Jacquetta Lee

University of Surrey, Centre for Environmental Strategy, Faculty Member

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Papers by Jacquetta Lee

Innovation management in the UK civil nuclear sector

Recycling & Waste Management 5 th International Conference on Identifying and maximizing the opportunities to recover value from electronic waste

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The Hibernating Mobile Phone DATA

This data set forms the basis of the paper 'The Hibernating Mobile Phone: Dead Storage as a B... more This data set forms the basis of the paper 'The Hibernating Mobile Phone: Dead Storage as a Barrier to Efficient Electronic Waste Recovery'. These results are from an online, self-completion questionnaire with mobile phone owners; distributed to a non-probability, purposive sample (i.e. aged between 18-25 years old, living and studying at a UK University, and owning a mobile phones. The survey was conducted during July 2015. For a full description of the data collection techniques and our analysis of the data, please refer to the above paper.

Developing an economic led approach to zero carbon housing design through integration and substitution of traditional building materials

Zero carbon homes have met with mixed reactions from key stakeholders within the housing and ener... more Zero carbon homes have met with mixed reactions from key stakeholders within the housing and energy sectors, with many bespoke zero carbon designs being rejected as commercially unviable. This paper draws on research conducted with The University of Surrey and Zedfactory Architects to outline key factors which should be considered in order to facilitate the adoption of a more commercialised approach to zero carbon design. Key design criteria for zero carbon homes are outlined before presenting a housing model designed to provide the best balance between the financial, technical and social elements involved. The paper then demonstrates the importance of reducing the additional costs associated with zero carbon design through integrating energy efficiency and generation technologies into the building fabric; by substituting the use of traditional building materials with energy generating ones it is possible to create both an energy and economically efficient housing model. The propose...

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The Challenges of Applying Planetary Boundaries as a Basis for Strategic Decision-Making in Companies with Global Supply Chains

Sustainability, 2017

The Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework represents a significant advance in specifying the ecolog... more The Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework represents a significant advance in specifying the ecological constraints on human development. However, to enable decision-makers in business and public policy to respect these constraints in strategic planning, the PB framework needs to be developed to generate practical tools. With this objective in mind, we analyse the recent literature and highlight three major scientific and technical challenges in operationalizing the PB approach in decision-making: first, identification of thresholds or boundaries with associated metrics for different geographical scales; second, the need to frame approaches to allocate fair shares in the 'safe operating space' bounded by the PBs across the value chain and; third, the need for international bodies to coordinate the implementation of the measures needed to respect the Planetary Boundaries. For the first two of these challenges, we consider how they might be addressed for four PBs: climate change, freshwater use, biosphere integrity and chemical pollution and other novel entities. Four key opportunities are identified: (1) development of a common system of metrics that can be applied consistently at and across different scales; (2) setting 'distance from boundary' measures that can be applied at different scales; (3) development of global, preferably open-source, databases and models; and (4) advancing understanding of the interactions between the different PBs. Addressing the scientific and technical challenges in operationalizing the planetary boundaries needs be complemented with progress in addressing the equity and ethical issues in allocating the safe operating space between companies and sectors.

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Greener manufacturing, maintenance and disposal – towards the Acare targets

The Aeronautical Journal, 2006

This paper looks at how the aerospace industry can achieve the Acare goal of greener manufacturin... more This paper looks at how the aerospace industry can achieve the Acare goal of greener manufacturing, maintenance and disposal. It looks further than merely reducing waste and eliminating hazardous materials and processes and suggests that the organisational structure of the industry will play an important role in facilitating a move towards such a goal. Greater co-operation or integration within the industry at all stages of the product life cycle chain is a fundamental requirement as individual companies run a risk of increasing the total environmental burdens if they concentrate solely on reducing their own impacts without considering the effect a change they make may have on other companies. The use of comprehensive environmental supply chain management systems and end of life plans can smooth the implementation of extended product responsibility and accelerate the benefits of greener manufacturing, maintenance and disposal.

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Closing the Loop on E‐waste: A Multidisciplinary Perspective

Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2017

This paper describes the challenges faced, and opportunities identified, by a multidisciplinary t... more This paper describes the challenges faced, and opportunities identified, by a multidisciplinary team of researchers developing a novel closed loop system to recover valuable metals and reduce e-waste, focusing on mobile phones as a case study. This multidisciplinary approach is contrasted with current top-down approaches to making the transition to the circular economy (CE). The aim of the research presented here is to develop a product service system (PSS) that facilitates the recovery of valuable functional components and metals from mobile phone circuit boards. To create a holistic solution and limit unintended consequences, in addition to technological solutions, this paper considers appropriate component lifetimes; the (often ignored) role of the citizen in the circular economy; customer interaction with the PSS; environmental life cycle assessment; and social impacts of the proposed PSS. Development of enabling technologies and materials to facilitate recovery of components and metals and to provide an emotionally durable external enclosure is described. This research also highlights the importance of understanding value in the CE from a multifaceted and interdisciplinary perspective.

