News & Events

Nov. 2022
NEW!
Our Staff Present on Climate Topics at the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment (ACLCA) 2022 Conference
Franklin Associates, A Division of ERG serves as an organizational member of ACLCA, and our staff presented on a range of climate related topics during the virtual conference (November 7–11, 2022) including the following.
  • Using Federal LCA Commons Resources to Submit Data to the USLCI.
  • Global and Regional Sewage Management: Possible Trajectories for Meeting Public Health Goals and Minimizing Environmental Impacts.
  • At the Intersection of LCA and Indirect GHG Emissions Accounting.
Aug. 2022
Life Cycle Inventories for Steam Cracking and Cement and Concrete
In support of Argonne National Laboratory, Franklin Associates, A Division of ERG generated life cycle inventory models for use in GREET for 1) steam cracking of natural gas liquids, and 2) cement and concrete. Documentation of these models was recently published in Journal of Cleaner Production:
Jul. 2022
Our Staff Co-Author Papers in Applied Sciences' Special Issue, "Advanced Data Engineering for Life Cycle Applications"
Franklin Associates, A Division of ERG staff have been working with EPA and other collaborators on a series of papers for this special issue of Applied Sciences. These publications describe some of our novel life cycle assessment (LCA) tool development work in Python and R. This ecosystem of LCA tools and models enables robust and transparent calculation of supply chain environmental impacts, such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The tools mine and harmonize existing government data sources for use in life cycle applications, such as carbon footprinting and consumption-based GHG emissions inventories.
Jun. 2022
USLCI Data Curation
Franklin Associates, A Division of ERG is now serving as the data curator for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's U.S. Life Cycle Inventory (USLCI) Database, which is a U.S. database that industry associations and other organizations can use to publish publicly available life cycle data. Such life cycle data can help life cycle assessment practitioners, researchers and the public understand the environmental impact of different supply chains. ERG provides quarterly updates and improvements to the database and works with organizations across the U.S. to release their data. The winter 2022 release included new datasets for plastic and steel product supply chains. If you have any data you would like to submit to the USLCI, please contact us at uslci@erg.com. The most recent release is available on the Federal LCA Commons in the NREL group repository: https://www.lcacommons.gov, and the update can also be downloaded from the USLCI GitHub Support Content page.
May 2022
EPA U.S. Environmentally Extended Input-Output (USEEIO) Model Version 2.0
Our staff have been supporting methodological and data updates for the EPA U.S. Environmentally Extended Input-Output (USEEIO) model to enable calculations of the direct and total environmental impacts of U.S. goods and services. Documentation for version 2.0 was just published in Scientific Data, and a version for use in LCA software was uploaded to the Federal LCA Commons.
Apr. 2022
Life Cycle Inventories of End-of-Life Pathways of Construction and Demolition Materials
Franklin Associates, A Division of ERG helped develop EPA's end-of-life management of construction and demolition materials life cycle inventory database, which we recently released for public use on the Federal LCA Commons. This is a public federal life cycle database for quantifying complete environmental flows associated with management of construction and demolition debris. ERG also co-authored the EPA report describing the database development.
Mar. 2021
Franklin Associates' Danny Hage and Ben Young led a presentation at a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Public Hearing on including out-of-state fuel cycle emissions in their GHG reporting. This is a novel and high-interest approach for GHG reporting. The presentation, prepared in coordination with New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, included a detailed sensitivity analysis on upstream out-of-state natural gas emissions.
Feb. 2021
Franklin Associates has launched a new water reuse application for EPA's Office of Research and Development: NEWR – Non-potable Environmental and Economic Water Reuse Calculator. The application is available here.
Feb. 2021
Franklin Associates supported EPA and the National Energy Technology Laboratory with development of a regionalized U.S. electricity life cycle tool. Read the article here.
Jan. 2021
The USLCI Database released its 4th quarter 2020 updates, which include updated LLDPE, HDPE, and PP flows developed by ERG for the America Chemistry Council (ACC).
