators using examples of environmental actions in pig production and testing various circularity indicators in comparison with LCA results.
The following measures were assessed: Treatment of livestock manure in biogas plants and use of digestate as fertiliser, biogas treatment of bread waste and use of digestate as fertiliser, precision fertilization, use of cover crops in feed production, and use of bread waste as pig feed. The functional unit was 1 kg carcass weight of pork, and treatment of 1.1 kg of bread waste. Based on this, the functionality and suitability of these circularity indicators were discussed.
Four of the circularity indicators were based on nitrogen (N) or phosphorus (P): N recycling index, partial N balance, consumption of fossil P fertilizers and emissions of P to water. Although the indicators do not show the effect of emissions of N and P in the form of eutrophication, they provide a useful indication of the circularity of agricultural production.
The three other circularity indicators that were production of renewable energy, soil organic carbon and arealeffektivitetsindikator. The renewable energy production indicator is easy to understand and communicate and provides unique information. Soil organic carbon is closely linked to greenhouse gas emissions because carbon sequestration in the soil captures CO2 from the atmosphere. However, this indicator must be reported separately from greenhouse gas emissions because there is still no agreement on methodology and to show the difference between actual emissions and carbon storage that may not be permanent.
The land use ratio is an indicator that measures the efficiency of land use in livestock production. The indicator is based on the same data as land use but includes the amount of plant protein from the area for feed to produce 1 kg of digestible animal protein. The indicator thus provides an assessment of whether the area for fodder production would have yielded more protein if it had been used for the cultivation of food crops directly.
Circularity indicators provide valuable information about the circularity of an agricultural product system and can be used either separately or together with LCA impact categories. Which indicators should be chosen depends on the questions being asked, i.e. goals and scope, and it is therefore important to have a number of circular indicators to choose from in order to achieve a holistic assessment.
See the full article here.
Thursday 9th of March a new Norwegian report Mulighetsrommet for produksjon av biogass i Norge: Potensialstudie av aktuelle råstoff, nye teknologier og klimanytte about opportunities for biogas production in Norway was launched at a breakfast meeting in Oslo, followed by appeals and political debate. The report is written by the NORSUS researchers Kari-Anne Lyng and Ina Charlotte Berntsen, and was commissioned by Energigass Norge, Avfall Norge, Norges Bondelag, Biogass Oslofjord and Norsk Vann.
The project has included three main aspects: the theoretical biogas potential from current and possible future feedstock base for the current biogas technology, theoretical biogas potential of a possible future technology development, and climate benefits associated with increased utilization of the theoretical potential. The feedstocks included in the study are organic waste and residual resources, and do not include energy crops.
The results from the study show that there are large opportunities for producing considerably more biogas in Norway. If a larger share of the theoretical potential is exploited, biogas can constitute and important part of the future energy and fuel mix in Norway.
Biogas production based on waste and residual resources can contribute to reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in several areas, such as: reduced emissions from use of fossil fuels, reduced emissions from the use of CO2 from biogas and reduced emissions from storage when using livestock manure for biogas production. The magnitude of the emissions reductions is dependent on how large proportion of the theoretical potential which is utilized.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by capturing and subsequently storing carbon dioxide (CO2). CCU (carbon capture and utilization), on the other hand, represents a way of recycling the carbon in the captured CO2 by converting it to fuels or other products. The acronym CCUS describes systems including both utilization and storage of captured CO2.
This report gives an overview of the three potential CO2 emissions sources to be captured: direct air capture, geothermal power generation and industrial point sources, and it shows whether the CO2 can be considered fossil or non-fossil. Furthermore, the main pathways for utilising captured CO2 are presented.
CCU systems connect two (or more) product systems; the first being the source of the CO2 and the second being the production system which uses CO2 as feedstock. Hence, CCU systems are multifunctional, and CO2 has a double role, representing both emission and feedstock.
The report presents Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology in general with a deeper focus on how to solve multifunctionality. The recommendation is to apply system expansion without substitution and to compare the CCU system with a reference system. It is crucial to establish relevant system boundaries for the compared systems to ensure that all systems provide the same functions to society. The report includes a practical LCA guideline for CCU value chains to help avoiding methodological pitfalls.
Norway is a special case compared to many other European countries. The amount of available agricultural land is low, the population density is also low, and the distances are large. From Oslo to the northern border is the same distance as Oslo to Rome. Self-sufficiency of animal-based food is high but low for vegetables it is low (46 %) and for fruits and berries extremely low (6 %). The consumption of fruits and vegetables also need to increase with more than 30% to reach the the recommended minimum of five servings of a day. The government has agreed on a commitment to innovation and growth in the vegetable and fruit sector, with the aim of increasing the Norwegian share of the market and meeting demand with as many Norwegian-produced goods as possible.
In the GreenRoad project, funded by the Norwegian Research Council and coordinated by NIBIO, inter-disciplinary research is being done to identify present status, opportunities, bottlenecks and possible transformation paths for fruit and vegetable production systems towards increased and long-term economic, social and environmental sustainability for the whole sector.