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The hibernating mobile phone: Dead storage as a barrier to efficient electronic waste recovery

Waste management (New York, N.Y.), 2017

Hibernation, the dead storage period when a mobile phone is still retained by the user at its end... more Hibernation, the dead storage period when a mobile phone is still retained by the user at its end-of-life, is both a common and a significant barrier to the effective flow of time-sensitive stock value within a circular economic model. In this paper we present the findings of a survey of 181 mobile phone owners, aged between 18-25years old, living and studying in the UK, which explored mobile phone ownership, reasons for hibernation, and replacement motives. This paper also outlines and implements a novel mechanism for quantifying the mean hibernation period based on the survey findings. The results show that only 33.70% of previously owned mobile phones were returned back into the system. The average duration of ownership of mobile phones kept and still in hibernation was 4years 11months, with average use and hibernation durations of 1year 11months, and 3years respectively; on average, mobile phones that are kept by the user are hibernated for longer than they are ever actually use...

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Integrating Environmental and Social Life Cycle Assessment: Asking the Right Question

Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2017

Mobile phones offer many potential social benefits throughout their lifetime, but this life is of... more Mobile phones offer many potential social benefits throughout their lifetime, but this life is often much shorter than design intent. Reuse of the phone in a developing country allows these social benefits to be fully realized. Unfortunately, under the current state of development of recycling infrastructure, recovery rates of phones after reuse are very low in those markets, which may lead to an environmental burden attributed to loss of materials to landfill. In order to recover those materials most effectively, recycling in developed countries may be the best option, but at a cost of the ability to reuse the phones. The issues facing integration of social and environmental concerns into a single life cycle assessment (LCA) and resulting challenges of identifying the disposal option with the most sustainable outcome are explored using mobile phones as a case study. These include obtaining sufficient geographical and temporal detail of the end-of-life options, collation and analysis of the large amounts of data generated, and weighting of the disparate environmental and social impact categories. The numerous challenges may mount up to make performing LCA of mobile phones unwieldy. Instead of trying to encompass every aspect in full, it is proposed that focus is given to answering a question that takes into account the resources available: It is important to ask the question that has the best chance of being answered.

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What Is ‘Value’ and How Can We Capture It from the Product Value Chain?

Sustainability Through Innovation in Product Life Cycle Design, 2016

The mobile phone industry is based upon the rapid development of handsets and the high turnover o... more The mobile phone industry is based upon the rapid development of handsets and the high turnover of devices in order to drive sales. Phones are often used for shorter periods of time than their designed life and when discarded it is often through channels that result in lost resource. This unsustainable business model places strain on resources and creates adverse environmental and social impacts. Through interrogation of a stocks and flows model, a product-service system (PSS) for a small consumer electronic device, a mobile telephone is proposed. The points at which value may be extracted from the PSS are identified. A quantitative measure of value is proposed in order to allow the evaluation of the most appropriate time to extract it. This value is not solely monetary, but is derived from the combination of indicators which encompass environmental, economic and technological factors. A worked example is presented, in which it is found that the precious metals within the phone are the main determinants for value extraction. These metals are found in the printed circuit board, leading to a requirement to design phones for ease of extraction of these components in order to access the value within.

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Appropriate lifetimes, fitting deaths

Green Chem., 2016

Editorial on the principle that “Chemical products should be designed so that at the end of their... more

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A framework for environmental risk management

The Aeronautical Journal, 2012

Aero engine designs can have a life time of over 45 years, which is long enough for the understan... more Aero engine designs can have a life time of over 45 years, which is long enough for the understanding of environmental problems to change significantly. This places the aero engine designer in a position of uncertainty, as unforeseen environmental problems could affect the viability of a design. ‘Risk’ is used to describe future uncertainties that can lead to undesirable consequences. This paper presents a framework for environmental risk management that allows the designer to answer the question: what is the risk to a design from its environmental impacts over the life cycle? The framework provides a process for turning complex environmental business hazards into a form that can be used to develop mitigating actions within the design process. The paper demonstrates the framework through two examples and discusses findings, leading to conclusions on what is required to implement the framework into a business.

