Biomass energy, or bioenergy, is energy produced from renewable biomass, for which the assessment of environmental impacts through life cycle assessment (LCA) presents a number of challenges, in particular methodological ones. The general objectives of this study are to analyze current practices for carrying out LCAs of biomass energy, and to provide recommendations on current and future best practices.

Food choices have a significant climate impact, which can be unknown to the public. The CIRAIG, commissioned by Polytechnique Montréal, has been tasked with calculating the climate-warming impact of the menus offered by the cafeteria, aiming to enable students to understand the impact of their meals and change their eating habits to reduce it.

Designed for business by business to unleash the transformative power of the circular economy, Circular Transition Indicators v4.0 offers a universal and quantitative framework for evaluating how circular a company is.

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.

Nine Pilot projects were launched to test the application of the UNEP 2020 Guidelines of Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations and their submitted reports are presented in the subsequent chapters of this document. The latter applies Social LCA to products, services, and organizations and showcases the benefits and challenges its implementation entails, as well as recommendations to overcome them. The road testing is very diverse: the UNEP Guidelines were applied to different sectors (automotive, metal, food, Cosmetic, plastics packaging), in different companies ranging from multinationals to sector associations, and across 5 continents (Germany, Italy, Indonesia, India, US, Ghana, Ecuador).

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.

The CIRAIG participated in the scientific committee for the Circularity Gap Report for Quebec project.

The HEC Montréal Chair in Energy Sector Management, the CIRAIG, Polytechnique Montréal and the CTTÉI, in collaboration with the CERIEC, have conducted a collaborative research project to evaluate the potential of the circular economy on industrial GHG emission reductions in Québec.

The Circular Economy Action Agenda is a rallying call for businesses, governments, researchers, consumers and civil society to work together to accelerate the transition to a circular economy.

Since its first edition in 2009, the practice of social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) has evolved from a small circle of academic practitioners to one that now includes stakeholders from industry, policy makers, and business. This means having updated information and guidelines that do not need prior à understanding of lifecycle approaches. It also means ensuring that the right tools are in the hands of those who can inform the decision-making processes. These updated Guidelines fulfils both these objectives.

Comparison of the environmental profiles of process heat generation on the Côte-Nord using four scenarios of liquefied natural gas and the reference scenario based on the current use of light and heavy fuel oil.

This special publication of Le Devoir and Unpointcinq exclusively unveils the results of research work conducted by the CIRAIG.

Canadian Analytical Framework for the Environmental Evaluation of Electricity

Study of the environmental impacts of Énergir’s supply chain.

Consultation with the main economic actors of the Quebec Hydrogen ecosystem, highlighting the potential business opportunities and deployment strategies for Hydrogen in different economic sectors.

Sustainable maritime and coastal management following an integrated approach combining the assessment of ecosystem services on a territorial scale under a life cycle perspective

An object class to hybridize lifecycle assessment (LCA) and environmentally extended input-output (EEIO) databases

A new publication under the direction of Jérôme Dupras and Jean-Pierre Revéret from the CIRAIG at the Université du Québec Press.

This book, written under the auspices of the Institute for the Environment, Sustainable Development and Circular Economy (IEDDEC), presents the reflections of some fifty experts, notably in environment, industrial or chemical engineering, management, but also in economics, geography, anthropology and philosophy.

Built by business, for business, the CTI provides companies with a common language to use for internal decision-making and communicating to key stakeholders. The CTI, and its free online tool, are now available.

generate dependently sampled LCI and LCIA arrays for whole databases

Write, load, manage and verify presample arrays for LCA.

The LCA2 initiative is a collaboration between the NRC and other federal government departments, academia, non-government organizations, industry partners, and low-carbon asset experts from across Canada.

The EDDEC Institute, which brings together the expertise of researchers from Polytechnique Montréal, HEC Montréal and the Université de Montréal working on the transition to a circular economy, has carried out a research project to evaluate the circularity potential of three strategic metals for Québec: copper, lithium and iron. This project also made it possible to determine the main environmental impacts of these metals along the value chain. The final report summarizes this work, the detailed results of which are presented in the progress reports below.

As part of the public consultation on the issues and impacts of a ban on single-use shopping bags in retail businesses on the territory of the City of Montréal, the CIRAIG produced a brief to provide its thoughts on the life cycle of shopping bags. These thoughts are both environmental and socio-economic in nature, with the inclusion of social life cycle analysis concepts, and may serve to fuel the debate within the City of Montréal. Since knowledge on the subject is limited, this document provides the avenues of study needed to fully understand the potential impacts of implementing a policy to reduce the use of single-use bags in the Montréal context.

This white paper is intended as a strategic and critical guide to understanding the concepts underlying the circular economy.

O-LCA is envisioned for organizations of all sizes, both public and private, in all sectors, and all over the world. We devoted special efforts to make the new methodology operative for all of them. Furthermore, the guidance document defines the so-called “experience-based implementation pathways” and provides particular methodological support according to previous experience of the organization with other environmental tools. Eleven experiences of the so-called “First Movers” of O-LCA illustrate the process and benefits that the methodology could bring to organizations. Eight sectors and four regions are represented in the case studies.