The Circular Economy Pole of Excellence aims to use life cycle thinking to support the development of a sustainable circular economy. Using tools like Material Flow Analysis, Life Cycle Assessment or circularity indicators, this pole aims to evaluate the performance of circularity strategies. Evaluation of the environmental and social impacts of circularity Perform material flow analyses Measure circularity for a product or an organisation Support the operationalisation of circular economy in a sustainability context Professional training: “Circular Economy and Sustainability Issues”

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Expert Services

in sustainability

Our team of analysts is specialized in:

Life cycle assessment and other analyses
Supporting your sustainability strategy
Development of custom tools

Our services

Life cycle assessments and other analyses

Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) of products and services
Social life cycle assessment of products and services (SLCA)
Life cycle cost analysis (AcCV)
Organizational Life Cycle Assessment (O-LCA)
Carbon footprint, scope 1,2,3
Carbon footprint
Water footprint
Simplified LCA
Impact quantification based on input-output models (IO)
Circularity analysis
Accompaniment in the realization of life cycle assessment and other assessments
Extraction of input-output (IO) emission factors for customers
Specific impact indicators
Life cycle inventory datasets and integration with commercial databases (e.g. ecoinvent)

Supporting your sustainability strategy

Ecodesign
Sustainable procurement
Trajectories and targets for carbon neutrality
Development of best practices and industry guides
Critical reviews of LCA studies (ISO 14040/44 & 14071)
Literature review and scientific watch

Development of custom tools

Our poles of excellence

Energy

The Energy pole of excellence was created in 2018 to consolidate the energy-related knowledge gathered from CIRAIG’s recent LCA studies on electricity generation, natural gas supply chains, liquefied natural gas, natural renewable gas, biofuels, oil products supply chain, coal supply chains, solar PV, wind energy, energy storage systems (hydraulic pump, Li-ion batteries, hydrogen), hydrogen, heating systems, electric passenger vehicles, and marine transports.

GHG assessment and comparative LCA analysis of energy sources and energy systems
Development of life cycle inventory data
Analysis of energy scenarios
Return on energy investment (EROI) and documentation of economic indicators (CAPEX, OPEX, and LCOE)
Systemic analysis (in development)

Carbon Neutrality

The Carbon Neutrality Pole of Excellence aims to develop and structure tools, methods, and data to support organizations of all types in their development of carbon neutrality plans (net-zero) based on proven and robust scientific approaches. Because climate change is the environmental priority of the 21st century, but is linked to impact transfers, the issue of which is crucial, the cluster strives to adopt life cycle approaches – including scopes 1, 2 and 3 – but above all multi-criteria, in order to consolidate truly sustainable carbon neutral trajectories.

OUR SERVICES

Diagnosis and consulting – net-zero trajectories

Organizational assessments on scopes 1, 2 and 3
Prioritization of decarbonization actions (scopes 1 and 2)
Development of green procurement policies (scope 3 upstream)
Recommendations for the use of products and services (scope 3 downstream)
Evaluation of residual emissions management strategies

Development of internal tools

GHG assessment databases
Scope 3 reporting calculation
Net-zero planning tools

Impact transfer study tool

Circular Economy

The Circular Economy Pole of Excellence aims to use life cycle thinking to support the development of a sustainable circular economy. Using tools like Material Flow Analysis, Life Cycle Assessment or circularity indicators, this pole aims to evaluate the performance of circularity strategies.

Evaluation of the environmental and social impacts of circularity
Perform material flow analyses
Measure circularity for a product or an organisation
Support the operationalisation of circular economy in a sustainability context
Professional training: “Circular Economy and Sustainability Issues”

Sustainable consumption

The Sustainable Consumption pole aims to evaluate the environmental impacts related to consumption behaviours from a life cycle perspective and to identify effective solutions and winning conditions to promote more sustainable consumption. This division covers various consumption sectors such as food, transportation, housing, consumer goods, etc. It is aimed at citizens, but also at the various economic and institutional players and levels of government who wish to make a commitment to the transition to more sustainable consumption. Its main fields of action are :

The development of tools to evaluate the environmental footprint of consumption at different scales (individual, municipal, provincial, national)
The development of regionalized inventory data sets on consumption
Co-construction of solutions with stakeholders to facilitate the transition
Raising public awareness and transferring knowledge through various communication channels (e.g. conferences, media, partner networks)

Agri-Food

The Agri-Food Pole of Excellence aims to develop skills in the analysis of complex and innovative agricultural systems. It involves systemic coverage of biomass sustainability issues, sustainable food, food system eco-efficiency assessments, the application of advanced tools and methods (SIG, traceability) for the development of data sets and methodologies, communication and dissemination, as well as the participation and involvement in committees, consultation groups, and R&D groups.

