Resources, Conservation & Recycling 152 (2020) 104512

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Resources, Conservation & Recycling

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resconrec

Full length article

Blockchain-based life cycle assessment: An implementation framework and T

system architecture
Abraham Zhanga,b, , Ray Y Zhongc, Muhammad Farooquea,d, Kai Kangc, V G Venkateshe
⁎

a
Auckland University of Technology (AUT) Business School, AUT University, Private Bag 92006, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand
b
Lumen Research Institute, Excelsia College and Indiana Wesleyan University, 69-71 Waterloo Road, Macquarie Park, NSW, 2113, Australia
c
Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People's Republic of China
d
Sukkur IBA University, Sukkur, Pakistan
e
Ecole de Management de Normandie, 30 Rue de Richelieu, 76087, Le Havre, France

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Life cycle assessment (LCA) is widely used for assessing the environmental impacts of a product or service.
Blockchain Collecting reliable data is a major challenge in LCA due to the complexities involved in the tracking and
Life cycle assessment quantifying inputs and outputs at multiple supply chain stages. Blockchain technology offers an ideal solution to
Supply chain sustainability overcome the challenge in sustainable supply chain management. Its use in combination with internet-of-things
Environmental sustainability
(IoT) and big data analytics and visualization can help organizations achieve operational excellence in con-
Operational excellence
ducting LCA for improving supply chain sustainability. This research develops a framework to guide the im-
plementation of Blockchain-based LCA. It proposes a system architecture that integrates the use of Blockchain,
IoT, and big data analytics and visualization. The proposed implementation framework and system architecture
were validated by practitioners who were experienced with Blockchain applications. The research also analyzes
system implementation costs and discusses potential issues and solutions, as well as managerial and policy
implications.

1. Introduction claims which inform consumers’ choices through environmental la-

beling and declarations (Levasseur et al., 2016). It also serves as a re-
In the last few decades, environmental issues including depletion of ference methodology for decision support in environmental policies and
natural resources, global warming, chemical pollution and loss of bio- programs, for example, in the European Environmental Footprint (EC,
diversity have been of great concern to the society at large (Luthra and 2013) and in the European Union Better Regulation Toolbox (EC,
Mangla, 2018). Businesses are increasingly being held responsible for 2015).
their actions affecting environmental sustainability. In this regard, the Despite its popularity, LCA faces a key challenge in collecting reli-
management of environmental issues requires reliable tools for mea- able data efficiently across the supply chain. From a theoretical view-
suring and quantifying the environmental impacts of business activities point, the LCA results are only as reliable as the quality of the input
(Balaguera et al., 2018). data. However, in practice, obtaining reliable data could be very
Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been widely used for the assessment challenging, especially when dealing with new products (Hospido et al.,
of environmental impacts associated with all the stages of a product 2010). Theoretically, LCA should account for all inputs of a product
system (i.e., from raw material acquisition or generation, through system. Yet, most LCA studies fail to do so because practically it is quite
production, distribution, use and final disposal) (Corcelli et al., 2019; difficult to collect data across the supply chain which often involves
Krishna et al., 2017; UNEP, 2012). The main users of LCA include the many businesses that are geographically dispersed (Genovese et al.,
governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and a wide 2017; Zhang et al., 2013). The academia has significantly contributed
variety of industrial sectors. LCA has been used by industries for to the LCA theory and methodological developments, however, there is
identifying opportunities to reduce the environmental impacts of their still a general discrepancy between the theory and practice of LCA
operations and supply chain activities (Lake et al., 2015). It helps de- (Baitz et al., 2013; Hollberg and Ruth, 2016). The academia needs to
sign more sustainable products, and provide data for realistic marketing understand the practical boundaries of the application side whereas, the

⁎
Corresponding author at: Auckland University of Technology (AUT) Business School, AUT University, Private Bag 92006, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand.
E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Zhang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.104512
Received 31 May 2019; Received in revised form 27 August 2019; Accepted 24 September 2019
Available online 03 October 2019
0921-3449/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
A. Zhang, et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 152 (2020) 104512

