## 3 Results
### Life Cycle Impact Analysis
Regarding the impact category of fossil depletion, both Scenarios 2 and 3 benefit from the environmental credits brought by the avoided market of feldspar and inert filler, by percentages of 124% and 169%, respectively. These credits compensate for the environmental impacts associated with the granite-cutting operations, providing final negative values. This means that in the impact category of Fossil depletion, the valorisation of GS is advantageous for the environment regardless of the valorisation scenarios adopted. Scenario 2 (avoided feldspar) is more advantageous than Scenario 3 (avoided inert filler) as it allowed saving 0.56 kg oil equivalent compared to 0.35 kg oil equivalent per 1 m\({}^{2}\)  
Figure 4: Contribution to (**a**) Particulate matter formation, (**b**) Human toxicity, (**c**) Fossil depletion, (**d**) Natural land transformation, and (**e**) Climate change according to ReCiPe2016 (Cut-off 0.1%). granite slab. It must be noticed that the additional drying step introduced to allow the GS incorporation in concrete mix contributes by a percentage of 16.5% to the final value of the Fossil depletion category, reducing the potential environmental credits provided by the avoided fine inert extraction, processing, and transportation (Figure 4c). Regarding the Natural land transformation, contrary to the other categories of impact, Scenario 1 shows the best environmental performance since it takes advantage of negative environmental credits associated with processing specific burdens of a sanitary landfill, which allows saving the transformation of 1.49 \(\times 10^{-3}\) m\({}^{2}\) of natural land per 1 m\({}^{2}\) granite slab (Figure 4d). This value overcomes the environmental credits provided by the avoided transformation of natural land into quarries for feldspar and sand extraction, which account for 1.23 \(\times 10^{-5}\) m\({}^{2}\) and--1.10 \(\times 10^{-4}\) m\({}^{2}\) per 1 m\({}^{2}\) granite slab in Scenario 2 and 3, respectively. For the preservation of natural land, waste landfilling is more beneficial for the environment due to the highest area of natural land required for the quarrying operations of fine sand and feldspar than for landfilling the GS. Finally, the Climate change impact category shows a process contribution similar to that observed for the Fossil depletion category, providing negative values in Scenarios 2 and 3, thus allowing favourable conditions for climate protection. The valorisation pathways considered in Scenarios 2 and 3 can overcome the climate change-associated impacts due to the processing of granite blocks into slabs, saving 1.36 and 0.94 kg CO\({}_{2}\) equivalent in Scenarios 2 and 3, respectively. These savings correspond to a decrease of 182% and 134% of the amount of CO\({}_{2}\) equivalent emitted, respectively, when compared to Scenario 1. The electric energy consumption (PT mix) used in the process operation accounts for 34.1%, 27.2%, and 52.8% of the total value of the climate change category in Scenarios 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Indirect impacts associated with steel production to replace wear of blades, lubricating oil, stucco, and polyacrylamide account on average by percentages of 6.9%, 0.8%, 1.9%, and 0.28%, respectively, being considered as minor contributors. The same situation is observed in the remaining categories of impact analysed for these minor processes.