Environmental challenges when developing renewable materials to replace non-renewable materials - receiving guidance from LCA studies

Abstract

Since the demand for more sustainable products is growing, the pressure on material developers to improve the sustainability performance of the products that they are developing is increasing. As a consequence, the need to move away from a narrow understanding of “product” and “environment” is becoming more apparent. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach has been used to find rough estimates of how much process energy, raw materials etc. are used in the process of transforming a biomass feedstock into a new material. A reference product with a fossil based material intended to be replaced is used as a benchmark for the new product. The new product must perform at least as well as this benchmark and preferably better. We illustrate this LCA based methodology using the example of replacing petroleum-based polymeric material with wood-based material in a disposable consumer product