industry needs to learn the new scientific methods and innovations reviews the relevant literature on Blockchain technology and LCA.
coming from academia (Baitz et al., 2013). There is a dire need to strive Section 3 presents an implementation framework of Blockchain-based
for operational excellence (Jakhar et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2016) in LCA. Section 4 develops a system architecture that integrates the use of
conducting LCAs; aiming towards improving the environmental sus- Blockchain, IoT, and big data analytics and visualization for LCA. It also
tainability performance of supply chains (Mangla et al., 2019). analyzes the cost of developing such a system. Section 5 discusses po-
Blockchain technology offers an ideal solution to overcome the tential issues and solutions, as well as managerial and policy implica-
above-mentioned challenges to achieve operational excellence in con- tions. Section 6 concludes the research.
ducting LCA. Blockchain technology first appeared in the crypto-
currency field (i.e., bitcoin) as a technology to support transactions 2. Literature review
(Nakamoto, 2008). However, new applications of Blockchains in fi-
nancial services, insurance, food, health care, supply chain manage- 2.1. Blockchain technology
ment and government (Queiroz et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019) provide
clear evidence of its potential to disrupt many traditional industries Blockchain is a distributed ledger that can record transactions be-
(Scott et al., 2017; White, 2017). Blockchain technology works in a tween any two parties efficiently in a verifiable and permanent way on
distributed data structure based on a peer-to-peer network (Christidis a global basis (Iansiti and Lakhani, 2017; Li et al., 2019). The Block-
and Devetsikiotis, 2016; Marsal-Llacuna, 2018) where blocks are linked chain concept was proposed, along with Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto in
by cryptographic hashes (Conte de Leon et al., 2017) with copies in all 2008 (Nakamoto, 2008). The technology facilitates a decentralized
their nodes (Al-Saqaf and Seidler, 2017; Scott et al., 2017). Other dis- consensus by maintaining a digital record of events using multiple
tinctive features include data security, tamper-proof transactions, and blocks, which are embedded in programs. Each block is identified by its
data validation among the network members within a distributed cryptographic hash and it is connected with others based on the hash of
ledger (Queiroz et al., 2019). These features make the transactions re- the previous block to form a chain of blocks (Bahga and Madisetti,
cords virtually immutable (Adams et al., 2017; Cai and Zhu, 2016; 2016). The individual block stores the negotiated terms and verifies the
Grewal et al., 2018). outcome. The technology adopts a system of permanent stamp driving a
Prior research suggests that Blockchain technology adoption can collective responsibility among stakeholders for data safety and relia-
greatly facilitate green and sustainable practices in supply chains bility (Puthal et al., 2018). The system authenticates every transaction
(Kouhizadeh and Sarkis, 2018; Saberi et al., 2019). When combined by the agreement of more than half of the members participating in the
with other technologies such as big data analytics and internet-of-things network (Tama et al., 2017). The working mechanism leads to a lower
(IoT) (Aryal et al., 2018), Blockchain technology “could be used to risk of downtime, censorship, and data falsification (Beck et al., 2017;
create a permanent, shareable, actionable record of every moment of a Li et al., 2018a; Nakamoto, 2008). Researchers expect Blockchain to
product’s trip through its supply chain” thus providing seamless pro- facilitate a high degree of digital transformation with a level of objec-
duct traceability, authenticity and legitimacy (Wang et al., 2019, p. 62). tivity where no one is in full control or having absolute power and with
For example, application of Blockchain technology and smart devices a broad range of applications in multiple domains (Beck et al., 2017).
has significantly improved the compliance measure of Emission Trading In recent times, different types of Blockchains are constructed and
Scheme (ETS) as opposed to conventional ETS policy (Fu et al., 2018; they include public, consortium, and private Blockchains, which can be
Khaqqi et al., 2018). Apparently, Blockchain offers great potential in adopted in different scenarios (Li et al., 2018a, b). Compared with ex-
overcoming the challenges associated with traditional LCA methodol- isting information systems, there are four key characteristics in the
ogies, as mentioned earlier. The need to integrate LCA and Blockchain Blockchain, including decentralization, security, auditability, and smart
from both a theoretical and practical backgrounds offers great value. To execution (Saberi et al., 2019). Due to its advantages, the general pat-
the best of our knowledge, there is no prior research done in this area, tern of interest in the Blockchain has shown exponential growth
mainly due to the disruptive nature of the technology. Moreover, the starting at the end of 2015 due to its reliability (Treiblmaier, 2018). It
extant literature is lacking a guiding framework integrating Blockchain directly or indirectly enhances information transparency across the
and other relevant technologies for conducting an LCA. Therefore, this supply chain and reduces the chances of data manipulations, by mini-
research is set to achieve the following objectives: mizing the role of intermediaries whose services are often vulnerable to
crash, frauds, and hacks (Tapscott and Tapscott, 2017). Subsequently,
1 To develop an implementation framework for guiding the integra- the technology has been widely presented and studied in currency and
tion of Blockchain and other relevant technologies in conducting finance domains, and further applications should look beyond eco-
LCA for achieving operational excellence nomics and markets; particularly in the fields of government, health,
2 To present a system architecture of Blockchain-based LCA system for and literature (Swan, 2015). Yuan and Wang (2018) investigated
managing the environmental performance of supply chains Blockchain and cryptocurrencies systematically. They designed a six-
layer reference model of the Blockchain framework and also addressed
To achieve these objectives, this research addresses the following potential applications of Blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
specific research questions: Yue et al. (2016) proposed a Healthcare Data Gateway architecture
based on Blockchain to enable patients to own, control, and share their
1 How to integrate Blockchain and other smart enabling technologies data easily and securely without violating privacy. Li et al. (2018b)
into multiple LCA stages to make the processes more efficient and suggested a cross-enterprise framework based on Blockchain to achieve
effective? a higher level of sharing of knowledge and services in manufacturing
2 What is the working mechanism of Blockchain-based LCA and what ecosystems, allowing the company to develop scalable and flexible
applications should be included in for managing the environmental business at a lower cost and improve the overall quality, efficiency and
performance of supply chains? effectiveness of manufacturing services in a secure and controlled
manner. Viriyasitavat et al. (2018) proposed a Blockchain-based busi-
Both the implementation framework and the system architecture ness process management framework for achieving operational ex-
developed in this research are validated by experienced practitioners. cellence in the evaluation and transferring of quality of services in the
The proposed Blockchain-based LCA system can drastically improve the workflow composition and management. Sikorski et al. (2017) em-
efficiency and effectiveness in conducting LCA when compared to the ployed Blockchain technology to facilitate machine-to-machine (M2M)
traditional approaches. interactions in a M2M electricity market in the context of the chemical
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 industry. Tama et al. (2017) deliberated its application in the digital

