07/21/2026
By Marley O'Neil

The Francis College of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, invites you to attend a Doctoral Dissertation Mechanical Engineering defense by Alana Griggs entitled, "Advancing Life Cycle Assessment Methodologies for Circular Economy and Urban Greening Strategies."

Monday, July 27, 2026
10 a.m.-noon
Hybrid –Southwick Hall, Room 240 and via Zoom

Committee:

  • Advisor: Jasmina Burek, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering
  • UML Co-Advisor: Joy Winbourne, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
  • Christopher Hansen, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, UML
  • Alessandro Sabato, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, UML

Abstract:
Cities and industries are increasingly adopting circular economy and urban greening strategies to reduce environmental impacts, improve resource efficiency, and strengthen climate resilience. However, current life cycle assessment (LCA) methods often emphasize environmental burdens while insufficiently capturing circular resource recovery pathways, localized ecosystem service benefits, and long-term climate performance. This dissertation advances and applies LCA methodologies to evaluate sustainability strategies that address these methodological and decision-making gaps. These contributions are presented through three studies that apply and extend LCA to address sustainability challenges: circular resource recovery from industrial biomass waste, and improved assessment of greenhouse gas emissions and ecosystem service benefits from urban greening.

The first uses screening level LCA to assess residual hemp biomass management pathways from cannabidiol production, including landfilling, incineration, composting, and anaerobic digestion with biomethane recovery. The second develops a life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methodology for quantifying urban cooling from urban greening strategies by linking measured temperature reductions to avoided heat-related human health damages. The third applies LCA to compare emerging food forests, and Miyawaki forests to conventional tree planting in New England by evaluating life cycle greenhouse gas emissions and costs of their establishment and maintenance, time-related carbon sequestration, and carbon payback. The findings demonstrate that anaerobic digestion produced the lowest environmental impacts among the evaluated hemp waste management pathways, although biomethane substitution did not outperform natural gas under the modeled conditions. 

The proposed urban cooling method introduced a new inventory flow, midpoint indicator, and endpoint characterization factor that translate localized temperature reductions into avoided disability-adjusted life years. The urban greening assessment showed that Miyawaki forests achieved the shortest carbon payback period, while maintenance activities represented the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions across the evaluated strategies. By integrating methodological development with applied case studies, this dissertation expands the role of LCA from footprint assessment towards a more comprehensive decision-support framework for circular economy and nature-based solutions. Its contributions include identifying environmental trade-offs in bioenergy-based waste management, advancing LCIA of urban cooling ecosystem services, and providing comparative evidence on the long-term climate performance of urban greening strategies. These findings support more rigorous, evidence-based planning and policy for sustainable and resilient communities.