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Incorporating environmental business risks into design: A test case

Stafford Lloyd1,2, Andrew Clifton1, Lucia Elghali2 and Jacquetta ... 1Life Cycle Engineering, Rol... more

Towards Standardising Methods for Reporting the Embodied Energy Content of Aerospace Products

SAE International Journal of Aerospace, 2017

SY STÉMATIQUE VÉGÉTALE.-Variabilité allélique du système Alcool Deshydrogénase (ADH) chez le Mil ... more

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Resource optimization and sustainable manufacturing in the development of a self‐chilling beverage can

Every year in Europe more than 30Mt of CO2e are emitted from retail refrigerators (Cowan et al., ... more Every year in Europe more than 30Mt of CO2e are emitted from retail refrigerators (Cowan et al., 2010). This is due to the leakages of HFC and HCFC that have adverse impacts on climate change not only because they are powerful greenhouse gases, but also because leaking systems are less energy efficient (Bovea et al., 2007; Cowan et al., 2010). Both the energy consumption worldwide and the high emissions of greenhouse gases have directed interest to alternative solutions to conventional refrigeration systems. To this end, a new technology has been designed to supply cooled products on demand using the cooling effect provided by the endothermic desorption of carbon dioxide previously adsorbed onto a bed of activated carbon. The principles of life cycle engineering have been utilized to evaluate the overall environmental performance of one possible application of this technology: a self-chilling beverage container with a steel outer can to contain the beverage and an inner aluminium ca...

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Environmental Hotspot Assessment for a PV Mini-Grid Design: A Case Study for Malawi

Energies, 2021

The United Nations Sustainable Goal 7, access to affordable and clean energy, is unlikely to be a... more The United Nations Sustainable Goal 7, access to affordable and clean energy, is unlikely to be achieved, with an estimated 600 million people still without access to electricity by 2030. One potential route to support this goal is through the use of mini-grids to provide electricity in densely populated rural areas for which grid connection is not possible. This paper presents the results of a life cycle assessment of a mini-grid, designed for construction in Malawi. It analyses the cradle to end of use for this mini-grid configuration, for a grid sized for lighting, refrigeration and phone charging, and for a grid sized for electric cooking (e-cooking). The results suggest that for lighting configuration, the main contributors to environmental impact are the poles, the overhead cabling, and the PV panels. The use of a chromium-based preservative is the main issue for the poles, and a switch to concrete poles can deliver significant benefits. When the grid is sized for e-cooking, t...

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How to Create a Business-Relevant LCA

Technologies and Eco-innovation towards Sustainability I

Facing issues related to innovative production and public requirement in sustainability, companie... more Facing issues related to innovative production and public requirement in sustainability, companies expect to develop an effective tool to integrate environmental aspects into their business strategies at product design stage. Although life cycle assessment is commonly used to evaluate the environmental impacts of products or services, it is time consuming and expensive and may produce irrelevant information for business decision making. Eco-design approach, as alternative, requires less efforts for data acquisition and evaluation and utilises a wide range of indicators that meet business demand. This study develops a matrix-based tool to capture environmental information related to business according to industry engagement. This life cycle-thinking-based approach focuses on more relevant environmental information and provides effectively data to support business strategy. In addition, this approach is practical and flexible to be used at the early design stage where data capture is generally difficult. Finally, it helps the managers to identify data gaps, so that it stimulates further investments in searching more targeted data.

www.mecs.org.uk Modelling the costs and benefits of moving to Modern Energy Cooking Services – methods & application to three case studies

