Climate-smart circularity: Guiding decision-making through data-informed standard protocols

Organizations are trying to manage their waste streams using circular economy principles to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Without proper assessment, organizations that follow a standard waste hierarchy often lack proper awareness and understanding about the amount of GHG emissions individual options actually reduce. They can use sophisticated (and systems thinking) approaches such as life cycle assessment (LCA) to overcome that issue and choose the most GHG-efficient option(s). But using LCA is a complicated task due to complex supply chains, and the needs for lots of high-quality data, which may cause organizations to feel overwhelmed. This is the challenge this project aims to address. These generalized best practices are expected to make organizations’ circularity decision-making more efficient. The findings will help CSA Group in providing broad direction and guidance for organizations to reduce their environmental impacts.

Faculty Supervisor:

Jury Gualandris

Student:

Partner:

CSA Group

Discipline:

Business

Sector:

Construction and infrastructure; Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

The University of Western Ontario

Program: