title: Toward a holistic environmental impact assessment of marble quarrying and processing: proposal of a novel easy-to-use IPAT-based method.
abstract: Marble is a natural dimension stone that is widely used in building due to its resistance and esthetic qualities. Unfortunately, some concerns have arisen regarding its production process because quarrying and processing activities demand significant amounts of energy and greatly affect the environment. Further, performing an environmental analysis of a production process such as that of marble requires the consideration of many environmental aspects (e.g., noise, vibrations, dust and waste production, energy consumption). Unfortunately, the current impact accounting tools do not seem to be capable of considering all of the major aspects of the (marble) production process that may affect the environment and thus cannot provide a comprehensive and concise assessment of all environmental aspects associated with the marble production process. Therefore, innovative, easy, and reliable methods for evaluating its environmental impact are necessary, and they must be accessible for the non-technician. The present study intends to provide a contribution in this sense by proposing a reliable and easy-to-use evaluation method to assess the significance of the environmental impacts associated with the marble production process. In addition, an application of the method to an actual marble-producing company is presented to demonstrate its practicability. Because of its relative ease of use, the method presented here can also be used as a "self-assessment" tool for pursuing a virtuous environmental policy because it enables company owners to easily identify the segments of their production chain that most require environmental enhancement.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Energia, Ingegneria dell'Informazione e Modelli Matematici, Scuola Politecnica dell'Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Building 9, 90128, Palermo, Italy.
authors.forename: Cinzia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Capitano
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Energia, Ingegneria dell'Informazione e Modelli Matematici, Scuola Politecnica dell'Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Building 9, 90128, Palermo, Italy. peri@dream.unipa.it.
authors.forename: Giorgia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Peri
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Energia, Ingegneria dell'Informazione e Modelli Matematici, Scuola Politecnica dell'Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Building 9, 90128, Palermo, Italy.
authors.forename: Gianfranco
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rizzo
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Energia, Ingegneria dell'Informazione e Modelli Matematici, Scuola Politecnica dell'Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Building 9, 90128, Palermo, Italy.
authors.forename: Patrizia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ferrante
mesh_terms: D002119:Calcium Carbonate / Q000737:chemistry*; D004777:Environment; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D014866:Waste Products
chemical_list: D014866:Waste Products; D002119:Calcium Carbonate
keywords: Building material; Environmental impact; IPAT method; Marble; Natural dimension stone; Quarry and processing plant