IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i14p11447-d1201124.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Life-LCA: Impacts of a German Human Being in the Old Adulthood Stage

Author

Listed:
  • David Bossek

    (Department of Sustainable Engineering, Institute of Environmental Technology, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany)

  • Caroline Rudolph

    (Department of Sustainable Engineering, Institute of Environmental Technology, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany)

  • Vanessa Bach

    (Department of Sustainable Engineering, Institute of Environmental Technology, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany)

  • Matthias Finkbeiner

    (Department of Sustainable Engineering, Institute of Environmental Technology, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany)

Abstract

Life-LCA studies, which assess the environmental impacts of human beings, focused so far on the span from conception to 50 years. This case study extends the analysis to an “old adulthood stage”, including a retirement (65–75 years) and end-of-life phase (75–80 years), thus complementing the assessment gap in the life cycle of a human being. The Life-LCA method is applied to a fictional study object representing an average German adult using mainly secondary data. Over both life phases, impacts result in 1.2 × 10 2 t CO 2 -eq for climate change, 9 × 10 − ⁵ CTUh for human toxicity cancer, 2 × 10 −3 CTUh for human toxicity non-cancer, 1.35 × 10⁰ kg Sb-eq for abiotic depletion for elements, and 1.55 × 10⁰ TJ for fossil fuels. Across all impact categories, “transport” is a hotspot, contributing 41% to GWP, followed by “Energy and water” (39%) and “food” (20%). For abiotic depletion for elements, “Electronics” shows a share of 50%. The “retirement phase” causes a higher environmental impact than the “EoL phase” across all impact categories due to restricted mobility with higher age. A study with primary data collection is suggested to check the plausibility of the results.

Suggested Citation

  • David Bossek & Caroline Rudolph & Vanessa Bach & Matthias Finkbeiner, 2023. "Life-LCA: Impacts of a German Human Being in the Old Adulthood Stage," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-18, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:14:p:11447-:d:1201124
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11447/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11447/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Emma Aguila & Orazio Attanasio & Costas Meghir, 2011. "Changes in Consumption at Retirement: Evidence from Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 1094-1099, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Allais, Olivier & Leroy, Pascal & Mink, Julia, 2020. "Changes in food purchases at retirement in France," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    2. Dong, Yingying, 2010. "Jumpy or Kinky? Regression Discontinuity without the Discontinuity," MPRA Paper 25461, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Landais, Camille & Kolsrud, Jonas & Spinnewijn, Johannes, 2017. "Studying Consumption Patterns using Registry Data: Lessons From Swedish Administrative Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 12402, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Alexander Zimper & Alexander Ludwig & Max Groneck, 2012. "A Life-Cycle Consumption Model with Ambiguous Survival Beliefs," 2012 Meeting Papers 693, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Orazio P. Attanasio & Guglielmo Weber, 2010. "Consumption and Saving: Models of Intertemporal Allocation and Their Implications for Public Policy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(3), pages 693-751, September.
    6. Jang, Bong-Gyu & Lee, Ho-Seok, 2016. "Retirement with risk aversion change and borrowing constraints," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 112-124.
    7. Abdoulaye Ndiaye, 2017. "Flexible Retirement and Optimal Taxation," Working Paper Series WP-2018-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    8. Zhu, Penghu & Lin, Boqiang, 2022. "Do the elderly consume more energy? Evidence from the retirement policy in urban China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    9. Miriam Beblo & Sven Schreiber, 2022. "Leisure and housing consumption after retirement: new evidence on the life-cycle hypothesis," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 305-330, March.
    10. Thomas Horvath & Thomas Url, 2013. "Bridging-Renten als Überbrückung für Einkommensausfälle vor dem Pensionsantritt," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 46684.
    11. Ciani Emanuele & Fisher Paul, 2019. "Dif-in-Dif Estimators of Multiplicative Treatment Effects," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-10, January.
    12. Cheng, Lingguo & Lu, Yunfeng, 2024. "Does retirement make people more risk averse?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 135-155.
    13. Parsons, Donald O., 2016. "Moral-Hazard-Free First-Best Unemployment Insurance," IZA Discussion Papers 9824, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Zhang, Chuanchuan & Zhao, Yaohui, 2012. "延迟退休年龄会挤出年轻人就业吗? [Will Postponing Retirement Crowd out Youth Employment?]," MPRA Paper 52931, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Dec 2013.
    15. Daniel Burkhard, 2015. "Consumption smoothing at retirement: average and quantile treatment effects in the regression discontinuity design," Diskussionsschriften dp1512, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    16. Celidoni, Martina & Weber, Guglielmo, 2020. "Do you need less money in retirement?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    17. Velarde, Melanie & Herrmann, Roland, 2014. "How retirement changes consumption and household production of food: Lessons from German time-use data," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 3(C), pages 1-10.
    18. Bonsang, Eric & van Soest, Arthur, 2020. "Time devoted to home production and retirement in couples: A panel data analysis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    19. Deng, Tinghe & Chen, Qihui & Bai, Junfei, 2016. "Understanding the Retirement-Consumption Puzzle through the Lens of Food Consumption − Fuzzy Regression-Discontinuity Evidence from Urban China," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235535, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    20. Edouard Augustin Ribes, 2021. "How does education influence individuals' use of bequests as a long-term care insurance?," Working Papers hal-03498481, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:14:p:11447-:d:1201124. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.