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The National and Regional Impact of the EU Bioeconomy Strategies on the Agri-Food Sector: Insights from Germany
Abstract
The bioeconomy strategy of the European Union aims to balance three distinct goals: food security, the sustainable use of renewable resources for industrial purposes, and environmental protection. This study uses an integrated computable general equilibrium model to simulate the impacts of selected elements of the EU bioeconomy strategy on German agriculture at national and regional level up to 2050. An improved productivity of the crop sector substantially increases production and export/import ratio of crop outputs and reduces crop prices, while only moderately expanding cropland. The improved crop productivity would help to reduce the competition for resources between non-food and food biomass use as well as between crop and livestock production. An increasing conversion efficiency of agricultural biomass for use in biorefineries alone is unlikely to have a significant impact on the German bioeconomy. Overall, the results suggest the need for further efforts to improve crop productivity and effective complementary measures supporting the development of transformative technologies and changes in consumer preferences to ensure a minimum level of biomass use in the chemical sector.
... ANN mimics the nervous system to process information and generate estimation models. The behavior of a neural network is determined by the transfer function of its neurons, the learning rules, and the network structure, with weights being adjustable parameters (Haykin & Network, 2004). ...
... To facilitate a comparative analysis of food security performance among these nations, Fig. 6 illustrates the rankings of all the 169 countries, with a particular emphasis on the top 10 and bottom 10 in the years 2008, 2014, and 2020. As shown in Fig. 3g, Germany has consistently held the first position from 2014 to 2020, likely attributed to its high level of agricultural mechanization, coupled with substantial government investments in farmer vocational training, agricultural value chain enhancements, and effective agricultural land planning (Jafari et al., 2023). Conversely, Fig. 3h underscores the persistent last-place ranking of Congo-Brazzaville in terms of integrated food security. ...
The assessment of global food security is imperative for sustainable development worldwide. However, limited data availability has impeded a comprehensive evaluation on a global scale. This study addresses this challenge by conducting a thorough food security analysis spanning 169 countries from 2008 to 2020. To overcome data limitations, an imputed database is generated using four machine learning models to estimate missing data. The results uncover significant disparities in food security across regions. Europe, Oceania, and North America exhibit higher levels, while East Asia and South America fall in the middle, and Africa and South Asia experience lower levels. Notably, six African countries have made considerable progress in food security, potentially attributed to support from nations such as France, the United States, China, and Japan. Policy recommendations include humanitarian relief, expanding social safety nets, developing transportation networks, supplying fertilizers in vulnerable areas, and stabilizing food prices through national fiscal policies are also proposed for economies with low food security performance. The study provides an imputed database for 44 indicators from 2008 to 2020, offering insights into food security and potential solutions for governments and international organizations.
... To address the issue of aggregation (Peters 2016), developed the GTAP-Energy-Power, a comparative static CGE approach that breaks down the electricity sector into several electricity-generating activities, including solar, wind, oil, gas, coal, and nuclear sources, as well as a transmission and distribution (T&D) sector. However, the model is limited to national-level analysis and lacks regional differentiation and interlinkages, which are crucial for policy analysis (Jafari et al. 2020(Jafari et al. , 2023Rutherford and Schreiber 2019). Furthermore, the model does not consider global structural changes due to its comparative static nature. ...
To meet the net zero emission target by 2045, Germany has planned to phase out coal from electricity production by 2038 and increase electricity production from alternative sources through technological advancements. We examine the impacts of related measures on CO2 emissions, electricity security, and economic output at national and regional levels using a regionalized dynamic computable general equilibrium model. Our results reveal that phasing out coal from the electricity mix reduces electricity generation and increases imports but only slightly reduces electricity supply and economic output. The reduction in CO2 emissions in Germany is significant but insufficient to reach the 2045 net zero emission target. Additional technology advancements in alternative electricity productions accompanying the phase-out may have limited effects on the supply of electricity, economic outputs, and CO2 emissions.