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content distribution system, IoT security system, and the advanced scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and inter-
authorization management system. Apparently, Blockchain technology pretation alongside each of these three stages (Muralikrishna and
has a significant role in rating and trust evaluation schemes. Manickam, 2017). It primarily requires quantitative data to analyze the
Recently, potential Blockchain applications were explored for im- raw material input, energy consumptions, product output, and en-
proving supply chain sustainability. For instance, an agri-food supply vironmental releases of the system. The first stage, goal and scope de-
chain traceability system was developed to guarantee food safety based finition, outlines the purpose, mission, functional units, and boundaries
on radio frequency identification (RFID) and Blockchain (Tian, 2016). of the system. The second stage, inventory analysis, describes input data
Francisco and Swanson (2018) showed that Blockchain could bring required for analysis, and how to collect and validate them. It involves a
supply chain transparency to a new level and expose negative practices technical modeling system that covers the materials used in all product
such as child labor in the upstream manufacturing process and the stages ranging from manufacturing to disposal. In the third stage, en-
unethical use of rainforest resources. In addition, Saberi et al. (2019) vironmental impacts and resources used are assessed, based on the data
classified the barriers of Blockchain technology adoption into four ca- from inventory analysis (Buyle et al., 2013). The interpretation stage is
tegories, inter-organizational, intra-organizational, technical and ex- alongside each of these three stages. It involves the critical review,
ternal barriers, and presented directions to overcome these barriers. determination of data sensitivity, and communication of results
Kouhizadeh and Sarkis (2018) investigated activities across and within (Rebitzer et al., 2004). The above phases primarily require two types of
the supply chain and provided some insights into the diversified sus- data, foreground and background data. While the former one comprises
tainability-oriented opportunities associated with Blockchain tech- product-level information, the later one covers the details of energy,
nology. Overall, the technology enhances the autonomy of the in- transport, and waste management systems. The reliability of LCA re-
formation system since it functions more independently with no or sults is dependent on the quality of the input data (von Bahr and Steen,
fewer intermediaries and thereby computation power of this distribu- 2004). Different sample selection may lead to different results due to
tion system is enriched through the participation of peer members weak links in popularizing the data (Cooper et al., 2013; Song et al.,
(Viriyasitavat et al., 2018). Franz and Kirchmer (2012) deliberated on 2018). In fact, collecting reliable data is perceived as a significant
value-driven process management by integrating the Blockchain tech- challenge in LCA based works, especially when dealing with new pro-
nology for improving the workflow. This is achieved through the in- ducts (Hospido et al., 2010).
tegration of cross-organizational business processes and by eliminating Traditional LCA methodologies work within system boundaries,
manual operations, ascertaining and extending the role of Blockchain which are defined by the researchers to account for an impact assess-
technology in product LCA. ment (Genovese et al., 2017). However, according to Nasir et al. (2017),
the subjective judgment of LCA boundaries may lead to variable and
2.2. Life cycle assessment uncertain results (Christensen et al., 2007; Matos and Hall, 2007). For
complex systems such as supply chains, LCA studies often fail to ac-
Increasingly, Life cycle thinking is gaining prominence in practice count for all possible inputs of a product system (Genovese et al., 2017).
for addressing sustainability-related challenges in production and con- In addition, there is always some degree of uncertainty associated with
sumption. LCA is a relevant and popular tool for evaluating environ- the input data for LCA studies (Ciroth et al., 2004). In such cases, la-
mental impacts relating to the entire production value chain of a pro- boratory experiments and computer modeling may be used (Norgate
duct throughout its lifecycle or lifetime (Roy et al., 2009). The et al., 2007; von Gleich et al., 2008), but severe inconsistencies, weak
technique considers multi-criteria attributes with a cradle-to-grave universality of research methods and inaccuracies have been found
perspective (from raw material to disposal), which is complex for when scaling to industrial applications (Hospido et al., 2010). Fur-
analysis. Moreover, it works as an interdisciplinary framework, wherein thermore, LCA methodologies are posed with a challenge to account for
the outcomes are influential for making decisions around marketing, benefits (including data processing) from recycling materials and
product design and selection, and strategic planning (Weidema et al., quantifying the effect of substitution and downgrading factors in a
2004). Technically, it encompasses not only the assessment of products, circular economy (Niero et al., 2016). In a circular supply chain
but also processes that include raw material processing, manufacturing, (Farooque and Zhang, 2017; Farooque et al., 2019b; Mangla et al.,
transportation, distribution, return and reuse, recycling, and final dis- 2018), materials are regenerated or used in continuous, multiple and/or
posal (Chau et al., 2015; Gbededo et al., 2018). Major economies in- circular loops (Farooque et al., 2019a; Niero and Olsen, 2016;
cluding the USA, Japan, Korea, Canada, Australia, China, and India Schroeder et al., 2018).
have started to treat LCA as a core element of environmental policy To overcome these practical challenges, the international LCA
formulation (Guinée et al., 2011). In the USA and the European Union, community is on a constant endeavor to standardize data types used in
LCA is a mainstream tool for providing key inputs to product declara- the analysis, by focusing on systematizing the data collection process
tions and green public procurement policy framework (Notarnicola and data quality (Roy et al., 2009). However, this standardization ex-
et al., 2017). In addition, it provides a basis for managing eco-labeling ercise faces its own problems related with data synchronization, the
requests of consumers, businesses, and NGOs (Jensen, 1998). rapid development of technologies, and location-specific issues, which
Many industries employ LCA (Roy et al., 2009), for example, con- have often not been focused on adequately (Guinée et al., 2009;
struction (Chau et al., 2015), solid waste management (Erses Yay, Notarnicola et al., 2017). On the flip side, this development has influ-
2015), agriculture (Cerutti et al., 2014; Notarnicola et al., 2017), food enced the rapid expansion of information and knowledge sharing net-
manufacturing (Egilmez et al., 2014), renewable energy (Asdrubali work under the broad LCA framework (Roy et al., 2009). Consequently,
et al., 2015), biology (Pérez-López et al., 2014), and transportation it directs LCA analysis to move towards big data by combining with
(Bauer et al., 2015). Due to its widespread application and importance, other proven methods including Data Envelopment Analysis, which
LCA has earned a space in the ISO standards (Guinée and Heijungs, eventually enhance the transparency and reliability of impact analyses
2017). ISO 14040–14043 standards define the principles, framework (Song et al., 2018). Such developments encourage researchers to adopt
requirements, and guidelines for undertaking LCA (Rebitzer et al., other sophisticated technologies including the Blockchain technology in
2004). Moreover, in the last decade, European Commission’s Integrated LCA.
Product Policy (IPP) has led to the development of a practical guide to In summary, the review recognizes LCA as an important and widely
LCA, which is complementary to the ISO standards (EC, 2012). On si- used tool for managing sustainability performance. However, its ap-
milar lines, a life cycle initiative was launched by the United Nations plication faces major challenges in collecting reliable data. So far, little
Environment Program (UNEP) (Jolliet et al., 2005). research has explored the use of disruptive Blockchain technology for
The standard LCA system has four main stages such as goal and LCA. The researchers believe that Blockchain can drastically improve

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A. Zhang, et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 152 (2020) 104512

Fig. 1. Blockchain-based LCA Framework.

