Abstract
PurposeCurrently, social, environmental, and economic risks and chances of bioeconomy are becoming increasingly a subject of applied sustainability assessments. Based on life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology, life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) aims to combine or integrate social, environmental, and economic assessments. In order to contribute to the current early stage of LCSA development, this study seeks to identify a practical framework for integrated LCSA implementation.MethodsWe select possible indicators from existing suitable LCA and LCSA approaches as well as from the literature, and allocate them to a sustainability concept for holistic and integrated LCSA (HILCSA), based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In order to conduct a practical implementation of HILCSA, we choose openLCA, because it offers the best current state and most future potential for application of LCSA. Therefore, not only the capabilities of the software and databases, but also the supported methods of life cycle impact assessments (LCIA) are evaluated regarding the requirements of the indicator set and goal and scope of future case studies.Results and discussionThis study presents an overview of available indicators and LCIAs for bioeconomy sustainability assessments as well as their link to the SDGs. We provide a practical framework for HILCSA of regional bioeconomy, which includes an indicator set for regional (product and territorial) bioeconomy assessment, applicable with current software and databases, LCIA methods and methods of normalization, weighting, and aggregation. The implementation of HILCSA in openLCA allows an integrative LCSA by conducting all steps in a single framework with harmonized, aggregated, and coherent results. HILCSA is capable of a sustainability assessment in terms of planetary boundaries, provisioning system and societal needs, as well as communication of results to different stakeholders.ConclusionsOur framework is capable of compensating some deficits of S-LCA, E-LCA, and economic assessments by integration, and shows main advantages compared to additive LCSA. HILCSA is capable of addressing 15 out of 17 SDGs. It addresses open questions and significant problems of LCSAs in terms of goal and scope, LCI, LCIA, and interpretation. Furthermore, HILCSA is the first of its kind actually applicable in an existing software environment. Regional bioeconomy sustainability assessment is bridging scales of global and regional effects and can inform stakeholders comprehensively on various impacts, hotspots, trade-offs, and synergies of regional bioeconomy. However, significant research needs in LCIAs, software, and indicator development remain.
Highlights
Decoupling human well-being from environmental impacts as well as the fulfillment of societal needs by a socially just and sustainable provisioning system is and will be the major challenge to avoid a socioecological crisis
We focus on the following research questions for setting up a practical framework for holistic and integrated LCSA (HILCSA): What are criteria and aspects for implementation and operationalization of HILCSA for bioeconomy regions? What should a scope, goal, interpretation, and most importantly an life cycle inventory (LCI) and life cycle impact assessments (LCIA) look like for this?
Our analysis shows that the established field of life cycle assessment (LCA) can be substantially complemented by a HILCSA—which provides a common and integrated sustainability assessment framework applied to regional bioeconomy product systems
Summary
Decoupling human well-being from environmental impacts as well as the fulfillment of societal needs by a socially just and sustainable provisioning system is and will be the major challenge to avoid a socioecological crisis. We understand the emerging bioeconomy as a provisioning system linking social outcomes and renewable resources by innovative technologies. Bioeconomy comprises both physical and social systems, mediating the relationship between planetary boundaries and societal needs by economic activities of physical infrastructures. Societal and economic transformations entailing bioeconomy are necessary (Ramcilovic-Suominen and Pülzl 2018; Hausknost et al 2017; Bezama et al 2019). This consideration implies the need for a double decoupling, i.e., decoupling of the increasing satisfaction of societal needs from an otherwise ever greater production of material goods and services as well as decoupling of the production of goods and services from growing negative ecological, social, and economic effects
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