Abstract
Although the world energy mix is still strongly dependent on fossil fuels, biofuels have been gaining market share, especially in the transport sector. The main biofuel raw materials are those produced by agropastoral systems that use large expanses of land. The present work presents an innovative method of sustainability assessment of biodiesel, combining temporal and regional approaches based on its three pillars. The method aims to ascertain whether a determined region, whose main economic activities are agropastoral and processing of agricultural raw materials, is moving toward or away from sustainability. The work integrates tools to evaluate land use change from satellite images with life-cycle assessment, to obtain greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as the environmental metric. The economic and social metrics are the time derivative of per capita gross domestic product and the school enrolment ratio. The improvement of agropastoral/industrial activities in the region directly reflects the changes of the three metrics. The proposed method was applied to assess the sustainability of biodiesel produced from soybean oil and beef tallow in a micro-region of Central Brazil, in the period from 2003 to 2013. The case study revealed a reduction of 10% in sustainability, with improvements of 344% and 15% in the economic and social metrics but a decline of 1106% in the environmental metric. The results also showed that for both biodiesel made from soy oil and tallow, land use change is responsible for 97% of GHG emissions. The conclusion is that the implementation of automation of agricultural processes, with consequent increase in productivity, besides diminishing the environmental impact, would lead to an increase in gross domestic product indices and in the average schooling level, thus contributing to reduce social inequalities and increase the sustainability of agricultural-based biodiesel.
Graphic abstract
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Achten WMJ, Verchot LV (2011) Implications of biodiesel-induced land-use changes for CO2 emissions: case studies in tropical America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Ecol Soc 16(4):14. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04403-160414
ANP (2019) National agency of petroleum, natural gas and biofuels. Biodiesel monthly report (in Portuguese)
Bringezu S, O’Brien M, Schütz H (2012) Beyond biofuels: assessing global land use for domestic consumption of biomass: a conceptual and empirical contribution to sustainable management of global resources. Land Use Policy 29(1):224–232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2011.06.010
Brondani M, Hoffman R, Mayer-Dias F, Schmidt-Kleinert J (2015) Environmental and energy analysis of biodiesel production in Rio Grande do Sul Brazil. Clean Technol Environ Policy 17(1):129–143. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-014-0768-x
Castanheira EG, Freire F (2013) Greenhouse gas assessment of soybean production: implications of land use change and different cultivation systems. J Clean Prod 54:49–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.05.026
Castanheira EG, Grisoli R, Freire F, Pecora V, Coelho ST (2014) Environmental sustainability of biodiesel in Brazil. Energy Policy 65:680–691. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2013.09.062
Castanheira EG, Grisoli R, Coelho S, da Silva GA, Freire F (2015) Life cycle assessment of soybean-based biodiesel in Europe: comparing grain, oil and biodiesel import from Brazil. J Clean Prod 102:188–201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.04.036
Cavalett O, Ortega E (2010) Integrated environmental assessment of biodiesel production from soybean in Brazil. J Clean Prod 18:55–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2009.09.008
Escobar N, Ribal J, Clemente G, Sanjuán N (2014) Consequential LCA of two alternative systems for biodiesel consumption in Spain, considering uncertainty. J Clean Prod 79:61–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.05.065
Esteves VPP, Esteves EMM, Bungenstab DJ, Loebmann DGSW, Victoria DC, Vicente LE, Araujo OQF, Morgado CRV (2016) Land use change (LUC) analysis and life cycle assessment (LCA) of Brazilian soybean biodiesel. Clean Technol Environ Policy 18:1655–1673. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-016-1161-8
Esteves VPP, Esteves EMM, Bungenstab DJ, Feijó GLD, Araújo ODQF, Morgado CRV (2017) Assessment of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions from the tallow biodiesel production chain including land use change (LUC). J Clean Prod 151:578–591. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.03.063
Esteves EMM, Herrera AMN, Esteves VPP, Morgado CRV (2019) Life cycle assessment of manure biogas production: a review. J Clean Prod 219:411–423. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.02.091
Hamilton K (2003) Sustaining economic welfare: estimating changes in total and per capita wealth. Environ Dev Sustain 5:419–436. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025716711086
Hausman C (2012) Biofuels and land use change: sugarcane and soybean acreage response in Brazil. Environ Resour Econ 51:163–187. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-011-9493-7