Source: Authors; Muralikrishna and Manickam (2017)

the effectiveness and efficiency of collecting, analyzing, and dis- make it possible to quantify the material regeneration and restoration
seminating data related to environmental impacts for conducting LCA. effects within a circular supply chain (Farooque and Zhang, 2017;
This research narrows the knowledge gap by developing an im- Farooque et al., 2019b; Mangla et al., 2018; Niero et al., 2016; Niero
plementation framework and system architecture of the Blockchain- and Olsen, 2016). In this regard, Blockchain-based LCA relies on IoT
based LCA system. technologies which provide seamless capabilities for capturing real-
time lifecycle data automatically. This data is then recorded using
Blockchain technology, which ensures that the data integrity is main-
3. Implementation framework
tained. More importantly, Blockchain technology enables instant tra-
ceability of data, which is not possible in a traditional system. A tra-
The researchers propose a Blockchain-based LCA framework in
ditional system may have data available at multiple stages of the supply
Fig. 1 for integrating Blockchain and other smart enabling technologies
chain, but the data is not shared. It could be a very time-consuming task
into multiple LCA stages to make the processes more efficient and ef-
to obtain relevant data from multiple supply chain actors across the
fective. As mentioned earlier, LCA consists of four stages: goal and
globe. For example, a Blockchain-based food traceability system tried
scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and inter-
by Walmart was able to reduce the time needed to trace the provenance
pretation (Muralikrishna and Manickam, 2017). Blockchain-based LCA
of mangoes in the US from 7 days to 2.2 s (Hyperledger, 2018).
uses smart enabling technologies to achieve operational excellence at
In the third phase of LCA, impact assessment evaluates the product
all four stages. The following paragraphs explain the working me-
life cycle (traditionally performed on a functional unit basis), which
chanisms of the smart enabling technologies in conducting LCA and the
provides an indicator of the potential impacts in several impact cate-
direct applications of Blockchain-based LCA.
gories (e.g., water use, climate change, etc.) (Krishna et al., 2017;
The first stage of LCA defines the goal and scope. A comprehensive
Rebitzer et al., 2004). With more reliable data inputs, Blockchain-based
LCA should include all supply chain stages of a product or process life
LCA provides more accurate assessments. IoT technologies powered by
cycle: raw material acquisition, manufacturing, use/reuse/main-
sensors and devices can generate very large-scale real-time data (e.g.,
tenance, and recycle/waste management. However, constraints such as
big data). Big data and supply chain analytics can be used to discover
availability of data, the time required to conduct the LCA, and the fi-
insights which will contribute to better and faster decision making
nancial resources eventually determine which stages can be included in
based on data that was previously inaccessible or unusable.
the scope of the LCA. Blockchain-enabled supply chain traceability and
Lastly, life cycle interpretation occurs at every stage in an LCA
transparency can remove the constraints associated with data acquisi-
(Rebitzer et al., 2004). The ISO 14,043 standard recommends three
tion for LCA. It also minimizes the need for subjective judgment of the
steps for conducting life cycle interpretation. These steps include 1)
functional unit as practiced in traditional LCAs (Christensen et al.,
identification of the significant issues based on the inventory analysis
2007; Matos and Hall, 2007). For Blockchain-based LCA, the additional
and impact assessment, 2) evaluation which considers completeness,
step required at this stage is to determine the extent of technology in-
sensitivity, and consistency checks, 3) conclusions, recommendations,
tegration corresponding to the information needs of the LCA study. If a
and reporting (Scientific Applications International Corporation, 2006).
Blockchain-based information system is already in place for a supply
Blockchain-based LCA ensures that all data elements which contribute
chain, it will be a relatively easy task to define the goal and scope of a
significantly to the outcome of the results are properly assessed and
LCA study because of the traceability and transparency provided by the
only the validated results are used to draw conclusions from the LCA
Blockchain technology.
study. Furthermore, Blockchain-based LCA is also powered by data vi-
The second stage of LCA, inventory analysis, quantifies the material
sualization tools to produce graphical insights of the LCA data. This
and energy flows of the product system including other exchanges
enables data analyses from different perspectives to identify patterns,
within the natural environment (e.g., waste flows and emissions) related
connections, and relationships, as well as to understand and interpret
to the functional unit (Rebitzer et al., 2004). Blockchain and other
large amounts of data very quickly.
enabling technologies can overcome the limitation of the traditional
Blockchain-based LCA can have many direct applications for im-
LCA methodologies in not being able to account for all possible inputs
proving environmental sustainability. These applications include
of complex product supply chains (Genovese et al., 2017). They also