Jan. 2021
Congratulations to Sam Arden and Ben Morelli who co-authored the following paper with EPA on non-potable water reuse. NEWR - Non-potable Environmental and Economic Water Reuse Calculator is already being used by cities across the U.S. in coordination with EPA! Read about it here.
Dec. 2020
Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in the United States - 2018 Facts and Figures. EPA releases the 2018 facts and figures for municipal solid waste generation, recycling, and disposal in the United States, which ERG supported.
Nov. 2020
ERG supported the development of an open-source tool that quantifies the baseline U.S. electrical grid life cycle impacts. The tool connects inventory data collected from EPA reporting programs with fossil supply chain and non-fossil inventory data. The automated tool can be customized for specific regional contexts and is constructed to be easily updatable over time. The datasets are now available on the Federal LCA Commons. The EPA, NETL, and NREL funded this project.
Sept. 2020
With the US EPA, ERG's Cashman and Hottle led a pre-conference workshop entitled "Using the Federal LCA Commons Elementary Flow List Toolkit" at the 2020 ACLCA Conference.
Jul. 2020
The USLCI Database released its summer updates, including an updated LDPE flow developed by ERG for the America Chemistry Council (ACC). The LDPE data and documentation can be found here.
Jul. 2020
ERG's Morelli and Cashman and the US EPA co-authored a two-part study on food waste in BioCycle. Part 1 can be read here and part 2 can be read here.
Jul. 2020
In partnership with Cascadia Consulting Group, Franklin Associates co-authored a report for the Washington State Department of Commerce on food waste.
Jun. 2020
Franklin Associates' Arden, Morelli, Schoen, and Cashman co-authored an article in Sustainability with The US EPA and Soller Environmental discussing the environmental impacts from non-potable water re-use in urban buildings.
Apr. 2020
ERG's Bev Sauer and Jorge Vendries (contractor) co-author Environmental Science & Technology journal article with Oregon Department of Environmental Quality – "The Significance of environmental attributes as indicators of the life cycle environmental impacts of packaging and food service ware".
Mar. 2020
ERG's Ben Morelli, Sarah Cashman, and Sam Arden co-author Water Science & Technology journal article with EPA Office of Research and Development and EPA Region 1 – "Environmental and cost benefits of co-digesting food waste at wastewater treatment facilities".
Jan. 2020
The Federal LCA Commons Elementary Flow List (FEDEFL) that Franklin Associates supports for EPA is now fully available. A Published EPA Report is available describing the FEDEFL, and the full code for compiling and contributing to the list is available on GitHub. Version 1.0.1 of the FEDEFL was released January 13, 2020.
Sept. 2019
Franklin Associates co-authored an EPA wastewater co-digestion report for a medium-scale MA facility expanding its food waste handling capacity that is recently published here.
Sept. 2019
Franklin Associates' Sarah Cashman, Mariya Absar and Danny Hage present at LCA XIX Sept 24-26 2019 in Tucson, AZ on topics covering low-energy industrial buildings, on-site non-potable water reuse, food waste management, and climate adaptation scenarios for the hydraulic fracturing industry.
Sept. 2019
Franklin Associates' Ben Morelli presents on life cycle and cost implications of mixed wastewater and graywater distributed treatment for non-potable reuse in San Francisco at the 92nd Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC 2019) Sept 21-25 in Chicago, IL.
Jun. 2019
Franklin Associates welcomes Shanika Amarakoon, Senior Environmental Engineer, to our team! (June 3, 2019)
May 2019
In collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory, Franklin Associates' Ben Young and Ben Morelli publish an article on criteria air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. refineries.
Mar. 2019
BioCycle recently published an article, "Environmental Impacts Of Packaging Options," by Oregon DEQ based on the Franklin Associates report, The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware from August, 2018.
Mar. 2019
On March 6th, Franklin Associates offered a free webinar on openLCA – the free open source software for Life Cycle Assessment. The webinar was designed for students and practitioners familiar with LCA but who are interested in learning the capabilities of the openLCA software. It covered basic features of the software such as installation, downloading and using datasets, creating new flows and processes, and generating results.
