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Integrated life cycle sustainability assessment – A practical approach applied to biorefineries

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  • Keller, Heiko
  • Rettenmaier, Nils
  • Reinhardt, Guido Andreas

Abstract

Politics and industry increasingly request comprehensive ex-ante decision support from a sustainability perspective in complex strategic decision situations. Several approaches have been introduced in the last years to increase the comprehensiveness of life cycle based assessments from covering only environmental aspects towards covering all sustainability aspects. This way, (environmental) life cycle assessment (LCA) has been extended towards life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA). However, a practical application in ex-ante decision support requires additional features and flexibility that do not exist in the newly devised frameworks. Our methodology of integrated life cycle sustainability assessment (ILCSA) builds upon existing frameworks, extends them with features for ex-ante assessments that increase the value for decision makers and introduces a structured discussion of results to derive concrete conclusions and recommendations. At the same time, the flexibility allows for focussing on those sustainability aspects relevant in the respective decision situation using the best available methodology for assessing each aspect within the overarching ILCSA. ILCSA has so far been successfully applied in five large EC-funded projects. We discuss our methodology based on a concrete application example from these projects.

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  • Keller, Heiko & Rettenmaier, Nils & Reinhardt, Guido Andreas, 2015. "Integrated life cycle sustainability assessment – A practical approach applied to biorefineries," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 1072-1081.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:154:y:2015:i:c:p:1072-1081
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.01.095
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    6. Schlör, H. & Venghaus, S. & Zapp, P. & Marx, J. & Schreiber, A. & Hake, J.-Fr., 2018. "The energy-mineral-society nexus – A social LCA model," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 228(C), pages 999-1008.
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    8. Budzianowski, Wojciech M. & Postawa, Karol, 2016. "Total Chain Integration of sustainable biorefinery systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 1432-1446.
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    12. Paulo Peças & Lenin John & Inês Ribeiro & António J. Baptista & Sara M. Pinto & Rui Dias & Juan Henriques & Marco Estrela & André Pilastri & Fernando Cunha, 2023. "Holistic Framework to Data-Driven Sustainability Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-21, February.
    13. Zeug, Walther & Bezama, Alberto & Thrän, Daniela, 2020. "Towards a holistic and integrated Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of the bioeconomy: Background on concepts, visions and measurements," UFZ Discussion Papers 7/2020, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    14. Christian Thies & Karsten Kieckhäfer & Thomas S. Spengler, 2021. "Activity analysis based modeling of global supply chains for sustainability assessment," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 91(2), pages 215-252, March.
    15. Santagata, R. & Ripa, M. & Ulgiati, S., 2017. "An environmental assessment of electricity production from slaughterhouse residues. Linking urban, industrial and waste management systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 186(P2), pages 175-188.
    16. Pasquale Marcello Falcone & Sara González García & Enrica Imbert & Lucía Lijó & María Teresa Moreira & Almona Tani & Valentina Elena Tartiu & Piergiuseppe Morone, 2019. "Transitioning towards the bio‐economy: Assessing the social dimension through a stakeholder lens," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(5), pages 1135-1153, September.
    17. Togarcheti, Sarat Chandra & Mediboyina, Maneesh kumar & Chauhan, Vikas Singh & Mukherji, Suparna & Ravi, Sarada & Mudliar, Sandeep Narayan, 2017. "Life cycle assessment of microalgae based biodiesel production to evaluate the impact of biomass productivity and energy source," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 286-294.
    18. Martin Kügemann & Heracles Polatidis, 2022. "Methodological Framework to Select Evaluation Criteria for Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis of Road Transportation Fuels and Vehicles," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-18, July.
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