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product design, development and improvement, strategic planning, analytics, both of which are widely applied in various fields. With the
environmental accounting, public policymaking, marketing, logistics adoption of IoT technologies, data can be collected automatically
and supply chain design, sustainable supply chain management, without human involvement, when physical objects are equipped with
amongst others (Muralikrishna and Manickam, 2017). For example, electronics, software, sensors, actuators and connectivity functionalities
product designers need to incorporate environmental criteria into their (Atzori et al., 2010). Recently, IoT technologies have been utilized to
design decisions. They can obtain data from a Blockchain-based LCA perceive and access manufacturing resources (Tao et al., 2014b), to
system used for similar products to aid their processes of designing new develop a configurable information service platform for product life-
products. Environmental accounting, which has become increasingly cycle assessment (Cai et al., 2014) and to monitor the user's health and
popular, will be made much easier with a Blockchain-based LCA activate remote assistance (Amendola et al., 2014). Given the large
system. Logistics and supply chain design have a large impact on carbon volume of data collected automatically by IoT technologies, big data
emissions generated from freight movements. Blockchain-based LCA analytics has been utilized to extract valuable insights, such as logistics
can inform better logistics and supply chain design decisions for im- trajectory (Zhong et al., 2015), standard operation time (Zhong et al.,
proving supply chain sustainability performance. 2014), and enterprises’ competitive advantages (Galletti and
The implementation framework presented in Fig. 1 was validated by Papadimitriou, 2013).
three experienced practitioners who have expertise in Blockchain Typically, IoT technologies and big data analytics are applied within
technology. The lead researcher sent to the practitioners via email a a company where data can be transferred reliably. For conducting LCA,
copy of the implementation framework including its descriptions and however, data may need to be transferred across the supply chain, some
requested their feedback for validating and improving the framework. of whose members might have a strong motivation to benefit from
These practitioners play different roles in Blockchain technology sharing untruthful data with other supply chain members. Moreover, it
adoption. Among them, one practitioner is a Blockchain technology is often a challenge to share data in a flexible manner. Blockchain
provider who has won multiple contracts to develop Blockchain-based technology can overcome the challenge by sharing the captured data
systems for businesses. The other two practitioners include a Block- reliably before they are analyzed and serves as a bridge to connect IoT
chain technology user from the forestry sector and a senior manage- technologies with big data analytics seamlessly.
ment consultant with over 20 years of experiences in advising clients in
the use of improvement methodologies and technologies, including 4.2. Infrastructure and blockchain services
Blockchain. They all approved the general validity of the implementa-
tion framework. They also provided some constructive feedback ac- From the bottom-up, the infrastructure layer consists of the hard-
cording to the request of the lead researcher. After a telephone con- ware layer and software layer. The hardware layer provides smart
versation with the Blockchain technology provider, the lead researcher sensors to enable the deployment of IoT technologies. Local servers and
made some revisions to improve the initial draft of the implementation storage store data that is collected by smart sensors or obtained from
framework. A similar procedure was followed for developing the system the Blockchain. The network transmits real-time data collected by smart
architecture presented in the next section. sensors in an easy-to-deploy and flexible-to-configure way. Smart sen-
sors are used to enhance traditional physical machinery’s abilities to
4. System architecture monitor and trace the life cycle impact of a product. Typical smart
sensors related to LCA include smart electricity meters, smart water
In this section, an overall description of the system architecture is meters, RFID readers, intelligent heat meters, intelligent gas meters,
provided in Section 4.1 to explain how the Blockchain-based LCA fra- and fiber optical sensors (Tao et al., 2014a). A variety of smart sensors
mework is converted into a Blockchain-based LCA system, what other can be deployed at the multiple phases of a product’s entire lifecycle.
technologies are used and why they are adopted. Then, the system is For example, in the production phase, once machine operators receive
described in detail about its multiple layers in Sections 4.2 and 4.3. components to be processed, they tap their staff cards on a reader de-
Finally, the cost of the system is estimated in Section 4.4. ployed on the machines to activate the process. The machines start
processing the components and smart electricity meters record elec-
4.1. Overall description tricity consumption. Data are transmitted to the software layer auto-
matically. At the software layer, a gateway operating (GOS) system is a
According to the Blockchain-based LCA framework presented in middleware system, which serves as a bridge that connects physical
Section 3, the researchers propose a system architecture of Blockchain- machinery with upper layers. GOS mainly controls data transmissions
based LCA system in Fig. 2. The system has four layers: infrastructure and transmission mechanisms which control what types of data can be
layer, Blockchain services layer, applications layer, and users layer. The transmitted in the appropriate time periods. Therefore, the environ-
infrastructure layer serves as the foundation of the proposed system mental impacts of a product can be monitored and evaluated at all life
architecture to collect, transmit, and record data. The Blockchain ser- cycle stages from sourcing, production, distribution, usage to reuse/
vices layer serves as a bridge connecting the infrastructure layer and the regeneration (Chau et al., 2015). Note that materials reuse/regenera-
applications layer through cleansing, processing and analyzing data. tion is part of the circular supply chain management, which was defined
The applications layer is responsible for visualizing data and assisting in by Farooque et al. (2019b). Therefore, this system architecture goes
decision making. The users utilize the system through the users' layer. beyond the “cradle-to-grave” approach embedded in the traditional
Specifically, these four layers provide functions corresponding to the LCA framework, to support a “cradle-to-cradle” approach that is re-
needs at the four LCA stages. The first stage, goal and scope definition, quired for a transition to a circular economy.
is initiated by users with various aims and objectives in the users' layer. The Blockchain services layer is responsible for recording and pro-
In order to fulfill the goal, all related data have to be collected accu- cessing the LCA-related data. There are two types of data: input re-
rately and transmitted and recorded reliably for the inventory analysis source consumption data and output waste emission data. From sour-
stage, which is the role of the infrastructure layer. Given the data stored cing to reuse/regeneration phase, these data will be recorded in blocks
in Blockchain network, big data analytics are required to process data that are used to create diverse Blockchains such as energy Blockchains
so as to provide accurate impact assessments, which are enabled by the and gas emission Blockchains. For example, when lathe operators
Blockchain services layer. Finally, results of impact assessments can be process components, electricity consumption, and solid waste data are
accessed by users through some standardized applications. generated and captured by smart sensors, and the data are transmitted
The system architecture is mainly enabled by two other technolo- to Blockchain network through GOS. Such data form electricity con-
gies besides the Blockchain technology: IoT technologies and big data sumption and solid waste blocks are connected with their Blockchains

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A. Zhang, et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 152 (2020) 104512

Fig. 2. Blockchain-based Life Cycle Assessment System.