CONTEXT:
Adoption and diffusion of digital farming technologies are expected to help transform current agricultural systems towards sustainability. To enable and steer transformation we need to understand the mechanisms of adoption and diffusion holistically. Our current understanding is mainly informed by empirical farm-level adoption studies and by agent-based models simulating systemic diffusion mechanisms. These two approaches are weakly integrated.
OBJECTIVE:
Our objective is to build an empirically grounded conceptual framework for adoption and diffusion of digital farming technologies by synthesizing literature on these alternative approaches.
METHODS:
We review 32 empirical farm-level studies on the adoption of precision and digital farming technologies and 27 agent-based models on the diffusion of agricultural innovations. Empirical findings are synthesized in terms of significance and partially standardized coefficients, and diffusion studies are categorized by their approaches and theoretical frameworks.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS:
We show that farm-level studies focus on farm and operator characteristics but pay less attention to attributes of technology, interactions, institutional and psychological factors. Agent-based models, despite their usefulness for representing system interaction, only loosely connect with empirical farm-level findings. Based on the identified gaps, we develop a conceptual framework integrating farm-level evidence on adoption with a systemic perspective on technology diffusion.
SIGNIFICANCE:
Our empirically grounded conceptual framework is the first holistic approach to connect the dots between the wealth of empirical research on technology adoption with more model-driven investigation of innovation diffusion in agent-based studies. Focusing on digital farming technologies, it may serve as a reference for those studying the adoption and diffusion of such technologies beyond farm scale. Furthermore, this framework can be the basis for contextual applications to inform policy-makers trying to foster the diffusion of suitable digital technologies through interventions as it highlights where policy can impact important aspects of adoption via relevant processes of diffusion.
In recent years, reducing food waste and loss has become a policy priority in the European Union, but little is known about impacts of related measures in the EU and beyond. This study informs the debate on food waste reduction through a quantitative analysis. It considers adjustment costs for reducing food waste in food processing industries and impacts on food availability, pressure on land and water and other environmental consequences. The results suggest that the leakage effects of global trade may offset almost all benefits of food waste reduction in the EU. We thus conclude that costly efforts to reduce food waste in the EU cannot be motivated by larger contributions to global food availability and environmental benefits. This highlights the need for global coordination of such policies and/or more targeted actions in the EU which focus on specific production chains, where losses can be reduced and environmental gains obtained at a relatively low cost.
Blockchain quickly became an important technology in many applications of precision agriculture discipline. The need to develop smart P2P systems capable of verifying, securing, monitoring, and analyzing agricultural data is leading to thinking about building blockchain-based IoT systems in precision agriculture. Blockchain plays the role of pivotal in replacing the classical methods of storing, sorting and sharing agricultural data into a more reliable, immutable, transparent and decentralized manner. In precision farming, the combination of the Internet of Things and the blockchain will move us from only smart farms only to the internet of smart farms and add more control in supply-chains networks. The result of this combination will lead to more autonomy and intelligence in managing precision agriculture in more efficient and optimized ways. This paper exhibits a comprehensive survey on the importance of integrating both blockchain and IoT in developing smart applications in precision agriculture. The paper also proposed novel blockchain models that can be used as important solutions for major challenges in IoT-based precision agricultural systems. In addition, the study reviewed and clearly discussed the main functions and strengths of the common blockchain platforms used in managing various sub-sectors in precision agriculture such as crops, livestock grazing, and food supply chain. Finally, the paper discussed some of the security and privacy challenges, and blockchain-open issues that obstacles developing blockchain-IoT systems in precision agriculture. 1
New plant breeding technologies (NPBTs), including genetically modified and gene-edited crops, offer large potentials for sustainable agricultural development and food security while addressing shortcomings of the Green Revolution. This article reviews potentials, risks, and actually observed impacts of NPBTs. Regulatory aspects are also discussed. While the science is exciting and some clear benefits are already observable, overregulation and public misperceptions may obstruct efficient development and use of NPBTs. Overregulation is particularly observed in Europe, but also affects developing countries in Africa and Asia, which could benefit the most from NPBTs. Regulatory reforms and a more science-based public debate are required.
