Sustainability initiatives across the composites value chain are of increasing importance, but “sustainability” itself can be a broad, somewhat vague term. One trend that CW is seeing are more companies announcing or publishing the results of lifecycle assessment or analysis (LCA) studies, a series of evaluations performed to more concretely assess a process or product’s environmental footprint.

LCAs are generally performed by third-party partners, following standards such as ISO 14040. Led by startups and academic and research institutions, there are also new digital tools available or in development to help trace the lifecycle or carbon footprint of raw materials and products. 

Here are a few examples in this field that the CW team has learned of recently:

• Teijin Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) has announced several LCA initiatives, including an LCA of its carbon fiber filament operations in 2021, a partnership with GreenDelta GmbH (Berlin, Germany) and others to produce a new greenhouse gas emissions evaluation tool, and a joint project with Fujitsu Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) to trace materials sustainability and greenhouse gas emissions within the carbon fiber composite bicycle frame industry.
• The software tools available for LCAs are continuing to evolve. The National Composites Centre (NCC, Bristol, U.K.) has been conducting studies to compare the data found in various LCA tools. One completed study assessed data referenced in LCA software within the construction sector, and identified need for highly accurate data input.  
• Hemp fiber-based additive company Heartland (Detroit, Mich., U.S.) has completed a life cycle assessment of its Imperium filler product through Presidio Graduate School (San Francisco, Calif., U.S.) and Lifecycle Associates (Portola Valley, Calif., U.S.), in accordance with ISO 14040 standards for LCAs. This research shows that every 1 kilogram of Imperium Filler removes 3 kilograms of CO₂ equivalent (CO2e).
• Circularise B.V. (The Hague, Netherlands) is a startup company that provides digital product passports and a supply chain management system to trace data on raw materials, recycling history, biomass and more. In November 2022, chemical company Asahi Kasei (Tokyo, Japan) and several partners invested in Circularise to accelerate the technology.

• Specific to wind turbines, ReWind is a digital service launched in 2022 by DNV (Høvik, Norway) and Reodor Studios (Oslo, Norway) to help wind farms report and plan for decommissioning and recycling of wind turbines at the end of their lifecycle.

Please reach out to the CW team at Press@CompositesWorld.com with your company’s news or developments in this area.

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• “Automated wind blade maintenance”
• “Cryogenic testing of composites for future hydrogen storage”