Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Waste to Energy Systems in the Developing World: A Review

Abstract

The global move towards a circular economy, as well as that of achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), has necessitated the search for several sustainable solutions in various sectors. Given this, the provision of sustainable waste management and electricity systems constitute a significant part of the SDGs, and the waste-to-energy (WtE) concept has recently become a key topic given that it can potentially help reduce the dependence on fossil fuels for energy generation, as well as minimizing the need to dispose of waste in landfill. However, to date, the sustainability assessments of WtE generation technologies have been limited in scope concerning the three-dimensional sustainability framework (economic, environmental, and social). Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) has been proposed as a potential approach that could comprehensively address these three pillars of sustainability simultaneously based on life cycle thinking. LCSA, as a holistic method, could also potentially deal with the complexity associated with decision-making by allowing for the consideration of a full range of possible sustainability consequences. LCSA is an analytical tool that integrates the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC), and Social Life Cycle Assessment (sLCA) methodologies, which already exist and continue to be developed. Individually, these life-cycle approaches tend to be used to point out particular ‘hotspots’ in product or service systems, and hence focus on direct impacts in a given sustainability domain, neglecting the indirect ones. LCSA aims for a more holistic sustainability perspective and seeks to address the associated challenge of integrating these three pillars of sustainability into an overall and more comprehensive sustainability assessment. This need for harmonization within the LCSA methodology is a major challenge in its operationalization. In recent years there has been steady progress towards developing and applying LCSA, including for WtE. The aim of this paper is to review the most recent trends and perspectives in developing countries, especially regarding how LCSA could help inform decision-making. The paper also analyses the LCSA literature to set out the theoretical and practical challenges behind integrating the three methods (LCA, LCC, and sLCA). The review was conducted via a search of keywords such as LCSA, waste, and energy in the Web of Science databases, resulting in the selection of 187 publications written in English. Of those, 13 articles operationalized LCSA in specific waste and WtE related case studies. The review provides a review of the application of LCSA for researchers, technological experts, and policymakers through published findings and identifies perspectives on new research. These include uncertainty, subjectivity in weighting, double-counting, the low maturity of sLCA, and the integration of the interconnection between the three dimensions (environmental, economic, and social dimensions) of LCSA results in decision-making. In addition, gaps (such as the integration of the interconnection between the three dimensions) that need to be addressed via further research are highlighted to allow for a better understanding of methodological trade-offs that come from using the LCSA analytical approach to assess the sustainability of WtE generation technologies, especially in developing countries. It is hoped that this study will be a positive contribution to environmental and energy policy decisions in developing countries faced with the dual problems of waste management and electricity supply along with their sustainable development goals.