While there is a lot of literature from a natural or technical sciences perspective on different forms of digitalization in agriculture (big data, internet of things, augmented reality, robotics, sensors, 3D printing, system integration, ubiquitous connectivity, artificial intelligence, digital twins, and blockchain among others), social science researchers have recently started investigating different aspects of digital agriculture in relation to farm production systems, value chains and food systems. This has led to a burgeoning but scattered social science body of literature. There is hence lack of overview of how this field of study is developing, and what are established, emerging, and new themes and topics. This is where this article aims to make a contribution, beyond introducing this special issue which presents seventeen articles dealing with social, economic and institutional dynamics of precision farming, digital agriculture, smart farming or agriculture 4.0. An exploratory literature review shows that five thematic clusters of extant social science literature on digitalization in agriculture can be identified: 1) Adoption, uses and adaptation of digital technologies on farm; 2) Effects of digitalization on farmer identity, farmer skills, and farm work; 3) Power, ownership, privacy and ethics in digitalizing agricultural production systems and value chains; 4) Digitalization and agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS); and 5) Economics and management of digitalized agricultural production systems and value chains. The main contributions of the special issue articles are mapped against these thematic clusters, revealing new insights on the link between digital agriculture and farm diversity, new economic, business and institutional arrangements both on-farm, in the value chain and food system, and in the innovation system, and emerging ways to ethically govern digital agriculture. Emerging lines of social science enquiry within these thematic clusters are identified and new lines are suggested to create a future research agenda on digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0. Also, four potential new thematic social science clusters are also identified, which so far seem weakly developed: 1) Digital agriculture socio-cyber-physical-ecological systems conceptualizations; 2) Digital agriculture policy processes; 3) Digitally enabled agricultural transition pathways; and 4) Global geography of digital agriculture development. This future research agenda provides ample scope for future interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary science on precision farming, digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0.
Bioplastic production is a small but fast growing sector in the global bioeconomy, which may benefit from public support measures in the future as governments seek to promote more sustainable consumption patterns. Here we assess the potential net economy-wide impacts of a 5% bioplastic target relative to current plastic consumption in the main producing regions. We compare two alternative policy strategies to achieve the target in a general equilibrium framework that allows for substitution between conventional and bio-based plastics: a subsidy on bioplastics versus a tax on fossil-based plastic consumption. Our study is the first to quantify global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from an increased demand for bioplastics on a global scale, produced from arable crops, considering both direct and indirect land use change (LUC). The tax provokes a contraction of all sectors that employ plastics, which leads to a drop of 0.07% in global real GDP, whereas the subsidy has no significant effect on the global economy. Both tax and subsidy reduce world demand for petroleum products, by 0.37% and 0.07%, respectively, boosting demand for sugar- and starch-based feedstock in the bioplastic industry. This leads to emissions from LUC globally, which correspond to a carbon payback time of 22 years on average, with the associated annual abatement costs of over US$2000 per tonne of CO2-eq. The tax has greater GHG reduction potential in bioplastic producing regions but generates greater economic and environmental spillover effects in countries that do not enforce the target. Results show that promoting bioplastic consumption is not a cost-effective strategy for climate change mitigation if based on conventional feedstock, due to market-mediated GHG emissions from LUC. Bioplastics are not necessarily more sustainable than conventional polymers just because they are bio-based, although further assessment of potential environmental gains associated with biodegradability and recyclability is desirable.
