Key indicators for an integrated assessment of Biomass Value Chains

Due to intensified material and energetic use of biogenic resources in recent years, social controversies and acceptance issues have emerged around biomass production for these purposes. Since biomass is a limited raw material, future biomass utilization has to be carefully assessed in order to establish a sustainable bioeconomy.

The aim of the project is to identify integrative - economic, ecological, social and ethical oriented - key indicators for biomass value chains. Key indicators will be determined along the whole product life cycle with special consideration to competing and cascading utilization of biomass. In the following step they will be aggregated into a Bioeconomy Value Chain Index (BVC-Index) and evaluated with regard to the Sufficiency approach.

Representative value chains for bio-based products in Baden-Württemberg will be initially identified, assessed with the integrative key indicators and aggregated. The BVC-Index enables the comparison between bio-based value chains, even if they are based on different raw materials and pursue diverse final uses. Furthermore, the life cycle approach will be combined with a top-down model in cooperation with the "Competence Network Modeling the Bioeconomy" in order to evaluate the impacts of the bioeconomy system.

On this basis, recommendations for decision makers in politics, research and industry will be made. These recommendations will guarantee that the available biomass will not be overused and that the combined material and energetic value chains are acceptable from an ethical point of view and thus, ultimately, sustainable.

The project will be implemented by the Institute for Energy Economics and the Rational Use of Energy (IER) of the University of Stuttgart in cooperation with the International Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW) of the University of Tübingen. The IER conducts research in the fields of system analysis and technology assessment on issues in the overlapping areas of energy engineering, economics, environment, and society. The IZEW has accomplished numerous interdisciplinary projects concerning bioethics and environmental ethics, recently on issues related to land use, sustainability within the climate change debate, and food security.