Life Cycle Assessment of Automotive Cables and GHG Emission Reduction Scenario in Indian Context

Globally, the emissions share of transport is 15%, out of which more than 2/3rd emissions are contributed by road transport as per 2014 report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The need of mitigation measures in transport sector has been realised however the study of life cycle emission needs to be done with the tailpipe emissions so that some holistic solution can be worked upon. Strikingly, in the life cycle studies of a passenger car, it was found that the share of raw materials related to copper is around 50% of the total amount of raw material used and the share of copper in the curb weight of vehicle is just 1%. Also, for an Internal Combustion Engine vehicle (ICE), mostly the copper is used in the wiring harness. In this paper, the life cycle assessment of wiring harness is done to understand the environmental impacts throughout the life cycle stages. The comparative study of aluminium alloy and copper has also been done to know the change in environmental impacts during their production and it is found that the aluminium alloy wiring harness has higher GHG emissions than the copper wiring harness in the manufacturing stage. The modelling of the different phases of wire manufacturing is done with the latest version Craft 10.2 of SimaPro software in the Indian context. The vital information generated through this research will provide valuable insights to interested stakeholders (manufacturers, researchers and policy makers) to identify the hotspots of environmental impacts due to automotive cables in its entire life cycle. The study evaluates the environmental impact of wiring harness used in automobiles in India based on secondary data available in the literature, surveys with wiring harness manufacturers and Ecoinvent database. The emission reduction scenario with the infusion of recycled copper and increasing renewable energy share in national electricity grid mix of India has been analysed for 2032, where the GHG emissions were found to be reduced by 17%.