Evaluating End-of-Life Strategiesfor a Feed Pusher Robot using LifeCycle Assessment : A Simplified LCA Approach to Support CircularityDecisions in SMEs

Sammanfattning

Sustainability and circularity are becoming increasingly important for numerous industriesdue to the significant rise in environmental regulations and taxes. Therefore, tools like LifeCycle Assessment (LCA) are becoming more popular as they help industries to evaluate theirenvironmental impacts and comply with these regulations. Although LCA is a powerful tool, it is challenging for Small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs), as they face barriers such as (i) Lack of internal personnel trained on LCA, (ii) Lackof data to perform LCA, and (iii) High costs of LCA [1]. Thus, this study uses a simplified andrapid LCA method to evaluate different End-of-Life (EoL) strategies for the MOOV 2.0 feedpusher robot developed by JOZ B.V. in the Netherlands. A cradle-to-grave LCA is carried out in SimaPro 9.6.0.1 using secondary data as proxies fromEcoinvent v3.9.1, and the Global Warming Potential (GWP) is calculated using the ReCiPe 2016Midpoint (H) method. The study aims to compare the carbon footprint of the feed pusher robotunder three different EoL strategies: (i) Municipal solid waste treatment in the Netherlands,(ii) Take-back recycling without substitution credits (cut-off approach), and (iii) Take-backrecycling with substitution credits for avoided virgin material production. The initial results show that the municipal solid waste disposal scenario has the lowestcarbon emissions due to the cut-off method being adopted, which does not account for anyenvironmental credits. But when the substitution benefits of avoiding virgin material use aremanually included, take-back recycling with credits becomes the most sustainable option. Sincethe robot is majorly made of steel and considering that steel is 100% recyclable [2], a controlledclosed-loop recycling is a feasible and effective solution. The study finally shows that even a simplified LCA can give useful results for SMEs. It alsosuggests that introducing a take-back system for collecting the robots at their EoL and recyclingthe key components such as the steel components can help reduce emissions and improveresource use. This study is clearly documented to ensure transparency and to make it replicableby other SMEs who are facing similar challenges with LCA.