Member Research Highlight is a column that shares the recent publications of our members. Rather than focusing solely on the papers, it explores the journey of discovery—how ideas develop, the challenges authors encounter, and how they overcome the challenges. Through these behind-the-scenes stories, we aim to inspire our community, spark meaningful discussions, and encourage potential collaborations among members.
Anticipatory life cycle assessment of an industry-scale CdTe photovoltaic recycling process in the United States
👤 Author: Aman Raj, Dwarakanath Ravikumar, Meryl Winicov
🔗 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.146525
📊 Highlights:
Our results highlight that module design is a major driver of the net environmental benefits from Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) PV recycling. This means that decisions made early in the product design phase have lasting implications not only for panel performance, but for end-of-life environmental outcomes.
🔍 Insights & Behind the Scenes:
What started as a straightforward LCA quickly revealed a foundational gap: no US-specific LCA existed for CdTe PV recycling. Most prior studies relied on European datasets and data from around 2010, making them poorly suited to current US conditions and modern recycling technologies.
We also found that module design differences and key process stages like transportation and deframing were largely ignored in earlier work, despite meaningfully affecting environmental outcomes — so we built a more comprehensive model from the ground up.
Perhaps the biggest lesson was the importance of embracing uncertainty. Since industrial-scale CdTe recycling is still emerging, we moved away from single-point estimates and adopted an anticipatory LCA approach to produce more honest, robust results. What began as a routine study ultimately became an effort to localize, modernize, and rethink how emerging recycling technologies should be assessed.
Methodological challenges in wood carbon Accounting: A maritime flooring case study
👤 Author: Federico Bedogni, Eleonora Rossi, Francesco Arfelli, Daniele Cespi, Fabrizio Passarini
🔗 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.146525
📊 Highlights:
Quantifying the impact of wooden objects is much more delicate than for many other materials, as biogenic carbon must be taken into account. How it is considered has a huge impact on climate change calculations. We calculated the extent of this ‘huge impact’ in this study, applying different approaches (0/0 and -1/+1) and different standards (ISO 14067:2018 and IPCC) to the case study of wooden boat flooring.
🔎 Insights & Behind the Scenes:
My colleague Federico Bedogni and I began this study as a simple case study in collaboration with a company, but when we encountered a methodological challenge that had such a significant impact on the results, we decided to focus on it. The more the research progressed, the more the complexity of the topic emerged, and we are certainly not the only ones who want to shed light on such an important aspect of LCA methodology. We therefore decided to compile all our considerations and results in this article, in order to help other LCA experts, and others, to understand the complex world of quantifying biogenic carbon impacts.