Estimate Environmental Benefits of Circular Biomass Valorisation

Quantify environmental benefits and impacts and compare common and alternative uses/destinations of biomass streams

Increasing demands for food, feed, bioenergy, biofuels and biomaterials result in growing pressure on available feedstocks. In order to best fulfil all demands, materials should be most effectively used, taking in consideration functionality of materials for destinations and opportunities for multiple use through circular cascading and biorefinery.

It is broadly recognized that substituting primary inputs and fossil-derived fuels and materials is environmentally beneficial. However, even in the scientific domain the question remains which destination is most beneficial. Rigid hierarchies (like the EU Food Waste Hierarchy) overlook specific functionalities of a material for a destination. For applications in similar domains (e.g. comparison of bioenergy and PHA) comparisons of (environmental) performance for different biobased applications are rarely addressed . Identified references that do actually make such comparisons focus on a single feedstock,. The results presented in this deliverable show that the ranking of most beneficial destinations (in terms of environmental benefit) depends on characteristics of the residue stream

This website provides insights and tools that support more considered evaluation and decision taking on valorisation residues and other biomass streams.