respectively. Based on these Blockchains, the Blockchain-based LCA management, ecosystem quality management, waste management, and
system offers users four key services to achieve the integration of data reuse/recycling management. The other two applications, product in-
and to provide value-added activities, which help users to analyze the formation management, and uncertainty treatment management serve
environmental impacts of a product. These services are data processing some generic purposes.
service, data analytics service, traceability and visibility service, and The goal of energy-saving management application is to reduce the
Blockchain service management. Data processing service is responsible amount of energy consumed in the product life cycle. Energy-saving has
for cleansing, classifying, sorting, and calculating data. For example, attracted much attention owing to severe environmental issues (Tao
carbon footprints are calculated in this service when all the input re- et al., 2014a). With the application of Blockchain and IoT technologies,
source consumption data is available. Data analytics service is used to data on energy consumption of a product’s entire life cycle can be
produce meaningful information from processed data, which plays an collected and traced. Thus, the energy consumption level can be eval-
important role in making decisions. Various technologies including uated and analyzed, and then energy conversion and recycling can be
machine learning, statistical methods, and data mining, are applied to calculated overall life cycle stages (Zuo et al., 2018). Based on the
simulate human minds in order to discover meaningful patterns (Li evaluation and analysis, product designers can modify design schemes
et al., 2018b). Traceability and visibility service provides users with and select suitable materials and components to achieve low energy
data visualization tools. The processed and analyzed data can be en- consumption. Engineers can improve the production process and
coded and presented by statistical graphics and information graphics, choose better scheduling to save energy. Consumers can be informed to
which help users understand the environmental impacts of a product use the product properly to reduce unnecessary energy consumption.
life cycle intuitively. Some statistical reports are also generated from For example, family setup time is a significant factor for production
this service. Blockchain service management is responsible for mana- scheduling in many factories. It might consume more than 20% of
ging the Blockchains and upgrading services in the Blockchain service available machine capacity if not handled well, which leads to more
layer. energy consumption (Luo et al., 2012, 2015). Thus, this application
informs product designers and engineers on energy savings based on
product families.
4.3. Applications and users Ecosystem quality management application aims to protect the
ecosystem and biodiversity. Ecosystem quality is one of the most critical
The applications layer provides six key applications. The first four research fields in LCA (Hutchins and Sutherland, 2008). It is difficult to
applications deal with specific environmental aspects: energy-saving

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A. Zhang, et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 152 (2020) 104512

evaluate ecosystem quality and find an effective solution to improve uncertainties by a variety of methods including Analytic Hierarchy
ecosystem quality, as ecosystem are heterogeneous, enormous, and Process and Fuzzy Comprehension Evaluation Method.
extremely complex to monitor (Goedkoop and Spriensma, 2001). With The users' layer primarily serves governments, NGOs, consumers,
the adoption of Blockchain technology, all the data on input substances and enterprises. Using Blockchain technology, governments can easily
and output emissions can be readily shared and integrated to evaluate monitor the environmental performance of enterprises and industries,
the environmental performance of a product life cycle. For instance, which inform governments to make better environmental protection
global climate change poses detrimental effects on ecosystem quality policies and to optimize the structure of industries. NGOs act as third-
and human health. Activities such as fossil fuel combustion, cement party users to surveil all the product life cycle stages of the concerned
manufacture, coal mining, and biomass burning produce CO2 emission enterprises. They also play an important role in organizing trading
and CH4 emission, which results in global climate change (Krishna markets, for example, carbon emission trading based on smart contract
et al., 2017). Governments can trace and track major emission sources of Blockchain technology. Consumers can make purchasing decisions by
from Blockchain-based LCA system quite rapidly, enabling more taking into consideration the environmental impacts of the products
proactive measures being implemented to fight climate change. and be informed to use products in an environmentally friendly
Waste management application is responsible for managing waste manner. Enterprises can choose qualified cooperative partners and
(i.e., gas emission, liquid discharge, and solid waste) from its generation evaluate whether the environmental impacts of their supply chains and
to the final disposal. It generally includes collection, transportation, manufacturing processes follow global/national standards.
treatment, and disposal of waste. Based on waste emission Blockchains,
reliable data sources are utilized to establish a complete picture of the 4.4. Cost of the system
environmental impacts of waste emissions with a product life cycle
perspective (Erses Yay, 2015). The analyzed results will help in decision The capital cost of Blockchain-based LCA system includes hardware
