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The Circular Economy Life Cycle Assessment and Visualization Framework: A Multistate Case Study of Wind Blade Circularity in United States

2022; Elsevier BV; Volume: 185; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.resconrec.2022.106531

1879-0658

Tapajyoti Ghosh, Rebecca Hanes, Alicia Key, Julien Walzberg, Annika Eberle,

Sustainable Industrial Ecology

A circular economy (CE) aims to decouple human activities from economic activities and resource use, and its overall goal is reducing or avoiding negative environmental externalities. The newly developed Circular Economy Lifecycle Assessment and Visualization (CELAVI) framework simulates changes in supply chain environmental impacts as it transitions toward circularity. This study expands CELAVI by incorporating detailed spatial resolution and real-world road routes connecting all facilities within the system. The case study on end-of-life decision making of wind turbine blades in the states of Iowa and Missouri explores how supply chain circularity and environmental impacts are affected by pathway costs and level of wind turbine installations. It demonstrates how high circularity costs might be beneficial for circularity transitions given revenue generated from circular pathways. Finally, impacts have important contributions to the supply chain design and thus show the importance of including detailed spatial resolution in CELAVI and CE studies in general.