Land for biomass?: Sustainability performance of bio-based value chains under context-specific conditions

Abstract

Biomass supply for bioenergy production is recognized as a crucial strategy to meet climate targets, avoid adverse impacts from climate change and contribute to the transition to a sustainable energy system. In addition, biomass-derived products are also expected to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels in other sectors (e.g., chemical sector). Despite the potential benefits of bio-based value chains, there are still sustainability risks associated with biomass production, especially related to Land Use Change (LUC) and supply chain configuration. This thesis presents the sustainability assessments of existing and novel bio-based value chains, in bio-based materials, electricity and advance-fuels, under context-specific conditions. In addition, it explores how the sustainability performance is shaped by context-specific conditions, the sustainability synergies and trade-offs arising from biomass production and supply chain configuration, and how the context-specific conditions influence sustainable biomass potentials. It also provides a novel framework that allows to combine spatial data on land use transitions, biophysical characteristics and other contexts-specific conditions to determine sustainability impacts at various regional or national scales. The results show that biomass potentials and sustainability impacts of bio-based value chains depend on context-specific conditions and are determined largely by LUC. It is shown that to minimize sustainability trade-offs it is important to consider context-specific conditions, prioritizing firstly, land use transitions and secondly, feedstock types. Furthermore, the novel framework is a significant step forward in understanding and assessing the sustainability impacts of feedstock production and other stages in bio-based value chains.