Bio-based Value Chains Research Articles

Anticipated Futures for Modern Rural Economies - a Request for Guidance by Research, Policy and the Business Community

This paper builds on a review of literature and EU policies for rural development, innovation, entrepreneurship and the bio‐based economy. It provides a basis for conceptualizing modern rural economies dealing with food, biobased value chains, and valorization of ecosystem services regarding future conditions for rural entrepreneurship (including agriculture), remote areas (including those in coastal areas), and urban‐rural integration. It will outline emerging opportunities to promote diversification, shared values, innovation, and resource conservation, and to reach a common understanding of the solutions to set up a “Modern Rural Economy” in different conditions. In general, there are many opportunities for rural development, many of them linked to emerging technologies which reduce the relevance of distance in marketing, sales and many other activity domains and to business opportunities evolving within the bio‐economy and ecosystem services. However, it becomes obvious that the realization of opportunities needs to build on the simultaneous engagement of various stakeholders in business development, research, and public administration. Successful developments require an integrated development approach which combines opportunities into a comprehensive development program.

Biobased value chains for a growing bioeconomy

This special issue covers three important fields of the bioeconomy: sustainable biogas value chains, bio‐based products from lignocellulose, and the use of microalgae as a biomass resource and for the production of food and feed. In order to develop sustainable products and processes, an interdisciplinary systemic approach to the analysis of entire value chains is necessary. For this reason, the contributions cover aspects of the complete biobased value chain from biomass production, pretreatment, and conversion, through to the manufacture and marketing of biobased products, and in addition, include socio‐economic and ecological assessments.

Concept and challenges of modern biorefineries

International R&D community and technology developers for the last decades. However, despite intense efforts, real breakthrough has not been achieved yet. This has been mainly due to a biased view, focusing solely on a certain end product – for example cellulose pulp or ethanol and considering by-products as low value waste streams for energy applications. With the new wave of lignocellulosic biomass fractionation technologies being demonstrated at a pilot scale, success stories are closer than they have ever been. Biomass fractionation to high purity intermediate building blocks of cellulose to C6 sugars and hemicellulose to C5/C6 sugars and lignin, instead of just one main product, provides a way to produce a diversity of products and establish novel bio-based value chains. Especially important is the availability of higher purity lignin for different direct drop-in or after processing (depolymerization etc.) applications, which compared to the conventional lignins derived from pulp mills or ethanol refineries provides totally new applications and perspectives to enable the increased use of biobased raw materials in various industries. A biorefinery is a facility where different low-value renewable biomass materials are the feedstock to the processes where they are transformed, in multiple steps including fractionations, separations and conversions, to several higher-value bio-based products. Examples of these products can include fibres, food, feed, fine chemicals, transportation fuels and heat. A biorefinery can be formed by a single unit or can combine several facilities targeted for a single purpose that further process products as well as by-products or wastes of combined facilities. In biorefining one can find similarities to oil refining, with the exception that in oil refining the raw material comes from fossil resources. According to the International Energy Agency ‘Biorefineries will contribute significantly to the sustainable and efficient use of biomass resources, by providing a variety of products to different markets and sectors. They also have the potential to reduce conflicts and competition over land and feedstock, but it is necessary to measure and compare the benefits of biorefineries with other possible solutions to define the most sustainable option.’1 Although it is possible to produce the same products in a biorefinery as in an oil refinery, this is not the target, which instead is to produce products which can replace the products from oil refining.

Insights on Thermal and Fire Hazards of Humins in Support of Their Sustainable Use in Advanced Biorefineries

The concept of circular economy is aiming at promoting innovative use of wastes, residues, or byproducts into marketable chemicals and intermediates, while enhancing process economics and environmental sustainability. Within biorefineries, the focus has now shifted toward “humins”, polymeric condensation byproducts far less investigated than lignins. Humins are produced in many biobased value chains that start from polysaccharides pretreatment, targeting access to C6 and C5 sugars and further conversion to furanics- or levulinics-based platform chemicals. They are complex and versatile substrates, and combustible because of their organic nature. A first insight on safety issues of humins is therefore proposed in this paper, considering the growing interest in humins as new biobased feedstocks for various applications. The current study provides characterization details necessary to establish safety information on a global context. This first attempt has brought in preliminary safety data mainly focusing o...

Bridging the Gaps for a ‘Circular’ Bioeconomy: Selection Criteria, Bio-Based Value Chain and Stakeholder Mapping

Bio-products and bio-based value chains have been identified as one of the most promising pathways to attaining a resource-efficient circular economy. Such a “valorization and value-addition” approach incorporates an intricate network of processes and actors, contributing to socio-economic growth, environmental benefits and technological advances. In the present age of limited time and funding models to achieve ambitious sustainable development targets, whilst mitigating climate change, a systematic approach employing two-tier multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) can be useful in supporting the identification of promising bio-based value chains, that are significant to the EU plans for the bio-economy. Their identification is followed by an elaborate mapping of their value chains to visualize/foresee the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges attributable to those bio-based value chains. To demonstrate this methodology, a systematic review of 12 bio-based value chains, prevalent in the EU, sourcing their starting material from biomass and bio-waste, has been undertaken. The selected value chains are mapped to visualize the linkages and interactions between the different stages, chain actors, employed conversion routes, product application and existing/potential end-of-life options. This approach will help chain-actors, particularly investors and policy-makers, understand the complexities of such multi-actor systems and make informed decisions.