Since 2010, China has changed its position in the world grain market from a net exporter to a net importer. The total grain trade deficit was $420 million in 2010. However, the increasing grain import contradicts its food security policy of achieving a 95% grain self-sufficiency rate. Additionally, Chinese agricultural productivity is lower than the world average, and much lower than high-income countries, which puts grave pressure on the country’s food security target. Toward this end, the study investigates China’s food security status in 2030 and the impact of alternative policies on food security. A global CGE framework (GTAP) has been used to estimate the impact of agriculture and trade policy interventions on food security in China. A recursive process is used to project the model to 2050 under business as usual. The study has attempted various scenarios to study the impact of food security in China. The results from this study suggest that China is expected to achieve a grain self-sufficiency level of a little above 90% by the year 2030. The meat tariff reduction has a greater positive impact on China’s food security than the other scenarios. In addition, most of the policies are beneficial for national welfare. The total value of agricultural imports and exports are expected to increase substantially. In addition, the current Red Line arable land protection policy (1800 million mu) is determined to be insufficient to allow for the production of enough grain by 2030 to meet the desired 95% self-sufficiency rate. Study results indicate that arable land should be strictly protected for food production against pressure from industrialization and urbanization. However, it is only part of the food security solution and, policy interventions are required to ensure that China’s food security targets are met.
This study assesses the cumulative costs for the EU chemical industry as a result of the EU legislation over the period 2004-2014.
The chemical industry is regulated by more than 70 important pieces of EU legislation, many of them applying to all sectors, chemicals included, to effectively protect citizens and the environment against risks related to hazardous substances.
The most relevant legislation for the chemical industry is chemicals legislation, energy, emissions and industrial processes, workers' safety and health, and product-specific legislation. It is the cumulative cost effect of this legislation that has been shown in this study launched by the European Commission as part of the REFIT Programme.
The study shows that the 3 main drivers of regulatory costs are:
legislation on emissions and industrial processes, representing 33% of the regulatory costs
chemicals legislation including REACH and CLP with 30%
workers' safety legislation with 24%.
This provides useful insights into the nature of such costs and their development over time. As the study focused on the direct costs of legislation without assessing neither indirect costs nor economic or broader societal benefits of the legislation, no policy conclusions can be drawn at this stage.
There is a need for a more detailed understanding of the drivers of administrative burdens for chemical companies. As a next step, the results of this study will be compared, to the extent possible, with the regulatory costs for chemical companies in other regions, such as the United States, China and India. They will also be used in the ongoing fitness check on chemicals legislation (other than REACH).
Specific efforts will be dedicated to understanding better the drivers of administrative burdens for chemical companies, and notably SMEs, with a view to reducing them wherever possible without compromising on the level of protection for citizens and environment.
a b s t r a c t
The emergence of biofuel as a renewable energy source offers opportunities forsignificant climate change mitigation and greater energy independence to many countries. At the same time, biofuel represents the possibility of substitution between energy and food. FordevelopingcountrieslikeIndia, which importsover 75% of its crudeoil, fossil fuels pose two risks—global warming pollution and long- term risk that oil prices will undermine real living standards.This paper examines India's options for managing energy price risk int hree ways:biofuel development, energy efficiency promotion, and food
productivity i mprovements. Our salient resultssugges tthat biodiesels shows promise as atransport fuel substitute that can be produced in ways that fully utilize marginal agricultural resources and hence promote rurallivelihoods. First-generation bioethanol, bycontrast, appears to havealimite dability to offset the impacts ofoilprice hikes. Combining the biodiesel expansion policy with energy efficiency
improvements and food productivity increases proved to be a more effective strategy to enhance both energy and food security,help mitigate climate change, and cushion the economy against oilprice shocks.
This article provides estimates of the economic impact of initial adoption of genetically modified (GM) cotton and of its potential impacts beyond the few countries where it is currently common. Use is made of the latest version of the GTAP database and model. Our results suggest that if other developing countries—especially in sub-Saharan Africa—were to follow the lead of China, South Africa, and most recently India, adoption of GM cotton varieties could provide even larger proportionate gains to farmer and national welfare than in those early-adopting countries. Furthermore, those estimated gains are shown to exceed—and reinforce—those from a successful campaign under the WTO’s Doha Development Agenda to reduce/remove cotton subsidies and import tariffs globally.