NORSUS is responsible for evaluating the current environmental, economic and social sustainability of horticultural production using carrot and apple production as cases. Options to improve sustainability for these production systems will be identified and the impacts of increased production will also be assessed. The goal is to ensure that the growth of Norwegian fruit and vegetable production will be as sustainable as possible.
The project involves a variety of disciplines (whereof biology, geography, economy and sociology) that will collaborate in different work packages. There is a strong involvement of business and national and international research partners. Partners and stakeholders will be involved throughout the project in focus groups and other forms of participatory research, and their feedback will contribute to develop innovation platforms and pathways towards GS35.
Plastic releases to nature have a high risk of causing impacts on ecosystems and humans. The potential replacement of traditional fossil-based plastics with PHA is 100 % for mulch film, 100% for control-release fertilizer, approximately 50% for geotextiles and 100% for dolly ropes. Microplastics from PHA are degraded by bacteria, fungi and other biological processes and thus the risk of damage to organisms over time is much lower than for traditional plastics.
Sommeren 2023 er vi interessert i dyktige sommerstudenter som interesserer seg for bærekraft og livsløpsanalyser (LCA), og som kan jobbe inn i to pågående prosjekter:
• EarthresQue er et Senter for Forskningsdrevet Innovasjon (SFI) finansiert av Norges forskningsråd som skal utvikle teknologier og systemer for bærekraftig håndtering og behandling av avfall og overskuddsmasser. Uttak av nytt byggeråstoff øker stadig, samtidig som store mengder gravemasser fra byggeprosjekter fortsatt blir deponert. Dette er ikke i tråd med tankegangen bak en sirkulær økonomi. Du vil få erfaring i bruk av livsløpsmetodikk (LCA) til å undersøke klima-, areal-, og andre miljøpåvirkninger som oppstår ved ulike sirkulære håndteringsmåter av forurensede gravemasser sammenlignet med deponering.
• Sosiale aspekter er viktig i bærekraftsvurderinger. Dersom man skal finne en teknologiløsning på problemer med spøkelsesfiske, er det viktig at flere aspekter ved bærekraft er inkludert i vurderingen, slik at man unngår problemskifte (fra en type problem til et annet). I SFI’en Dsolve gjennomfører vi Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) i tillegg til environmental life cycle assessment (E-LCA). Du vil få som oppgave å teste Social Hotspot Database for fiskeredskapssystemer.
Vi ønsker studenter som er ferdig med 3. eller 4. år av studiet, og det er en fordel å kjenne til LCA-metodikk. Arbeidssted Fredrikstad/Oslo.
Vi legger til rette for oppstart tidlig i juni 2023, og ser for oss 4 ukers varighet, med mulighet for ferie innimellom.
Dersom dette ser interessant ut, send en epost til forskningssjef Kari-Anne Lyng kari-anne@norsus.no innen mandag 27. februar.
The GLAM project on Global Guidance for Life Cycle Impact Assessment is conducting a survey, that aims to identify the importance levels that citizens assign to various environmental impacts that are assessed by the GLAM methodology. Countries from the four income levels (high, high-middle, low-middle, and low) are chosen to provide a comprehensive and inclusive representation of the global population.
The survey is now in the pilot phase, seeking a crowd funding campaign (about 19,000 USD) to source funding that will be used to distribute the main survey in Mozambique and Burkina Faso via interviews with the local population.
Please contact Marco Cinelli or Cecilia Askham if you are interested in contributing to this crowd funding campaign.
From 2015 to 2021, food waste in the food and hospitality industry was reduced by 14 percent, meaning that the 2020 goal of a 15 percent reduction is just out of reach. This states the food waste report from NORSUS and Matvett.
– We need to work faster if we want to reach the goal of the industry agreement on reducing food waste by 50 percent by 2030, says the research manager at NORSUS, Aina Stensgård, in an interview with NRK.
According to the report made by NORSUS and Matvett, most of the food waste occurs in the food industry at the beginning of the value chain and at the consumers at the end of the value chain. Nevertheless, the report highlights that all the actors throughout the value chain are responsible for throwing away less food and that collaboration across the value chain is needed to achieve better results.
The report shows that food waste in the food and hospitality industry represents an annual financial loss of about eight billion NOK and a climate footprint of bout 0,5 million tons of CO2.
As the authorities are responsible for mapping the food waste at consumer level, the NORSUS report points out other measures the government can take.
- They must adjust regulations in a way that contributes to less food being thrown away. An example of today is that cruise ships cannot give excess food to food banks. And they have started the work on a law for throwing away food which they hopefully can implement in 2024, says Stensgård to NRK.
How much food each of us discard depends on criteria such as age and the number of people in the household. It has been known for years that the post-war generation (boomers) throws away less food than younger generations, but the new report states that single households throw away the most.
– The number of single households is growing, and our findings send a significant signal to the food industry to do something about the portion sizes, says Stensgård.
Based on the report, the research manager gives the following advice for throwing away less food:
NORSUS AS | Postal address: Stadion 4, N-1671 Kråkerøy, Norway | Email: post@norsus.no
