Analyzing the Potential Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts of Regional Energy Integration Scenarios of a Bio-Based Industrial Network

Alberto Bezama (), Jakob Hildebrandt and Daniela Thrän
Additional contact information
Alberto Bezama: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Department of Bioenergy, Permoserstr. 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany
Jakob Hildebrandt: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Department of Bioenergy, Permoserstr. 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany
Daniela Thrän: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Department of Bioenergy, Permoserstr. 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 23, 1-14

Abstract: The goal of this work was to evaluate the socio-economic and environmental life cycle advantages of alternative defossilization pathways for a bio-based industrial network in Central Germany. Five scenarios were defined considering the potential energy utilization of further regionally available biomass capacities. The evaluation was made using an integrated approach, i.e., using a traditional life cycle assessment methodology, complemented by a regionalized socio-economic life cycle assessment framework. The results show that the environmental advantages from the change in energy provisioning reduced about 5% of the total environmental impacts. The analysis of the socio-economic impacts shows that the path to defossilization of the integrated network provides a clear enhancement of the expected regional socio-economic impacts. These results show that 100% decoupling from natural gas brings overall positive sustainability advantages to all organizations participating in the evaluated value chains. The methodological approach presented in this work can allow the identification of hotspots and opportunities within the regions where the implementation of technological alternatives takes place.

Keywords: regional life cycle assessment; bioeconomy; integrated LCA; social LCA; defossilizing process energy provisioning; climate neutrality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/23/15886/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/23/15886/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:23:p:15886-:d:987760

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().