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

Abstract

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.

Insights from the Sustainability Monitoring Tool SUMINISTRO Applied to a Case Study System of Prospective Wood-Based Industry Networks in Central Germany

“…By operationalizing the described specification procedures, the sustainability monitoring tool SUMINISTRO, in its finalized version, is capable of identifying and quantifying not only the priority areas in which good sustainability performance can be achieved, but also the priority areas in which deficits in regional sustainable development will persist or occur in the future (please refer to the benchmarking table in the Supplementary Materials and to Figure 9). SUMINISTRO provides a fully operational and region-specific assessment platform that aggregates a broad set of well-established indicators (such as material intensity and resource productivity) and specifies upcoming indicator aspects associated with biomass use efficiency in the bioeconomy, as known from, for example, the concept of biomass utilization efficiency (BUE) [69], indicators for cascading [27,31], and socioeconomic indicators from the sLCA approach RESPONSA, as developed and applied in [29,37,38,71]. Considering the geographical scope, the monitoring tool is especially powerful in assessing local and super-regional integrated production systems within bioeconomy regions, which is different from many of the assessment frameworks developed in an international context [72].…”

“…Therefore, the major strength lies in the aggregation all along the regional bio-based value-added chains, from single-unit process modules up to full individual value-added chains, with even more aggregation towards the assessment of full scenarios for integration options of regional added-value networks. However, the approach is not directly used, for example, to assess whether regional production systems contribute to the meeting of Sustainable Development Goals [76,77], but the data can form a strong and valid database and aggregation point to further couple SDG-related and sLCA-related assessment studies with [71].…”

“…The integration of sLCA assessment approaches that derive their evaluation functions from sector-based benchmarking data and the aggregation of the multi-criteria assessment method is capable of assessing both individual value-added chains and more aggregated added-value networks [37,71]. The developed monitoring tool is quite specific to the German wood-based bioeconomy [10].…”

Tools for Measuring Energy Sustainability: A Comparative Review

“…Institutions are influenced by players and their activities. On the other hand, institutions considerably influence players by shaping their interests and behaviors [66][67][68]. There is a mutual relationship between institutions and players in such a way that social values can shape institutional structures and, in response, institutional values appear as a measure for the rational assessment of players.…”

Criteria prioritization for sustainable development of second-generation bioethanol in Thailand with an application of Delphi-AHP technique

“…Towards the direction of sustainability, one of the implementable concepts is the utilization of the regional biomass, such as wood-based wastes, to supplying as bio-materials [14][15][16]. The strategy would not only provide the environmental and economic advantages, but the investment in bio-based industries is also expected to contribute to social benefits, such as increasing workforce from the local business, educational opportunities, and research projects for enhancing innovation [12,17,18].…”