A Regional Socio-Economic Life Cycle Assessment of a Bioeconomy Value Chain

A bioeconomy tackles sustainable development at both the global and regional levels, as it relies on the optimized use of renewable bio-based resources for the provisioning of food, materials, and energy to meet societal demands. The effects of the bioeconomy can be best observed at a regional level, as it supports regional development and affects the social dimension of sustainability. In order to assess the social impacts of wood-based production chains with regional differentiation, the social life cycle assessment framework “RESPONSA” was established in 2018. We present an initial study, in which this method is applied to an exemplary production chain in a case study of laminated veneer lumber produced in central Germany. The results show a relatively better social performance compared to the reference economic sector, reflecting a relatively low rate of female employees as a major social hotspot. Several social opportunities are identified, in terms of health and safety, equal opportunities, and adequate remuneration, for the organization taking part in the value chain. Finally, considering the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a global normative framework, a number of additional indicators for RESPONSA, as well as further developments and recommendations regarding its application in other regions and the upcoming social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) guidelines, are identified

Towards a Holistic and Integrated Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of the Bioeconomy - Background on Concepts, Visions and Measurements

Current economic and social systems transgress several ecological planetary boundaries by far but without sufficiently fulfilling human needs and this in a globally unequal way, posing enormous challenges to political strategies and economic structures. To tackle these challenges, under a bioeconomy, a variety of industrial metabolisms, strategies and visions on substituting fossil resources by renewables and hereto associated societal transformations is formulated. Social, ecological and economic (holistic) sustainability, however, is not an intrinsic character of bioeconomy but rather a possible potential which has to be assessed. Life Cycle Assessments and Life Cycle Sustainability Assessments provide promising frameworks and methods for such holistic sustainability assessments, but face major challenges in regard to underlying sustainability concepts and implementation. First, we discuss and analyze the status quo of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment especially in regard to underlying sustainability and economic concept and identify their strengths, weaknesses and research gaps. Secondly, we characterize the current bioeconomy discourse and propose a transdisciplinary, holistic and integrated framework for Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment. Based on this discussion and the proposed framework, holistic and integrated Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment can provide a transdisciplinary understanding and specific information on the absolute and relative holistic sustainability of provisioning systems to allow efficient and effective governance

Results from a Stakeholder Survey on Bioeconomy Monitoring and Perceptions on Bioeconomy in Germany

Our current economic systems are transgressing planetary boundaries globally and yet societal needs are not sufficiently and equally fulfilled. Fostering the bioeconomy as an economy based on renewable resources can be a transformation towards a sustainable future, to fulfill societal needs within planetary boundaries. However, sustainability is not intrinsic to the bioeconomy and consequently advanced and comprehensive monitoring systems on a national scale are needed. In the systemic modeling and monitoring of the German bioeconomy (SYMOBIO) a comprehensive national monitoring framework in the context of global dynamics was developed, and a first pilot report of monitoring results was published and presented to the public in June 2020. Stakeholder participation plays a role in informing monitoring from the beginning. Consequently, in this study we aim at evaluating the pilot report and monitoring as well as the general perception of the bioeconomy by an open survey. We collected approximately 100 responses, mainly from the stakeholder group "science". Most stakeholders are moderately satisfied with the monitoring and reporting. However, social aspects of the bioeconomy like hunger, poverty and inequalities are considered to be underrepresented, and the socio-economic perspective is viewed as too narrow. Future monitoring efforts should be oriented more on international agreed frameworks like the SDGs and be comparable to other monitoring systems and levels. Regarding general perceptions of the bioeconomy, a majority of stakeholders have a vision of a socio-ecological transformation, in contrast to German and European strategies which are seen as business-as-usual capitalism using additional renewable resources. Even though most stakeholders see the current development of bioeconomy critically, they consider the future development as open and encourage a sustainable bioeconomy that creates sustainable consumption and production patterns, global responsibility and compliance with planetary boundaries, as well as economic and ecological justice and participation shaping the overall economy. Our analysis underpins previous perspectives from stakeholder workshops and is embedded in increasingly polarizing societal mentalities of transformations

