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The limitations of bioeconomy LCA studies for understanding the transition to sustainable bioeconomy

PURPOSE: Transition to bioeconomy requires all actors and stakeholders to measure the impact of systems that use bioresources and technologies to provision society. There are however some challenges with integrating LCA into business development and management, which have important implications for...

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Autores principales: Talwar, Nishtha, Holden, Nicholas M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9114090/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35600742
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11367-022-02053-w
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author Talwar, Nishtha
Holden, Nicholas M.
author_facet Talwar, Nishtha
Holden, Nicholas M.
author_sort Talwar, Nishtha
collection PubMed
description PURPOSE: Transition to bioeconomy requires all actors and stakeholders to measure the impact of systems that use bioresources and technologies to provision society. There are however some challenges with integrating LCA into business development and management, which have important implications for bioeconomy. There have been many LCA studies published in the twenty-first century, but the question must be answered: how useful are these LCA studies to help understand and manage transition to sustainable bioeconomy? METHOD: This research used a structured literature review to identify 83 bioeconomy LCA studies published from January 2006 to June 2021 (excluding bioenergy). The studies were analysed for compliance with the ISO 14044 standard, with specific reference to the goal, commissioning perspective, system boundary, function and functional unit, impact methods and categories. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS: It was found that more than 85% of the studies reviewed failed to present the required goal statement and a description of the function of the system. Nearly 13% of the studies did not define the system boundary, and only 17% included a full life cycle including raw material extraction, production, use and end-of-life stages. The majority of the LCA studies surveyed from 2006 to 2021 were either (i) not in compliance with the ISO standards or (ii) space and style limitations of the publication process prevented competent practitioners from properly conveying their work. This suggests that the value and integrity of the literature are undermined by not rigorously addressing the first and most important stage of an LCA study. CONCLUSION: When interpreting the results, a major shortcoming noted was that most studies did not consider the industrial symbiosis needed between feedstock, technology, primary products, side streams, downstream valorisation and long-term circularity in order to properly understand the transition pathways required. Bioeconomy technologies were imagined as displacers for feedstocks and processes to adapt business as usual, rather than as transformers of the system to a sustainable footing. RECOMMENDATION: If LCA studies are going to provide meaningful information for actors and stakeholders to assess whether a system will be able to operate sustainably, studies should include a full, integrated system, standards should be adhered to and approaches should perhaps go beyond mere eco-efficiency, or doing less harm, as these are not necessarily indicative of sustainability. Historical bioeconomy LCA studies do not provide great insight into the transition to sustainable bioeconomy. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11367-022-02053-w.
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spelling pubmed-91140902022-05-19 The limitations of bioeconomy LCA studies for understanding the transition to sustainable bioeconomy Talwar, Nishtha Holden, Nicholas M. Int J Life Cycle Assess Lci Methodology and Databases PURPOSE: Transition to bioeconomy requires all actors and stakeholders to measure the impact of systems that use bioresources and technologies to provision society. There are however some challenges with integrating LCA into business development and management, which have important implications for bioeconomy. There have been many LCA studies published in the twenty-first century, but the question must be answered: how useful are these LCA studies to help understand and manage transition to sustainable bioeconomy? METHOD: This research used a structured literature review to identify 83 bioeconomy LCA studies published from January 2006 to June 2021 (excluding bioenergy). The studies were analysed for compliance with the ISO 14044 standard, with specific reference to the goal, commissioning perspective, system boundary, function and functional unit, impact methods and categories. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS: It was found that more than 85% of the studies reviewed failed to present the required goal statement and a description of the function of the system. Nearly 13% of the studies did not define the system boundary, and only 17% included a full life cycle including raw material extraction, production, use and end-of-life stages. The majority of the LCA studies surveyed from 2006 to 2021 were either (i) not in compliance with the ISO standards or (ii) space and style limitations of the publication process prevented competent practitioners from properly conveying their work. This suggests that the value and integrity of the literature are undermined by not rigorously addressing the first and most important stage of an LCA study. CONCLUSION: When interpreting the results, a major shortcoming noted was that most studies did not consider the industrial symbiosis needed between feedstock, technology, primary products, side streams, downstream valorisation and long-term circularity in order to properly understand the transition pathways required. Bioeconomy technologies were imagined as displacers for feedstocks and processes to adapt business as usual, rather than as transformers of the system to a sustainable footing. RECOMMENDATION: If LCA studies are going to provide meaningful information for actors and stakeholders to assess whether a system will be able to operate sustainably, studies should include a full, integrated system, standards should be adhered to and approaches should perhaps go beyond mere eco-efficiency, or doing less harm, as these are not necessarily indicative of sustainability. Historical bioeconomy LCA studies do not provide great insight into the transition to sustainable bioeconomy. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11367-022-02053-w. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2022-04-26 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC9114090/ /pubmed/35600742 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11367-022-02053-w Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Lci Methodology and Databases
Talwar, Nishtha
Holden, Nicholas M.
The limitations of bioeconomy LCA studies for understanding the transition to sustainable bioeconomy
title The limitations of bioeconomy LCA studies for understanding the transition to sustainable bioeconomy
title_full The limitations of bioeconomy LCA studies for understanding the transition to sustainable bioeconomy
title_fullStr The limitations of bioeconomy LCA studies for understanding the transition to sustainable bioeconomy
title_full_unstemmed The limitations of bioeconomy LCA studies for understanding the transition to sustainable bioeconomy
title_short The limitations of bioeconomy LCA studies for understanding the transition to sustainable bioeconomy
title_sort limitations of bioeconomy lca studies for understanding the transition to sustainable bioeconomy
topic Lci Methodology and Databases
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9114090/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35600742
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11367-022-02053-w
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