making and strategic planning for managing a wide range of waste cost and software cost. In this paper, the researchers estimate the ca-
types (Khoo, 2019). In addition, product life cycle transparency pro- pital cost of such a system based on its implementation in a Chinese
vides enterprises valuable knowledge to reconsider product use and to manufacturer which has four manufacturing shopfloors equipped with
redesign products that will generate less or no waste at the end of life of 1000 machines and two warehouses with 10 forklifts.
products (Zhang et al., 2019). The machines are electrically powered, so smart electricity meters
Reuse/recycling management application plays an important role in are installed to monitor the consumption of electricity at each machine.
waste reduction. Reuse is to use material and components of products The cost of smart electricity meters is ¥150,000 based on an average
again without any reprocessing. Recycling is to convert waste emissions smart electricity meter price of ¥150/unit. Each machine is equipped
into new materials and components. This application not only controls with one RFID reader. The cost of RFID readers is ¥3500,000 based on
the wastage of potentially useful substances but also reduces the con- an average price of ¥3500/unit. Besides, stationary RFID readers are
sumption of virgin raw materials, leading to a better environment and required to deploy at the gates of shopfloors and warehouses at a cost of
human health. For instance, reusing electronic waste is an important ¥48,000, assuming there are 12 gates and each of them costs ¥4000/
application in reuse management. Electronic waste is one of the most unit. There are about 10,000 batches operating daily on the shopfloors.
rapidly growing waste streams in the world (Kumar et al., 2017). 10,000 tags are attached to the batches and cost ¥10,000 totally, as-
Components of electronic equipment, including CPUs and hard discs, suming they are priced at ¥1 each. Moreover, each forklift is equipped
contain potentially hazardous substances like lead and beryllium, with a vehicle-mounted computer at a cost of ¥5000, so the cost of
which poses a major threat to public health and ecosystem (Ikhlayel, vehicle-mounted computers is ¥50,000. The cost of local servers and
2018). However, based on Blockchain data produced in the usage storage is ¥500,000. Assuming the manufacturer has already deployed
phase, such as running status and lifetime of each component, en- 1000 RFID readers and 10,000 tags to collect manufacturing and lo-
terprises can easily identify which component can be reused or need to gistics data and servers and storage are also in place, the extra cost of
be discarded. It makes it possible to customize the disposal schemes ¥300,000 is required to upgrade the storage capacity. Overall, the total
when consumers want to dispose of their electronic devices. Further- cost of hardware used to upgrade the system is ¥548,000. Based on the
more, in reuse/recycling management, Blockchains can store material assumption that the lifetime of the above hardware is five years, the
and energy consumption data associated with plastic waste in terms of amortized annual cost is ¥109,600.
input resources and output waste emissions (Khoo, 2019). Software cost is used to develop and maintain the Blockchain-based
Product information management is an enabling application for LCA system. The cost estimate assumes that the manufacturer is fully
other applications. In order to realize the functionalities of the first four responsible for the development and maintenance of the Blockchain-
applications, all data related to a product’s lifecycle has to be captured based LCA system. Software engineers are employed to complete all the
and managed properly (Sudarsan et al., 2005). Therefore, this appli- jobs of developing the system. According to a recent survey, the average
cation manages product-related data and information by information salary of software engineers in China is ¥8381/month. If seven software
modeling architectures, including the Core Product Model (Fenves, engineers are employed to develop and maintain the system, the salary
2001), the Open Assembly Model (Rachuri et al., 2003), the Design- of software engineers is ¥704,004/year. Apart from salary, the manu-
Analysis Integration Model (Fenves et al., 2003) and the Product Family facturer incurs other employee-related expenditures including in-
Evolution Model (Wang et al., 2003). The integration of these models surance expenses and housing provident fund in China. Generally
ensures the cohesion and traceability of product data. speaking, these expenditures are about 40% of the salary cost, which
Uncertainty treatment management is a decision support applica- leads to another ¥281,602/year. Overall, the cost of software is
tion which helps users handle and treat uncertainties when applying ¥985,606/year. In summary, the capital cost of the system is
LCA. The reliability and credibility of LCA results may be questionable ¥1,095,206/year, the majority of which is spent on software develop-
without treating the uncertainties carefully. Thus, uncertainty treat- ment and maintenance (Table 1).
ment management plays a significant role in LCA. The treatment of
uncertainties is summarized in the following steps: 1) uncertainty 5. Discussion
identification and characterization; 2) uncertainty analysis; 3) sensi-
tivity analysis; and 4) communication (Igos et al., 2019). In this process, 5.1. Potential technical issues and solutions
a large number of calculations are needed and they may need the as-
sistance of various LCA software including SimaPro, GaBi and Some potential technical issues may hinder the adoption of
Brightway2. Moreover, judgment methods may be employed to analyze Blockchain-based LCA system, as many stakeholders are involved in a

