Smart Locks – A case study for comparing Digital and Mechanical Locks from a Sustainable Perspective
(2023) MTTM05 20231Engineering Logistics
- Abstract
- As carbon dioxide emissions increase along with the global average temperature, sustainable development is becoming more and more important in all sectors, and it is essential to act toward the reduction of emissions to counteract these dire consequences. Companies are expected to operate sustainably and responsibly with a minimized negative environmental impact alongside accelerating their digitalization journey to stay competitive in a rapidly changing environment. The transition from traditional to more digital products often bringan added environmental burden due to electronics and batteries that are characterized by a heavy carbon footprint.
This thesis focuses on the transformation from mechanical locks to digital locks from a... (More) - As carbon dioxide emissions increase along with the global average temperature, sustainable development is becoming more and more important in all sectors, and it is essential to act toward the reduction of emissions to counteract these dire consequences. Companies are expected to operate sustainably and responsibly with a minimized negative environmental impact alongside accelerating their digitalization journey to stay competitive in a rapidly changing environment. The transition from traditional to more digital products often bringan added environmental burden due to electronics and batteries that are characterized by a heavy carbon footprint.
This thesis focuses on the transformation from mechanical locks to digital locks from a sustainable perspective. The study covers an assessment of the environmental impact of three different types of locks that varies from a traditional mechanical lock to a future concept cylinder accessible through a smartphone. The scope of the environmental impact assessment is raw material extraction to the finalized product at the factory gate. Two of the locks are digital products containing electronic components and the hypothesis was initially that the environmental burden of digital locks would be higher compared to traditional locks.
Furthermore, it was estimated that digital locks can generate other benefits for downstream customers, for example by minimizing transportation related to key management. The main goal of the thesis is to determine and compare the direct environmental impact of the locks and to investigate and quantify the potential benefits each lock could generate for downstream customers. This was done by first estimating the direct environmental impact of the locks by conducting a simplified life cycle assessment. Secondly, three use cases were selected as objects of study to quantify if and how the products have impacted reducing their operational emissions. Through interviews with these end-users, the reduced operational emissions due to digital locks were quantified. Another objective was to identify future potential beyond the current surrounding benefits, with a focus on the future concept cylinder.
It was concluded that digital locks on a product level have a higher environmental impact compared to traditional mechanical locks. The future concept cylinder has a significantly larger direct environmental burden on both a product-and a system-level compared to the other products. Additionally, it was found that in two out of the three cases, the reduced emissions were large enough to exceed the direct environmental burden of the digital lock system. For the future concept cylinder, the avoided emissions exceeded the direct environmental burden in one of three cases.
Based on the results, it was concluded that digital products have the potential to reduce emissions among end users and are not necessarily less sustainable compared to mechanical locks despite containing electronics. An important finding was that a digital or future concept system may create behavioural changes at the end users which can result in avoided emissions. Due to the significant size of the avoided emissions among end customers, the thesis also includes a discussion on how this can be included in the reporting of emissions and further considered when moving forward and developing smart products. Based on the findings of this thesis, proposals for future studies and recommendations were made. This thesis has been a complete elaboration between the two authors. Each author has been involved in every part of the process and contributed equally. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9131180
- author
- Grenthe, Rebecca LU and Andersson, Madeleine LU
- supervisor
-
- Magnus Berg LU
- organization
- course
- MTTM05 20231
- year
- 2023
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Sustainable supply chain, Life cycle assessment, Sustainability, Digitalization, Smart City Development, Environmental impact of digitalization, Sustainability reporting, Avoided emissions, Manufacturing process keys, digital locks, digital locks in a smart city.
- report number
- 6005
- language
- English
- id
- 9131180
- date added to LUP
- 2023-06-28 19:03:12
- date last changed
- 2023-06-28 19:03:12
@misc{9131180,
abstract = {{As carbon dioxide emissions increase along with the global average temperature, sustainable development is becoming more and more important in all sectors, and it is essential to act toward the reduction of emissions to counteract these dire consequences. Companies are expected to operate sustainably and responsibly with a minimized negative environmental impact alongside accelerating their digitalization journey to stay competitive in a rapidly changing environment. The transition from traditional to more digital products often bringan added environmental burden due to electronics and batteries that are characterized by a heavy carbon footprint.
This thesis focuses on the transformation from mechanical locks to digital locks from a sustainable perspective. The study covers an assessment of the environmental impact of three different types of locks that varies from a traditional mechanical lock to a future concept cylinder accessible through a smartphone. The scope of the environmental impact assessment is raw material extraction to the finalized product at the factory gate. Two of the locks are digital products containing electronic components and the hypothesis was initially that the environmental burden of digital locks would be higher compared to traditional locks.
Furthermore, it was estimated that digital locks can generate other benefits for downstream customers, for example by minimizing transportation related to key management. The main goal of the thesis is to determine and compare the direct environmental impact of the locks and to investigate and quantify the potential benefits each lock could generate for downstream customers. This was done by first estimating the direct environmental impact of the locks by conducting a simplified life cycle assessment. Secondly, three use cases were selected as objects of study to quantify if and how the products have impacted reducing their operational emissions. Through interviews with these end-users, the reduced operational emissions due to digital locks were quantified. Another objective was to identify future potential beyond the current surrounding benefits, with a focus on the future concept cylinder.
It was concluded that digital locks on a product level have a higher environmental impact compared to traditional mechanical locks. The future concept cylinder has a significantly larger direct environmental burden on both a product-and a system-level compared to the other products. Additionally, it was found that in two out of the three cases, the reduced emissions were large enough to exceed the direct environmental burden of the digital lock system. For the future concept cylinder, the avoided emissions exceeded the direct environmental burden in one of three cases.
Based on the results, it was concluded that digital products have the potential to reduce emissions among end users and are not necessarily less sustainable compared to mechanical locks despite containing electronics. An important finding was that a digital or future concept system may create behavioural changes at the end users which can result in avoided emissions. Due to the significant size of the avoided emissions among end customers, the thesis also includes a discussion on how this can be included in the reporting of emissions and further considered when moving forward and developing smart products. Based on the findings of this thesis, proposals for future studies and recommendations were made. This thesis has been a complete elaboration between the two authors. Each author has been involved in every part of the process and contributed equally.}},
author = {{Grenthe, Rebecca and Andersson, Madeleine}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Smart Locks – A case study for comparing Digital and Mechanical Locks from a Sustainable Perspective}},
year = {{2023}},
}