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

Abstract

Bioeconomy regions are a young concept representing emerging amalgamation points for the implementation of cross-sectoral value-added chains. When sustainable bioeconomy strategies are rolled out, their proof-of-concept implies that industrial R&D activities should lead to impact decoupling and that the valorization of locally available lignocellulosic biomass has to contribute to an increase in added value. Furthermore, regional co-benefits for society and a positive influence on local environmental and socioeconomic conditions are major factors. The fulfillment of these strategic goals would be a milestone achievement when progressing from the blueprint development and the road-mapping stage towards socially accepted and sustainable wood-based bioeconomy strategies. For regional industrial and science stakeholders who run pilot facilities for process upscaling and for energy and material flow integration, this requires well-orchestrated integrative processes, which go beyond conventional “Life Cycle Management” approaches. It is obvious that assessing and monitoring such integrative systems will have to account for different stakeholder perspectives and for detailed technology deployment and resource conversion scenarios. Applying a sustainability index methodology in a case study region must include an evaluation of the whole supply chain and the process networks associated with the characteristic products of the evaluated region. To date, no such integrative assessment methods exist in the literature. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to lay out, on the basis of a practical example in the case study region of Central Germany, an assessment of the sustainability level of wood-based bioeconomy networks by applying the Sustainability Monitoring Tool -SUMINISTRO”- to examine regional bio-based industry networks.

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

“…1, (2)). From previous research, we take our attributional, retrospective RESPONSA S-LCA framework (Siebert et al 2016(Siebert et al , 2018aJarosch et al 2020), and the SUMINISTRO framework designed to carry out an E-LCA combined with RESPONSA based on a multicriteria decision analysis approach (Hildebrandt et al 2018b;Hildebrandt et al 2019;Hildebrandt et al 2018a;Hildebrandt et al 2020). However, even though E-LCA and S-LCA results in SUMINISTRO were additively combined by MCDA, there is no designated (integrated) LCSA approach.…”

“…As part of the LCIA, in RESPONSA and partly SUMIN-ISTRO, the performance of organizations of the life cycle was compared with a statistical reference and resulting dimensionless PRPs (Siebert et al 2018b) give an indication on the social performance of a product life cycle (e.g., LVL) (Jarosch et al 2020;Hildebrandt et al 2020). For most of the planetary boundaries-indicators and some indicators of societal needs, whose effects have their cause in physical emissions, we follow impact pathway LCIA approaches to assess consequential social impacts through characterizing the cause-effect chain (cf.…”

The Availability and Assessment of Potential Agricultural Residues for the Regional Development of Second-Generation Bioethanol in Thailand

“…In addition to improvements in technical feasibility, the conversion of agricultural residues to bioethanol requires an evaluation of residue selection, improvements to the agroindustry, and a sustainability assessment [27,28]. Since an analysis of the potential utilization of residual biomass from crop cultivation generally also encompasses the process of material transportation [27,29], logistics management is also a factor considered in the techno-economic feasibility, as transport distance has been found to make up a large portion of the logistics costs [30][31][32].…”

“…The local utilization of agricultural residues is considered a feasible way of mitigating environmental effects when it comes to materials management [41] and it creates additional income opportunities in the farming community [42]. Providing residual resources to manufacturing facilities could benefit economic and environmental sustainability [32,43].…”

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].…”