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A. Zhang, et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 152 (2020) 104512

Table 1
The capital cost of Blockchain-based LCA system.
Hardware

Item Quantity Unit Cost Total Cost

Smart electricity meters 1000 ¥150 ¥150,000

RFID readers for machines (equipped) 1000 ¥3500 ¥3500,000
Stationary RFID readers for the gates of shopfloors and warehouses 12 ¥4000 ¥48,000
Tags (equipped) 10,000 ¥1 ¥10,000
Vehicle-mounted computers for forklifts 10 ¥5000 ¥50,000
Storage capacity ¥300,000 ¥300,000
Total cost of hardware ¥548,000
Total cost of hardware per year (amortized over 5 years) ¥109,600
Software
Item Number of employees Monthly Cost Annual Cost
The salary of software engineers 7 ¥8381 ¥704,004
Other expenditures for software engineers, such as insurance expenses and housing provident fund, etc. 7 ¥3352 ¥281,602
Total cost of software ¥985,606
Total capital cost of the system per year ¥1,095,206

product’s life cycle. The researchers recommend some possible solu- 5.2. Managerial and policy implications
tions to potential technical issues.
The first issue is data manipulation challenges. One of the key Based on the implementation framework and the system archi-
characteristics in Blockchain technology is data immutability and un- tecture presented above, the researchers advance several general pro-
forgeability, which means the records cannot be modified or changed positions. The first proposition is that integrating IoT in Blockchain-
without consensus (Kouhizadeh and Sarkis, 2018). However, before based LCA can drastically improve the efficiency of conducting LCA as
records are uploaded and converted into blocks, enterprises may IoT can collect data automatically in real-time. The second proposition
modify and edit data in their own database on purpose and then upload is that integrating big data analytics and visualization can substantially
to Blockchains, or upload erroneous records by accident, which leads to enhance the effectiveness of LCA by increasing the capabilities in data
the unreliability of data. One approach to solve this issue is to design analysis and interpretation. The third proposition is that Blockchain-
the system to upload data collected by sensors to the Blockchain net- based LCA can aid a variety of stakeholders to monitor and manage
work directly, and enterprises can only retrieve data from the Block- environmental sustainability performance efficiently and effectively,
chain network. This can prevent an enterprise from modifying or faking providing trustworthy data and results. The fourth proposition is that
data. The other approach is to involve third-party inspection agencies, there are challenges associated with implementing Blockchain-based
government agencies, and NGOs in regular data audits to ensure data LCA in the areas of cost, technical, and incentive issues.
integrity. The researchers derive several managerial and policy implications
The second issue is that the storage problem will become a chal- from these general propositions. First, there is a huge benefit in moving
lenge when adopting Blockchain technology. With the wide usage of to Blockchain-based LCA. This presents a great business opportunity for
IoT devices, LCA is facing big data. For example, each A380 engine technology providers. A rush to get into the Blockchain market has been
generates 10 TB data every 30 min on a flight journey. More than 12 TB observed in the behaviors of large technology firms as well as those of
Twitter data are produced daily (Zhong et al., 2015). A large amount of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups. Large tech-
LCA data from IoT devices is to be converted into a large number of nology firms are likely to have an edge in the competition if they have
blocks for creating Blockchains. Increasing size and number of blocks capabilities in smart enabling technologies. This is because the full
leads to a storage dilemma when all LCA data are collected and re- potential of the Blockchain technology cannot be unlocked without
corded, which is called a bloat problem (Swan, 2015). Hence, the sto- integrating smart enabling technologies such as IoT, big data analytics,
rage scalability problem will confront the stakeholders when they adopt cloud computing and data visualization (Aryal et al., 2018; Saberi et al.,
the Blockchain-based LCA system (Panarello et al., 2018). Various 2019). Blockchain start-ups and SMEs need to develop capabilities in
techniques are required to tackle the scalability problem, such as ad- smart enabling technologies in order to provide the best solutions to
vanced storage management as well as cloud computing (Saberi et al., their potential customers.
2019). Second, Blockchain-based LCA can aid businesses to improve the
The third issue is data transmission challenges after data are col- monitoring and management of environmental sustainability perfor-
lected automatically by smart sensors. There are generally two ap- mance of their supply chain activities. So far, Blockchain applications in
proaches to transmit the data over the Blockchain network (i.e. real- the supply chain have been mainly motived by improving trust, trace-
time data transmission and periodical data transmission). Real-time ability, and transparency. For example, Walmart has had successful
data transmission ensures that data are shared real-time and users can proof-of-concept projects in using Blockchain technology to track pork
use the data to make a real-time decision, but it might incur network in China and mangos in the United States (Hyperledger, 2018). Given
congestion and finally lead to degradation of data transmission per- the rising importance of environmental sustainability, businesses
formance. Fortunately, the 5th generation cellular network technology should seriously consider implementing Blockchain technology for
(5 G) can improve the efficiency of real-time transmission. However, monitoring environmental impacts. Blockchain-enabled LCA would
5 G is still being rolled out and its full-scale implementation will take allow businesses to transparently track important environmental data
time. Therefore, periodical data transmission should be considered in and show whether commitments were met. Moreover, it makes back-
many circumstances. Another consideration is that real-time data tracking on environmental promises or misreporting their progress
transmission is not always necessary, because not all data are utilized to virtually impossible (futurethinkers.org, 2017). Therefore, the Block-
make real-time decisions. Periodical data transmission allows data to be chain-based LCA system proposed in this paper is of practical value.
transmitted when the network is idle or less busy, but the time interval Third, there are risk and cost associated with implementing
between data transmission must be set according to user requirements Blockchain technology. However, the resulting challenges can be
and data types. overcome by many businesses. Although the requirement of expertise

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A. Zhang, et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 152 (2020) 104512

could be high, the cost of developing a Blockchain-based system is not Overall, this research is a pioneering work in the use of Blockchain
prohibitive. Businesses, especially large ones which have more re- technology for advancing the cause of environmental sustainability. It
sources, should consider making investments in the new technology to narrows an important knowledge gap in the literature on Blockchain
continuously improve their sustainability performance and to enhance adoption for supply chain sustainability. It is also of practical sig-
their reputation. Recent empirical studies (Eccles et al., 2014; Flammer, nificance to guide businesses and governments to take actions to im-
2013) found that shareholders reward businesses doing better in sus- prove the environmental performance of their supply chain activities.
tainability and penalize those that neglect their social responsibility. This paper has its limitations. The nature of the research work is
Large businesses also have more power, so they are in a better position conceptual. Further works are required to further explore this inter-
to push their supply chain partners and to incentivize them to colla- esting research domain. Potential application areas include product
borate in implementing Blockchain technology. design, development, and improvement, strategic planning, environ-
Fourth, Blockchain-based LCA helps firms in achieving operational mental accounting, public policymaking, marketing, logistics and
excellence and improves their competitiveness. It not only reduces the supply chain design, sustainable supply chain management. Future re-
cost of performing LCA operations but also at the same time sig- search may develop a proof-of-concept Blockchain-based LCA system
nificantly improves speed and accuracy. Blockchain-enabled data tra- and then have a trial to prove its applicability before a full-scale system
ceability and transparency help firms build superior customer trust and development and implementation. Future research may also investigate
loyalty, which can result in increased sales and better market perfor- the barriers of implementing such a Blockchain-based LCA system and
mance. devise effective circumventing strategies. Moreover, there are ample
Last but not least, governments should consider endorsing or even research opportunities within the scope of Blockchain and other en-
pushing for the use of Blockchain technology for monitoring environ- abling technologies applications in achieving the vision of a circular
mental impacts. The Blockchain technology did not gain a positive economy.
public perception in the beginning due to its origin (i.e., crypto-
currencies). Development of Blockchain-based technological solutions Acknowledgments
was further hindered by adverse policies about Bitcoin issued by several
governments (Mougayar, 2016). However, more recent developments The authors wish to thank three anonymous reviewers and the guest
have proved its potential in many areas, for example, supply chain editors for their constructive feedback for improving the manuscript.
sustainability (Saberi et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019). Also, Blockchain The authors also appreciate the support from three practitioners who
Technology and smart devices are well recognized for their ability to validated and provided feedback on the implementation framework and
improve regulatory compliance management (Khaqqi et al., 2018). the system architecture.
Given the technical feasibility of Blockchain-based LCA, governments
can now formulate policies to encourage or require businesses to use References
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