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Comparative Social Life Cycle Assessment of Two Biomass-to-Electricity Systems

Biomass plays a fundamental role in numerous decarbonisation strategies that seek to mitigate the short- and long-term effects of climate change. Within this context, decision-makers’ choices need to comprehensively consider potential sustainability effects associated with bioenergy systems. In part...

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Autores principales: Martín-Gamboa, Mario, Quinteiro, Paula, Dias, Ana Cláudia, Iribarren, Diego
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8124508/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34063057
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094918
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author Martín-Gamboa, Mario
Quinteiro, Paula
Dias, Ana Cláudia
Iribarren, Diego
author_facet Martín-Gamboa, Mario
Quinteiro, Paula
Dias, Ana Cláudia
Iribarren, Diego
author_sort Martín-Gamboa, Mario
collection PubMed
description Biomass plays a fundamental role in numerous decarbonisation strategies that seek to mitigate the short- and long-term effects of climate change. Within this context, decision-makers’ choices need to comprehensively consider potential sustainability effects associated with bioenergy systems. In particular, due to the lack of studies addressing the social sustainability of bioelectricity, the present work applies the Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) methodology to compare the social performance of two biomass-to-electricity systems located in Portugal based on either fluidised-bed or grate furnace technology. S-LCA involves a comprehensive approach for holistic evaluation and data interpretation of social aspects. Six social indicators were benchmarked: child labour, forced labour, gender wage gap, women in the sectoral labour force, health expenditure, and contribution to economic development. The results show that the implementation of fluidised-bed furnaces as a more efficient conversion technology could reduce by 15–19% the selected negative social impacts, except women in the sectoral labour force. When enlarging the interpretation to a sustainability perspective, the general suitability of the fluidised-bed furnace system would be further emphasised under environmental aspects while jointly providing valuable insights for informed decision-making and sustainability reporting.
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spelling pubmed-81245082021-05-17 Comparative Social Life Cycle Assessment of Two Biomass-to-Electricity Systems Martín-Gamboa, Mario Quinteiro, Paula Dias, Ana Cláudia Iribarren, Diego Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Biomass plays a fundamental role in numerous decarbonisation strategies that seek to mitigate the short- and long-term effects of climate change. Within this context, decision-makers’ choices need to comprehensively consider potential sustainability effects associated with bioenergy systems. In particular, due to the lack of studies addressing the social sustainability of bioelectricity, the present work applies the Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) methodology to compare the social performance of two biomass-to-electricity systems located in Portugal based on either fluidised-bed or grate furnace technology. S-LCA involves a comprehensive approach for holistic evaluation and data interpretation of social aspects. Six social indicators were benchmarked: child labour, forced labour, gender wage gap, women in the sectoral labour force, health expenditure, and contribution to economic development. The results show that the implementation of fluidised-bed furnaces as a more efficient conversion technology could reduce by 15–19% the selected negative social impacts, except women in the sectoral labour force. When enlarging the interpretation to a sustainability perspective, the general suitability of the fluidised-bed furnace system would be further emphasised under environmental aspects while jointly providing valuable insights for informed decision-making and sustainability reporting. MDPI 2021-05-05 /pmc/articles/PMC8124508/ /pubmed/34063057 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094918 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Martín-Gamboa, Mario
Quinteiro, Paula
Dias, Ana Cláudia
Iribarren, Diego
Comparative Social Life Cycle Assessment of Two Biomass-to-Electricity Systems
title Comparative Social Life Cycle Assessment of Two Biomass-to-Electricity Systems
title_full Comparative Social Life Cycle Assessment of Two Biomass-to-Electricity Systems
title_fullStr Comparative Social Life Cycle Assessment of Two Biomass-to-Electricity Systems
title_full_unstemmed Comparative Social Life Cycle Assessment of Two Biomass-to-Electricity Systems
title_short Comparative Social Life Cycle Assessment of Two Biomass-to-Electricity Systems
title_sort comparative social life cycle assessment of two biomass-to-electricity systems
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8124508/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34063057
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094918
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