MCDA for sustainability assessment – insights to Helmholtz Association activities

The "MCDA for sustainability assessment – insights to Helmholtz Association activities" Working Paper aims to compile and reflect previous and on-going work within the Helmholtz Association related to MCDA, in particular, to present use cases and key methodological aspects. It has a focus on but is not limited to energy technologies and systems and is mainly based on the presentations held at the online workshop “Multi criteria decision analysis for sustainability assessment of energy technologies and systems”. The workshop was organized within the activities of the Helmholtz program ESD Topic 1 "Energy System Transformation" and took place on November 22nd, 2021

A framework for implementing holistic and integrated life cycle sustainability assessment of regional bioeconomy

PURPOSE: Currently, social, environmental, and economic risks and chances of bioeconomy are becoming increasingly a subject of applied sustainability assessments. Based on life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology, life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) aims to combine or integrate social, environmental, and economic assessments. In order to contribute to the current early stage of LCSA development, this study seeks to identify a practical framework for integrated LCSA implementation. METHODS: We select possible indicators from existing suitable LCA and LCSA approaches as well as from the literature, and allocate them to a sustainability concept for holistic and integrated LCSA (HILCSA), based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In order to conduct a practical implementation of HILCSA, we choose openLCA, because it offers the best current state and most future potential for application of LCSA. Therefore, not only the capabilities of the software and databases, but also the supported methods of life cycle impact assessments (LCIA) are evaluated regarding the requirements of the indicator set and goal and scope of future case studies. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: This study presents an overview of available indicators and LCIAs for bioeconomy sustainability assessments as well as their link to the SDGs. We provide a practical framework for HILCSA of regional bioeconomy, which includes an indicator set for regional (product and territorial) bioeconomy assessment, applicable with current software and databases, LCIA methods and methods of normalization, weighting, and aggregation. The implementation of HILCSA in openLCA allows an integrative LCSA by conducting all steps in a single framework with harmonized, aggregated, and coherent results. HILCSA is capable of a sustainability assessment in terms of planetary boundaries, provisioning system and societal needs, as well as communication of results to different stakeholders. CONCLUSIONS: Our framework is capable of compensating some deficits of S-LCA, E-LCA, and economic assessments by integration, and shows main advantages compared to additive LCSA. HILCSA is capable of addressing 15 out of 17 SDGs. It addresses open questions and significant problems of LCSAs in terms of goal and scope, LCI, LCIA, and interpretation. Furthermore, HILCSA is the first of its kind actually applicable in an existing software environment. Regional bioeconomy sustainability assessment is bridging scales of global and regional effects and can inform stakeholders comprehensively on various impacts, hotspots, trade-offs, and synergies of regional bioeconomy. However, significant research needs in LCIAs, software, and indicator development remain

Stakeholders’ Interests and Perceptions of Bioeconomy Monitoring Using a Sustainable Development Goal Framework

The bioeconomy as an industrial metabolism based on renewable resources is characterized by, not intrinsic, but rather potential benefits for global sustainability, depending on many factors and actors. Hence, an appropriate systematic monitoring of its development is vital and complexly linked to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as diverse stakeholder expectations. To structure a framework of the important aspects of such a monitoring system, we conducted a series of stakeholder workshops to assess the relevance of SDGs for the bioeconomy. Our results show how the complexities of these issues are perceived by 64 stakeholders, indicating significant commonalities and differences among six SDGs, including specific interests, perceptions, and, in some cases, counterintuitive and contradictory issues. Eventually, the idea of a bioeconomy is a question of the perception of ends and means of a societal transformation toward holistic sustainability. Global implications like trade-offs, hunger, poverty, and inequalities are aspects of high relevance for monitoring of bioeconomy regions in which they actually do not seem to be substantial