Integrating Multi-Criteria Techniques in Life-Cycle Tools for the Circular Bioeconomy Transition of Agri-Food Waste Biomass: A Systematic Review

Felipe Romero-Perdomo and Miguel Ángel González-Curbelo ()
Additional contact information
Felipe Romero-Perdomo: Departamento de Ciencias Básicas, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad EAN, Bogotá 110221, Colombia
Miguel Ángel González-Curbelo: Departamento de Ciencias Básicas, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad EAN, Bogotá 110221, Colombia

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-27

Abstract: Agri-food waste biomass (AWB) is consolidating as a relevant bioresource for supplying material products and energy in a circular bioeconomy. However, its recovery and sustainable processing present trade-offs that must be understood. The integration of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) into life-cycle assessment (LCA) tools has emerged as a novel way to address this challenge. This paper aims to conduct a systematic literature review to critically synthesize how MCDA has been integrated into LCA in an assessment framework and how helpful it is in AWB’s circular bioeconomy transition. The literature shows that the most studied AWBs are rice husk, sugarcane bagasse, and household food waste. These are processed through the technologies of composting, anaerobic digestion, and pyrolysis for applications such as biofuels, bioenergy, and soil amendment. Environmental LCA (E-LCA) is the most widely used LCA tool, while both the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and the technique for ordering preference by similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) are the most applied techniques for MCDA. The current trend of integrating MCDA into LCA does not fully cover the LCA phases, favoring solely the impact assessment phase and indicating that the other phases are overlooked. The potential and involvement of the stakeholders are partially explored. Although there are holistic sustainability assessments, the social implications are rarely considered. The number of MCDA/LCA studies is expected to increase, assessments at the micro-, meso-, and macro-scales to become more articulated, and the impact of the results to become more aligned with government and company goals.

Keywords: circular economy; sustainable agriculture; multi-criteria decision making; TOPSIS; stakeholders; social LCA; life-cycle costing; bioenergy; biorefinery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/6/5026/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/6/5026/ (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:15:y:2023:i:6:p:5026-:d:1094928

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 ().