Challenges aligning LCA results across bio-based industries

This paper reviews the challenges faced in applications of life cycle assessments of biobased production, and suggests how to deal with this challenge. The vision of the European bioeconomy is 1) to strengthen, scale-up and diversify the biobased sectors, 2) to deploy local bioeconomies across the whole of Europe, and finally 3) to understand the ecological boundaries of the bioeconomy. The complexity of the biomass resource supply and demand makes it difficult to estimate what is the sustainable use of bioresources, and biobased sectors are predicted to grow, and thus increasing the demand for bioresources. This increases the demands for decision support safeguarding that the bioeconomy is operating within safe ecological limits.

In line with the action plan, a high number of EU funded research and innovation studies exploring the utilisation of bioresources in industrial innovations has been carried out, and in this context a high number of life cycle assessment studies has been performed to evaluate the potential impacts of the technologies developed. And the amount of scientific literature reporting the lifecycle performance of biobased production, products and technologies are equally high.

The paper investigates implementation of LCA’s in research and innovation studies funded by the European Union, as well as current initiatives towards harmonising LCA practises. Central questions are key challenges and needs with respect to the development of an LCA practices? that can guide a sustainable development of the European Bioeconomy, and how to achieve a balancing of two major strategies of standardisation vs a science-based approach to LCA.