Modelling the costs and benefits of moving to Modern Energy Cooking Services-methods & applicatio... more Modelling the costs and benefits of moving to Modern Energy Cooking Services-methods & application to three case studies Executive Summary Globally, 2.8 billion people still cook with biomass, resulting in interlinked health, environmental and social challenges. Indeed, in ESMAP (2020b), the number of people who do not have access to modern energy cooking (mecs) is calculated at 4 billion. Yet access to electricity has made significant gains over the last 10 years. The number of people without electricity has fallen 770 million in 2019 (IEA, no date). Many of those gains can be found in developing Asia, and are in part due to the increasing urbanisation of the world. At this headline level, we can see that of the 2.8 billion relying on biomass for cooking (or the 4 billion without access to mecs), 2 to 3 billion people have some form of access to electricity but still cook with polluting fuels. Alongside the Sustainable Development Goals, the world is increasingly aware of its need to mitigate Climate Change. The coming decade will see a significant push towards net zero carbon as countries set targets for 2030, 2040 and 2050. Part of this will be pivoting existing electrical infrastructure from fossil fuels to renewables, building on the cost effectiveness of large scale renewable energy and the opportunities for decentralisation of power generation. As grids become cleaner, the opportunity to utilise the infrastructure to provide 'sustainable' modern energy for cooking will be increased further particularly in Asia. Many of those without access to electricity are found in Sub Saharan Africa. Current scenarios envisage more than 50% of the energy access gains being made through stand-alone systems and mini-grids, rather than grid connection. Electric cooking is one of the key options for a transition to modern energy cooking services, and SDG7 aims for universal access to electricity by 2030. The promotion and scaling of electric cooking faces a number of barriers, including perceptions that it is generally too expensive, and that it is not feasible with anything other than a strong grid connection. These perceptions are outdated, and recent research and ongoing trials have demonstrated that electric cooking is attractive to many users and that it can be cost-competitive for households in all types of electricity access context (ESMAP, 2020a). Modelling the costs and benefits of moving to Modern Energy Cooking Services-methods & application to three case studies level of eCooking. The analysis of voltage distribution also shows however that the installed distribution network is capable of supporting eCooking for all households, although it would then require upgrade of the PV and battery capacities. The mini-grid modelled for Tanzania has quite high tariffs, and hence cooking is relatively expensive. The eCook modelling however showed it could compete with LPG, and could be equivalent cost to charcoal in some circumstances. A 'clean fuel stack' of EPC plus LPG could offer an attractive package and a route into eCooking. However mini-grid tariffs are expected to fall, and based on the World Bank's projections it could become cost effective to transition to 100% eCooking. The environmental assessment shows that for charcoal users, any switch to electric cooking using a mini-grid will provide environmental improvement. The current reality is that mini-grids are designed without cooking in mind, and if some eCooking can be achieved using 'spare' capacity of the existing infrastructure, that will come with very low additional impacts. In conclusion, the sort of mini-grid supplying tier 1 and 2 energy access in Tanzania might well have capacity to support some limited eCooking, with low environmental impacts, and with manageable, and falling, costs. Kenya-Solar home Systems With no form of existing grid supply of electricity available, introducing eCooking for this sort of region requires installation of a complete power supply, with the case study assessing individual Solar Home Systems. The system size required follows the eCooking scenario: 100% eCooking (assumed to require a hotplate and an EPC) needs PV of around 600 W and a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery pack of just over 2 kWh installed; these fall to 200 W of PV and a 0.75 kWh battery for the 50% eCooking case, which uses just an EPC. Such systems incur considerable upfront cost. However the eCook modelling of the financial investment shows that third party financing through some form of bespoke PayGo or leasing business model would result in monthly costs to the user that are competitive with charcoal. Of particular interest is the finding that a 'clean fuel stack' of the smaller eCook system stacked with LPG for the balance of cooking would cost a similar amount to cooking everything with LPG alone. This approach would reduce local emissions through substitution of renewable electricity for some of the LPG, and bring convenience benefits for the user, through the automatic controls in an EPC, as well as reduction in trips for refilling LPG cylinders. However the installation of any of these eCook systems would also bring valuable co-benefits, providing access to electricity for non-cooking services alongside the transition to eCooking. When the impacts on human health, on ecosystems, and on resource use are aggregated, significant benefits are shown for SHS eCooking compared to use of charcoal and firewood. Surprisingly, the aggregate impacts compared to LPG and Kerosene are similar, although it must be noted the modelling does not include last mile transport impacts. The environmental analysis shows clearly that the supply chain impacts of power electronics can be significant, and this suggests that accurate system design and sizing is important. In summary, this case study has shown that standalone PV-battery systems, akin to large solar home systems, could bring access to modern energy for cooking, as well as non-cooking services, to off-grid households. Where households are paying for traditional biomass cooking fuels, eCooking systems can bring financial savings and reductions in health, ecosystem and resource impacts. Modelling the costs and benefits of moving to Modern Energy Cooking Services-methods & application to three case studies Contents Executive Summary Contents 2. Individual modelling and assessment methods 2.1 MECS household load modelling..

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Can Space Missions and the Rise in Commercial Low-Earth Orbit Activities inform Innovation and Change Management in the UK Nuclear Industry?

Due to the nature of its technology, nuclear power is subject to strict regulations and intense p... more Due to the nature of its technology, nuclear power is subject to strict regulations and intense pressures over operational safety. Additionally, nuclear new build projects are increasingly facing a unique set of challenges including high commercial risk, deployment uncertainty, and cost and schedule overruns. In the West, technological innovation activities over the past three decades have struggled to overcome these challenges. The nuclear industry is not alone; similar features characterised the space sector, but since 2008 it has been showing an increase in commercial activities. A comparative study with the U.S. space industry was conducted to analyse the innovation process that has evolved within the industry, since its long period of stagnation and constraint following the Challenger Accident in 1986. The study confirmed the need to drive institutional and organisational change within highly regulated industries to support technological innovation efforts within private-led in...

format_quoteAncillary technologies could significantly lower the levelised costs of electricity for new nuclear power plants, constituting 60% of total costs.format_quote

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Material Criticality Assessment for Business Purposes Using Fuzzy Linguistic Method

Jacquetta Lee

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