Environmental characterization Sample Clauses

Environmental characterization. The environmental performance of urban furniture products is analysed herein, based on environmental quantitative results provided by IHOBE (2014) for different case studies. The study conducted by IHOBE was based on life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. LCA is the most widely used methodology to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with a product or process by identifying and quantifying energy and materials used and wastes released to the environment; to assess the impact of those energy and material uses and releases to the environment; and to identify and evaluate opportunities to affect environmental improvements. The assessment includes the entire life cycle of the product or process, which encompasses: extracting and processing raw materials; manufacturing, transportation and distribution; use, reuse and maintenance; recycling and final disposal (SETAC, 1993). LCA allows to analyse all the environmental aspects of a product in order to identify which are the most significant and, thus, establish measures to act on them. Hence, LCA studies for the different urban furniture products will be conducted in the project (action B1) in order to determine what the key environmental aspects of the products are, as well as to establish weighting factors for different environmental award criteria. It should be highlighted that simplified environmental analysis performed by the GUF Tool will rely on LCA-based factors, while simplifications applied in the tool will be based on the results of the LCA studies. The environmental information compiled herein is only used to have a prior knowledge of the environmental performance of different urban furniture products: wooden bench, metal bin, metal container, advertising panel, playground, vertical sign, and concrete bollard. This will allows us to include environmental considerations in the selection of the two urban furniture elements that will be used for testing and validating the functionality of the GUF Tool (once developed).