Study and analysis of agricultural and food production systems and modes
LCA and eco-design of agro-food products and bio-based materials
LCA of technologies for organic matter recovery, processing and valorization
Methodological development for impact assessment
External critical review
Training in LCA of agricultural and bio-based products
Scientific conference and general public conference

Tools

The Tools Pole of Excellence aims to create life cycle assessment (LCA) software tools specifically tailored to the needs of clients, to operationalize LCA research in computational tools and to develop a suite of open-source modules that can be assembled to create cutting-edge LCA software tools when combined.

In addition to LCA, the Tools group also uses Input-Output models. The Input-Output (IO) model is one of the core tools of Industrial Ecology alongside LCA. Both methods share common purposes and mathematical backgrounds. IO is a top-down approach while LCA is a bottom-up approach, however. As such, IO offers opportunities that LCA cannot achieve, e.g., a realistic representation of the economy. IO is therefore a much-needed tool when it comes to modeling complete systems and the associated impacts on the environment of these systems.

Develop industry-specific LCA software for a client
Implement LCA research as computational packages
Develop “model explorer” software to allow a client of an LCA to evaluate scenarios beyond the ones initially included in the static LCA report
Provide precalculated LCI samples for inclusion in software tools

Social

The Social Pole of Excellence aims to address the potential social and socioeconomic issues of products, sectors and projects using diverse methodological approaches rooted in several social science disciplines. The social responsibility of organizations requires taking into account the social and economic spheres that are organized within the biosphere. Our systemic vision allows us to base strategic decisions on comprehensive sustainability analyses. We can deal with social and socio-economic issues in a multiscalar manner, using methods oriented towards the value chain or in a territorialized manner.

The pole is also developing a fine technical expertise in the analysis of potential social impacts and is participating in the development of standards and best practices in social life cycle analysis.

Social life-cycle analysis (S-LCA)
Life-cycle cost analysis
Corporate social responsibility (e.g. materiality analysis, SWOT, etc.)
Assessment of factors influencing user behaviour change
Assessment of social acceptability or factors influencing social acceptability
Development of decision-support tools (e.g., multi-criteria analysis grid, computational social science, etc.)
Valuation and monetization of ecosystem services
Stakeholder consultation
Training in social LCA

Sustainable Infrastructure

The Sustainable Infrastructure Pole of Excellence aims to implement life cycle thinking for the design of sustainable infrastructure such as carbon-neutral buildings, bridges, roads and other civil and architectural projects. The life cycle perspective is a key element in environmental certifications for buildings (such as LEED or Zero Carbon Building Standard) or Environmental Product Declarations.

LCA of infrastructure (building, bridge, road, etc.
Development of life cycle inventory data
Development of simplified LCA tools for infrastructure
Development and revision of methodological guidelines for the sector
Professional training: “Life Cycle Thinking and Buildings”

Some of our clients

Industry

Governments

Our work

Inventory of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from consumption by the Montreal community for 2017

2023

This report presents the inventory of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to the consumption of the Montreal community for the year 2017. The inventory covers all activities and operations taking place within the Montreal community, including household purchases and activities, spending by the Ville de Montréal itself, capital investments (e.g. the purchase of buildings or machinery) taking place within the community, as well as federal and provincial government spending benefiting the community.

Life cycle analyses of masks and their end of life

2023

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the massive use of medical masks, two life cycle analyses were conducted to evaluate the environmental impacts of end-of-life management of single-use masks used in Quebec, but also of different types of reusable and single-use masks.

LCA Study

Single-use supermarket food packaging and its alternatives: Recommendations from life cycle Assessments

2022

CIRAIG contributed to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report “Single-use supermarket food packaging and its alternatives: Recommendations from life cycle Assessments”. This report compares the environmental impacts of single use plastic packaging versus alternative options for supermarket food, intended for home consumption, and provides recommendations to policy makers.

Pilot project on the adoption of traceability mechanisms for battery minerals

2022

The objective of the pilot project, using the infrastructure of New World Graphite (NMG), is to demonstrate the feasibility and applicability of a traceability system for the extraction and processing of graphite.

Charter for digital data in Montreal

2021

This Charter is governed by 13 principles that are expressed in the form of 3 commitments, namely: To guarantee human rights in the digital age; To ensure the primacy of the general interest and the common good; Putting data to work for the future.