*Chapter 1 of the forthcoming book "Economic Analysis of Land Use in Global Climate Change Policy," edited by Thomas W. Hertel, Steven Rose, and Richard S.J. Tol
The reduction of use of fossil fuels is inevitable for a transformation to a sustainable economy. Developing possible transformation pathways from the current fossil-based to a more bio-based economy and getting a better understanding of driving forces and trade-offs can help to shape the real desirable path. To get a complete picture, general social, economic and policy developments as well as specific developments related to the bio-based economy have to be covered. This article presents a model-based analysis of three different transformation paths to a bio-based economy with a special focus on Germany and a time horizon until 2050 using the general equilibrium model MAGNET.
Results show that ‘framing drivers' (e.g. GDP and population developments, trade and land use policies) play an important role and can either significantly encourage or hinder the transformation towards a more bio-based economy. Regarding the biomass, increase in productivity of agriculture and reduction in post-harvest losses are the main factors on the supply side, which help to decrease possible market tensions. On the demand side, the key lever identified in our analysis is the change in consumers' behavior and preferences regarding food. Increased demand for biomass for energy and material use was not identified as a critical factor by the underlying assumptions. To take the most favorable path with less trade-offs, implies, besides the ‘wise’ policy decisions regarding the support of use of biomass for material and energy use, also the transformation of the whole society, which on its turn should be promoted by policy.
Biochemicals constitute a key sector in the bioeconomy, but their future expansion depends on biomass availability. This study employs an integrated global Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modeling approach to quantify the impacts on land-use change, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and socioeconomic indicators, when reducing biomass conversion costs for global biochemical production by 1.5% annually until 2050. Global demand for crop- and forest-based feedstock by the chemical industry increases sharply in 2050, e.g. by 327% for wheat; driving up agro-food prices, e.g. by 3.5% for oilseeds and 3.9% for sugarcane in Brazil. Chemical output decreases in countries that rely on imported biomass for biochemical production, such as Germany, France or the United States; while it increases, for instance, in Brazil and Australia, which use mainly domestic feedstock.
Increased biomass demand entails significant natural forest cover loss across South America and Asia, and, to a lesser extent, in North America. Subsequent GHG emissions from global losses in carbon stocks outweigh GHG savings from reduced fossil fuel consumption, resulting in a net increase in GHGs of 107 Mt in 2050 relative to the baseline. Results suggest that R&D investments in bio-based sectors should be complemented with coherent policies to prevent deforestation and negative impacts on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Projected increases in population, income and consumption rates are expected to lead to rising pressure on the land system. Ambitions to limit global warming to 2 °C or even 1.5 °C could also lead to additional pressures from land-based mitigation measures such as bioenergy production and afforestation. To investigate these dynamics, this paper describes five elaborations of the Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSP) using the IMAGE 3.0 integrated assessment model framework to produce regional and gridded scenarios up to the year 2100. Additionally, land-based climate change mitigation is modelled aiming for long-term mitigation targets including 1.5 °C. Results show diverging global trends in agricultural land in the baseline scenarios ranging from an expansion of nearly 826 Mha in SSP3 to a decrease of more than 305 Mha in SSP1 for the period 2010–2050. Key drivers are population growth, changes in food consumption, and agricultural efficiency. The largest changes take place in Sub-Saharan Africa in SSP3 and SSP4, predominantly due to high population growth. With low increases in agricultural efficiency this leads to expansion of agricultural land and reduced food security. Land use also plays a crucial role in ambitious mitigation scenarios. First, agricultural emissions could form a substantial component of emissions that cannot be fully mitigated. Second, bioenergy and reforestation are crucial to create net negative emissions reducing emissions in SSP2 in 2050 by 8.7 Gt CO2/yr and 1.9 Gt CO2/yr, respectively (1.5 °C scenario compared to baseline). This is achieved by expansion of bioenergy area (516 Mha in 2050) and reforestation. Expansion of agriculture for food production is reduced due to REDD policy (290 Mha in 2050) affecting food security especially in Sub-Saharan Africa indicating an important trade-off of land-based mitigation. This set of SSP land-use scenarios provides a comprehensive quantification of interacting trends in the land system, both socio-economic and biophysical. By providing high resolution data, the scenario output can improve interactions between climate research and impact studies.