Feb. 2019
ERG was published in Environmental Science & Technology in collaboration with the National Energy Technology Lab and the University of Calgary. The article, "Expansion of the Petroleum Refinery Life Cycle Inventory Model to Support Characterization of a Full Suite of Commonly Tracked Impact Potentials" discusses the development of an expanded, open-source model for assessing air and water emissions from U.S. petroleum refineries, and is designed for life cycle assessment. The model is available at https://www.ucalgary.ca/energy-technology-assessment/open-source-models/prelim.
Aug. 2018
ES&T publishes a "Critical Review of Eutrophication Models for Life Cycle Assessment," a collaborative project between Franklin Associates and U.S. EPA. The article reviews current LCIA and fate and transport models to identify current best practice and opportunities for improvement of eutrophication LCIA. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.8b00967
Apr. 2018
ERG Co-authors new publication, "Energy and greenhouse gas life cycle assessment and cost analysis of aerobic and anaerobic membrane bioreactor systems: Influence of scale, population density, climate, and methane recovery," in Bioresource Technology.
Mar. 2018
ERG presented with EPA at a special session during AWWA's Sustainable Water Management Conference in Seattle March 27: Holistic Approaches Toward Sustainable Water Systems.
Jul. 2017
ERG co-authored a conference paper for the 11th IWA International Conference on Water Reclamation and Reuse. The paper "Holistic Evaluation of Decentralized Water Reuse: LCA and Cost Analysis of Membrane Bioreactor Systems in Water Reuse Implementation" is available here.
Aug. 2016
Modeling in openLCA: Professional Development Training in Life Cycle Assessment
Interested in learning to use openLCA or growing your skills? Franklin Associates is co-hosting a training course with GreenDelta on September 30, 2016 in Charleston, South Carolina.
Aug. 2016
Environmental Science & Technology recently published the paper, "Mining Available Data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency to Support Rapid Life Cycle Inventory Modeling of Chemical Manufacturing", authored by Sarah Cashman, as well as staff from U.S. EPA's National Risk Management Research Laboratory and a Postdoctoral Research Participant from Oak Ridge Institute of Science and Education (ORISE). This paper is available at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b02160.
May 2016
Franklin recently conducted a peer-reviewed LCA for IFCO, a leading provider of reusable plastic containers worldwide. The study compared the environmental impacts of reusable plastic containers and corrugated boxes for shipping North American produce from farms to retail locations. Business Wire highlighted the study’s results in a recent press release.
Nov. 2015
Journal of Industrial Ecology Publishes Franklin Associates' Peer-Reviewed Pine Chemicals Study.
In November 2015, the Journal of Industrial Ecology published a peer-reviewed study developed by ERG on pine chemicals, which are co-products created during the papermaking process. These chemicals are used in products such as inks and adhesives, as well as in energy applications. ERG determined the cradle-to-gate carbon and energy footprint for pine chemicals, compared pine chemicals to their likely substitutes, and calculated the carbon and energy effects of shifting resources from current chemical production to biodiesel production. The study found that diverting pine chemicals into biofuel production in Europe will not significantly reduce carbon emissions or fossil fuel consumption.
Oct. 2015
Franklin Associates was at the LCA XIV Conference this October 6th-8th in San Francisco!
Bev Sauer (Session chair) and Sarah Cashman (presenter) represented Franklin Associates at this annual conference sponsored by the ACLCA.
Aug. 2015
Introducing new staff members – Troy Hawkins and Ben Morelli.
  • Franklin Associates welcomes Ben Morelli to our LCA staff!
  • Franklin Associates welcomes Troy Hawkins to our LCA staff!
Oct. 2014
Franklin Associates was at the LCA XIV Conference, October 6th-8th in San Francisco!
Jun. 2014
Franklin Associates is at the Green Chemistry Conference this June 17th-19th in D.C.
