A System Readiness Assessment Of LCA Applications Within The Novel Framework Of Green Digital Twins

This contribution focuses on a system readiness assessment (SRA) of life cycle assessment (LCA) based applications within the novel framework of Green Digital Twins (GDT). System-based approaches, such as SRA, help decision-makers improve performance management, particularly for emerging and innovative systems, and identify program/system-related and technical risks in a targeted manner. The proposed conceptual framework of GDTs integrates three key components to enable automated and integrated assessments of life-cycle-based impacts in the future: the idea of digital twins (DT) at the management level, the proven tool of LCAs, as well as the consideration of relational structures in the form of an industrial metaverse (IM). However, the article provides a brief overview of the existing literature, particularly in the field of SRA, at the beginning. Subsequently, a multi-stage SRA for the novel GDT systems is conducted, which requires the derivation of system readiness levels (SRL) by incorporating associated technology readiness levels (TRL) and integration readiness levels (IRL) of the technologies and subsystems under consideration. While TRLs indicate the maturity of individual technologies, IRLs reflect the degree of maturity of the integration of different technologies with each other, and SRLs describe the maturity level of integrated system readiness. However, the presented SRA results indicate that the novel GDT system under investigation attains an SRL value of ‘3’, which corresponds to the SRL state ‘Prototyped’. An assessment of selected LCA applications within the overall GDT system yields SRL values ranging from 4 (‘Defined’) to 1 (‘Conceptual’). This initial SRA-based evaluation of the novel GDT system provides a valuable foundation for guiding its further development. The outcomes highlight that system readiness depends not only on the maturity of individual technologies, but also on the effective integration of the different technologies within the overall system.