Human societies face a threatening future of resource scarcity and environmental damages. This book addresses the challenge of turning these risks into opportunities and policies. It is a collection of high level contributions from experts of sustainable growth and sustainable resource management. Focussing on economics, sustainability, technology and policy, the book highlights system innovation, leapfrogging strategies of emerging economies, possible rebound effects and international market development. It puts natural resources centre stage and will make an important contribution to achieving the goal of a 21st century Green Economy.
Effective implementation of technology that facilitates accurate and high-throughput screening of thousands of field-grown lines is critical for accelerating crop improvement and breeding strategies for higher yield and disease tolerance. Progress in the development of field-based high throughput phenotyping methods has advanced considerably in the last 10 years through technological progress in sensor development and high-performance computing. Here, we review recent advances in high throughput field phenotyping technologies designed to inform the genetics of quantitative traits, including crop yield and disease tolerance. Successful application of phenotyping platforms to advance crop breeding and identify and monitor disease requires: (1) high resolution of imaging and environmental sensors; (2) quality data products that facilitate computer vision, machine learning and GIS; (3) capacity infrastructure for data management and analysis; and (4) automated environmental data collection. Accelerated breeding for agriculturally relevant crop traits is key to the development of improved varieties and is critically dependent on high-resolution, high-throughput field-scale phenotyping technologies that can efficiently discriminate better performing lines within a larger population and across multiple environments.
This paper presents the overview of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and their energy, land
use, and emissions implications. The SSPs are part of a new scenario framework, established by the
climate change research community in order to facilitate the integrated analysis of future climate
impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and mitigation. The pathways were developed over the last years as a
joint community effort and describe plausible major global developments that together would lead in the
future to different challenges for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The SSPs are based on
five
narratives describing alternative socio-economic developments, including sustainable development,
regional rivalry, inequality, fossil-fueled development, and middle-of-the-road development. The longterm
demographic and economic projections of the SSPs depict a wide uncertainty range consistent with
the scenario literature. A multi-model approach was used for the elaboration of the energy, land-use and
the emissions trajectories of SSP-based scenarios. The baseline scenarios lead to global energy
consumption of 400–1200 EJ in 2100, and feature vastly different land-use dynamics, ranging from a
possible reduction in cropland area up to a massive expansion by more than 700 million hectares by 2100. The associated annual CO2 emissions of the baseline scenarios range from about 25 GtCO2 to more than
120 GtCO2 per year by 2100. With respect to mitigation, we
find that associated costs strongly depend on
three factors: (1) the policy assumptions, (2) the socio-economic narrative, and (3) the stringency of the
target. The carbon price for reaching the target of 2.6 W/m2 that is consistent with a temperature change
limit of 2 �C, differs in our analysis thus by about a factor of three across the SSP marker scenarios.
Moreover, many models could not reach this target from the SSPs with high mitigation challenges. While
the SSPs were designed to represent different mitigation and adaptation challenges, the resulting
narratives and quantifications span a wide range of different futures broadly representative of the current
literature. This allows their subsequent use and development in new assessments and research projects.
Critical next steps for the community scenario process will, among others, involve regional and sectoral
extensions, further elaboration of the adaptation and impacts dimension, as well as employing the SSP
scenarios with the new generation of earth system models as part of the 6th climate model
intercomparison project (CMIP6).
