Spurred by European Union directives along with increased interest among US initiatives, life cycle assessment (LCA) is becoming a common tool used in the measurement and evaluation of environmental performance and overall sustainability. Life cycle assessment is an analytical technique for assessing potential environmental, social, and economic burdens and impacts of a given product or process...

This assessment is an introduction to the Oxford Review of Economic Policy’s issue on gender and the life cycle. It sets the stage by providing background information on various dimensions of gender differences, pointing out differences across countries as well as over time, and relates this evidence to the papers that follow. It further briefly reviews the articles in the issue and puts them i...

Fossil fuel depletion and attempts of global warming mitigation have motivated the development of biofuels. Several feedstock and transformation pathways into biofuel have been proposed as an alternative to usual fuels. Recently, microalgae have attracted a lot of attention because of the promise of reduced competition with food crop and lowered environmental impacts. Over the last years, sever...

Environmental regulations are gradually striving to decarbonize short-sea navigation fostering the replacement of conventional power systems with alternative ones. The electrification ships has been proposed in literature as a pathway zero-emission shipping. Among various alternatives, batteries could ensure full conformity tightening emission restrictions. However, appropriate for need be inve...

Solid waste is one of the unavoidable products of every society that necessitates the establishment of municipal solid waste management system. Because of variability in quantity and composition of municipal solid wastes, several management scenarios are considered. Assessing the environmental impacts of the life cycle of these scenarios will have a significant role in reducing and resolving ur...

Bio-based materials have been used traditionally for millennia. Their use was overtaken in recent times by the discovery and utilization of fossil-based resources energy. However, concerns about non-renewability fossil greenhouse gas other emissions associated with their brought forth a renewed interest using bio-based years. The environmental advantages cannot be taken granted without rigorous...

Impacts on the environment from human activities are now threatening to exceed thresholds for central Earth System processes, potentially moving the Earth System out of the Holocene state. To avoid such consequences, the concept of Planetary Boundaries was defined in 2009, and updated in 2015, for a number of processes which are essential for maintaining the Earth System in its present state. L...