Feb. 2014
Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in the United States - 2012 Facts and Figures
EPA releases the 2012 facts and figures for municipal solid waste generation, recycling, and disposal in the United States
Oct. 2013
Franklin Associates' presentation at the ACLCA's LCA XIII Conference: Comparative LCA of Reusable & Single-Use Fresh Produce Containers: Improved Algorithms for LCI Modeling of Reusable Packaging Systems (October 3rd)
Rebe Feraldi (presenter) & Beverly Sauer (attendee), Orlando, Florida
The LCA was commissioned by IFCO Systems, an international logistics service provider operating a large pool of containers used to transport fresh produce from producers to leading grocery retailers
Sept. 2013
Franklin Associates' new study for the American Chemistry Council Pine Chemistry Panel presents the greenhouse gas and energy life cycle assessment of pine chemicals derived from crude tall oil and their substitutes.
Click the link above to read the study's Executive Summary and visit http://pinechemistry.americanchemistry.com/ to learn more about the pine chemicals' industry.
Aug. 2013
Franklin Associates' presentation of work with EPA at the 3rd International Congress on Sustainability Science and Engineering (ICOSSE): Environmental and Cost Life Cycle Assessment of Options for Municipal Water Disinfection (August 13th)
Sarah Cashman (presenter), Cincinnati, OH
Jun. 2013 Franklin Associates' Presentation/Exhibition Booth for "Life Cycle Assessment for US Scrap Tire Treatment Methods" at the Air & Waste Management Conference, Chicago, IL (June 25-28)
Tuesday June 25th - Recycling Case Studies and Challenges Session (4:00 PM - 5:40 PM)
Rebe Feraldi (presenter)
Jun. 2013 Franklin Associates' LCA Study on IFCO Reusable Plastic Containers Highlighted in the Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch
May 2013 Franklin Associates Submits New Composites Datasets to U.S. LCI Database for ACMA
May 2013 Franklin Associates Submits New Plastics Fabrication Datasets to U.S. LCI Database for RPPG
May 2013 Franklin Associates Updates PVC Production Processes in the U.S. LCI Database
Apr. 2013 Franklin Associates Updates ACC Resins Water Consumption Data in the U.S. LCI Database
Apr. 2013 Franklin Associates Develops Internal Training Materials for the OpenLCA Software, Currently being applied in some of our Projects
Mar. 2013 Franklin Associates Joins University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Systems Advisory Board
Beverly Sauer attended University of Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems Board Meeting, Ann Arbor, MI
Jan. 2013 Franklin Associates' Presents at the University of Michigan's Sustainable Systems Forum: "Practicing LCA—Case Studies and Career Paths"
Sarah Cashman (presenter), Ann Arbor, MI
Nov. 2012 Franklin Associates' Beverly Sauer Authors Book Chapter "Life Cycle Inventory Modeling in Practice" in New "Life Cycle Assessment Handbook: A Guide for Environmentally Sustainable Products"
Nov. 2012 Janet Mosley Joins Franklin Associates as an LCA Analyst
Janet is a 2012 graduate of the University of Michigan, where she completed a Master of Science in Natural Resources and Environment: Sustainable Systems and the Graduate Certificate Program in Industrial Ecology. We are very happy to have her join our LCA group!
Oct. 2012 International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment Publishes Franklin Associates' Article "Comparative LCA of Treatment Options for US Scrap Tires: Material Recycling and Tire-derived Fuel Combustion"
Authors: Feraldi, Rebe; Cashman, Sarah; and Huff, Melissa
Oct. 2012 Franklin Associates' Attends Sustainability Communities Leadership Summit, Fayetteville, AR
Schneider, Shelly (attendee)
Oct. 2012 Franklin Associates Leads a Publically Available Free Webinar on our Customizable LCA Decision-Making Tools
Sept. 2012 Franklin Associates Leads a Publically Available Free Webinar Introducing the Fundamentals of LCA
Aug. 2012 Franklin Associates Participates in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 Guidelines Workshop
Shelly Schneider (participant)