This study modifies dynamic GTAP model and builds four bio-industries database to forecast path of transitioning toward bio-based economy through developing bio-pharmaceutical, biohydrogen, bioplastics and GM crops in China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan to 2050. The results reveal that the bio-pharmaceutical industry is expected to have the largest role in four bio-industries, and Japan and India will be the most sensitive countries. Biohydrogen is the most sensitive and investing efficiency bio-industry. India will be the largest market for GM products and the most sensitive market to investment in GM products in Asia. India and China will be top two countries in the bio-plastics industry. Japan is the most sensitive and investment efficient for high-tech bio-industry production. Asian countries will pay large prices to achieve 2 °C and 4 °C targets but can ease the negative impacts by decrease usage of fossil fuel gradually and developing bio-economy aggressively.
From a biophysical perspective, woody biomass resources are large enough to cover a substantial share of the world's primary energy consumption in 2050. However, these resources have alternative uses and their accessibility is limited, which tends to decrease their competitiveness with respect to other forms of energy. Hence, the key question of woody biomass use for energy is not the amount of resources, but rather their price. In this study we consider the question from the perspective of energy wood supply curves, which display the available amount of woody biomass for large-scale energy production at various hypothetical energy wood prices. These curves are estimated by the Global Biosphere Management Model (GLOBIOM), which is a global partial equilibrium model of forest and agricultural sectors. The global energy wood supply is estimated to be 0–23 Gm3/year (0–165 EJ/year) when energy wood prices vary in a range of 0–30/m3). If we add household fuelwood to energy wood, then woody biomass could satisfy 2–18% of world primary energy consumption in 2050. If primary forests are excluded from wood supply then the potential decreases up to 25%.
Concerns over climate change and the security of industrial feedstock supplies have been opening a growing market for biobased materials. This development, however, also presents a challenge to scientists, policy makers, and industry because the production of biobased materials requires land and is typically associated with adverse environmental effects. This article addresses the environmental impacts of biobased materials in a meta-analysis of 44 life cycle assessment (LCA) studies. The reviewed literature suggests that one metric ton (t) of biobased materials saves, relative to conventional materials, 55 ± 34 gigajoules of primary energy and 3 ± 1 t carbon dioxide equivalents of greenhouse gases. However, biobased materials may increase eutrophication by 5 ± 7 kilograms (kg) phosphate equivalents/t and stratospheric ozone depletion by 1.9 ± 1.8 kg nitrous oxide equivalents/t. Our findings are inconclusive with regard to acidification (savings of 2 ± 20 kg sulfur dioxide equivalents/t) and photochemical ozone formation (savings of 0.3 ± 2.4 kg ethene equivalents/t). The variability in the results of life cycle assessment studies highlights the difficulties in drawing general conclusions. Still, common to most biobased materials are impacts caused by the application of fertilizers and pesticides during industrial biomass cultivation. Additional land use impacts, such as the potential loss of biodiversity, soil carbon depletion, soil erosion, deforestation, as well as greenhouse gas emissions from indirect land use change are not quantified in this review. Clearly these impacts should be considered when evaluating the environmental performance of biobased materials.
This study evaluates the efficacy of green design principles such as the "12 Principles of Green Chemistry," and the "12 Principles of Green Engineering" with respect to environmental impacts found using life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. A case study of 12 polymers is presented, seven derived from petroleum, four derived from biological sources, and one derived from both. The environmental impacts of each polymer's production are assessed using LCA methodology standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Each polymer is also assessed for its adherence to green design principles using metrics generated specifically for this paper. Metrics include atom economy, mass from renewable sources, biodegradability, percent recycled, distance of furthest feedstock, price, life cycle health hazards and life cycle energy use. A decision matrix is used to generate single value metrics for each polymer evaluating either adherence to green design principles or life-cycle environmental impacts. Results from this study show a qualified positive correlation between adherence to green design principles and a reduction of the environmental impacts of production. The qualification results from a disparity between biopolymers and petroleum polymers. While biopolymers rank highly in terms of green design, they exhibit relatively large environmental impacts from production. Biopolymers rank 1, 2, 3, and 4 based on green design metrics; however they rank in the middle of the LCA rankings. Polyolefins rank 1, 2, and 3 in the LCA rankings, whereas complex polymers, such as PET, PVC, and PC place at the bottom of both ranking systems.
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