Life Cycle Sustainability Evaluations of Bio-based Value Chains: Reviewing the Indicators from a Swedish Perspective

Policymakers worldwide are promoting the use of bio-based products as part of sustainable development. Nonetheless, there are concerns that the bio-based economy may undermine the sustainability of the transition, e.g., from the overexploitation of biomass resources and indirect impacts of land use. Adequate assessment methods with a broad systems perspective are thus required in order to ensure a transition to a sustainable, bio-based economy. We review the scientifically published life cycle studies of bio-based products in order to investigate the extent to which they include important sustainability indicators. To define which indicators are important, we refer to established frameworks for sustainability assessment, and include an Open Space workshop with academics and industrial experts. The results suggest that there is a discrepancy between the indicators that we found to be important, and the indicators that are frequently included in the studies. This indicates a need for the development and dissemination of improved methods in order to model several important environmental impacts, such as: water depletion, indirect land use change, and impacts on ecosystem quality and biological diversity. The small number of published social life cycle assessments (SLCAs) and life cycle sustainability assessments (LCSAs) indicate that these are still immature tools; as such, there is a need for improved methods and more case studies.

Evaluating social sustainability of bioeconomy value chains through integrated use of local and global methods

A bioeconomy is an economic system, which replaces fossil resources with renewable biological resources. As strategies are implemented, new bio-based value chains are created and others expand to replace fossil fuel based supply chains. Understanding the sustainability impacts of this development requires tools for assessing the impacts. The environmental impacts of bioeconomies have been studied through life cycle assessment, but the social impacts are poorly understood. Commonly applied social sustainability methods are local in scope and lack a life cycle perspective. The aim of this paper was to compare the priority setting in global and local approaches to social sustainability assessment and to explore possibilities for integrating them. A multi-region input-output model was used to estimate the social life cycle impacts of Finnish wood products. The main social issues were found in health and safety and gender inequality, with a large part of the impacts occurring outside the forest sector and outside Finnish boundaries. In contrast, local stakeholders views on social sustainability focused mostly on local conditions, employment and co-operation between companies. Ways to combine the contrasting results were explored and a framework for integrating the local and global approaches was outlined.

Are Primary Agricultural Residues Promising Feedstock for the European Bioeconomy?

The Bioeconomy Strategy of the European Commission, launched in 2012, aims to develop the production and use of biomass within the European Union as a strategy to limit the consumption of fossil carbon while fostering jobs and growth. The quantification and timely reporting of biomass flows are crucial for the monitoring of such a strategy. Within this framework, the present work focuses on the quantification of primary agricultural residues in the European Union, which could be a potential feedstock for the biobased material and bioenergy sectors. Harvest indices, or residue-to-product ratios (RPRs), determined at crop level, are used in the calculation of primary agricultural residues. Building on RPR functions of yield, we acknowledge a relationship between primary crop residue quantity and crop yield. Finally, we estimate that 395 million tonnes of dry matter (Tdm) of primary agricultural residues was produced in Europe in 2013 from more than 130 crop commodities, of which 297 million Tdm should be left in the fields for the maintenance of ecosystem services (using conservative assumptions) and 29 million Tdm is collected for agricultural use. Consequently, 69 million Tdm is collectable as feedstock for the biobased material and bioenergy sectors. Collectible residues are mainly composed of cellulose (42%) and sugar and starch (10%). The production of primary agricultural residues is concentrated in the major cereal-producing countries and is stable over time. Nevertheless, a wider adoption of ad hoc harvesting machinery, the optimization of logistic processes, and the maturation of the new biobased value chains could help to take advantage of the current production of agricultural residues.

Tackling Uncertainty through Business Plan Analysis—A Case Study on Citrus Waste Valorisation in the South of Italy

The paper addresses issues related to the citrus waste valorisation process and its inherent uncertainties from the perspective of a new and innovative firm. Thus, we investigate the relevance/role of a business plan analysis in developing a new business (new biobased value chains) in the case of citrus waste valorisation. We look primarily at the inherent uncertainty associated with the start-up phase of a new business aimed at producing and wholesaling semi-finished products derived from the recovery of citrus waste in southern Italy. In order to do so, we use a qualitative case study approach focusing on a small citrus waste valorisation firm located in Calabria, using Agro Management Development (AMD) as a unit of analysis. The choice of this research setting is not random, given the fact that many companies from the Mediterranean are trying to engage in activities to valorise citrus waste deriving from production value chains. The main findings of our analysis can be summarized as follows: (i) focusing primarily on one area of uncertainty (i.e., market uncertainty) might undermine chances of success, as it could indicate an incomplete business strategy to stakeholders, hence hindering their willingness to commit to a new entrepreneurial initiative; (ii) although a business plan could be an effective way to narrow down uncertainty for a new innovative firm, it should be properly customised in order to address all relevant dimensions of uncertainty. Indeed, an insufficiently developed plan might be counterproductive, revealing (for instance, to possible investors) an inadequate strategy for facing and solving emerging problems, therefore putting the whole business project at risk.

Biorefinery–Biobased Value Chains and Sustainable Development

Biorefinery–Biobased Value Chains and Sustainable Development