IPCC (2003) Intergovernmental panel on climate change. In: Good practice guidance for land use, land-use change and forestry, Hayama. www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/gpglulucf/gpglulucf_contents.html. Accessed 22 June 2018
IPCC (2006) Intergovernmental panel on climate change. In: Agriculture, forestry and other land use. 2006 IPCC guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories, vol. 4, Hayama. www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/vol4.html. Accessed 22 June 2018
IPCC (2007) Intergovernmental panel on climate change. In: Climate change 2007. The physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the 4th assessment report of IPCC, New York. www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4_wg1_full_report.pdf. Accessed 22 June 2018
IPCC (2014) Intergovernmental panel on climate change. Climate Change 2014: mitigation of climate change. Contribution of working group III to the 5th assessment report of IPCC. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_ar5_frontmatter.pdf. Accessed 22 June 2018
ISO (2006) International standardization organization. Environmental management—life cycle assessment—principles and framework, ISO 14040, Geneva. www.iso.org/standard/37456.html. Accessed 22 June 2018
Luque R, Lovett JC, Datta B, Clancy J, Campelo JM, Romero AA (2010) Biodiesel as feasible petrol fuel replacement: a multidisciplinary overview. Energy Environ Sci 3(11):1706–1721. https://doi.org/10.1039/C0EE00085J
Marta AD, Mancini M, Ferrise R, Bindi M, Orlandini S (2010) Energy crops for biofuel production: analysis of the potential in Tuscany. Biomass Bioenerg 34(7):1041–1052. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2010.02.012
Mata TM, Martins AA, Sikdar SK, Costa CA (2011) Sustainability considerations of biodiesel based on supply chain analysis. Clean Technol Environ Policy 13(5):655–671. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-010-0346-9
MSTI (2015) Ministry of science, technology and innovation. Reference report of land use and land use change and forestry sector of third national communication of Brazil to the United Nations framework convention on climate change, Brasilia. http://sirene.mcti.gov.br/documents/1686653/1706165/RR_LULUCF_Mudan%C3%A7a+de+Uso+e+Floresta.pdf/11dc4491-65c1-4895-a8b6-e96705f2717a. Accessed 03 Nov 2016 (in Portuguese)
Myllyviita T, Holma A, Antikainen R, Lähtinen K, Leskinen P (2012) Assessing environmental impacts of biomass production chains—application of life cycle assessment (LCA) and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). J Clean Prod 29:238–245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.01.019
Peters J, Thielmann S (2008) Promoting biofuels: implications for developing countries. Energy Policy 36:1538–1544. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2008.01.013
Prapaspongsa T, Musikavong C, Gheewala SH (2017) Life cycle assessment of palm biodiesel production in Thailand: impacts from modelling choices, co-product utilisation, improvement technologies, and land use change. J Clean Prod 153:435–447. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.03.130
Pre-sustainability (2016) SimaPro 8. Database and methods library. www.pre-sustainability.com/simapro-database-and-methods-library. Accessed 06 Nov 2018
Rajaeifar MA, Ghobadian B, Safa M, Heidari MD (2014) Energy life-cycle assessment and CO2 emissions analysis of soybean-based biodiesel: a case study. J Clean Prod 66:233–241. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.10.041
Renzaho AM, Kamara JK, Toole M (2017) Biofuel production and its impact on food security in low and middle income countries: implications for the post-2015 sustainable development goals. Renew Sust Energ Rev 78:503–516. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.04.072
Rocha MH, Capaz RS, Lora EES, Nogueira LAH, Leme MMV, Renó MLG, Olmo OA (2014) Life cycle assessment for biofuels in Brazilian conditions: a meta-analysis. Renew Sust Energ Rev 37:435–459. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2014.05.036
Santos OIB, Rathmann R (2009) Identification and analysis of local and regional impacts from the introduction of biodiesel production in the state of Piauí. Energy Policy 37(10):4011–4020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2009.05.002
Shonnard DR, Kicherer A, Saling P (2003) Industrial applications using BASF eco-efficiency analysis: perspectives on green engineering principles. Environ Sci Technol 37(23):5340–5348. https://doi.org/10.1021/es034462z
Sikdar S (2009) On aggregating multiple indicators into a single metric for sustainability. Clean Technol Environ Policy 11:157–161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-009-0225-4
Tokunaga K, Konan DE (2014) Home grown or imported? Biofuels life cycle GHG emissions in electricity generation and transportation. Appl Energy 125:123–131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.03.026
UN (2015) United Nations—Department of Economic and Social Affairs—Population Division. World urbanization prospects 2014 revision, New York
UNDP (1990) United Nations development program—human development report 1990. Oxford University Press, New York
Van Dam J, Faaij AP, Hilbert J, Petruzzi H, Turkenburg WC (2009) Large-scale bioenergy production from soybeans and switchgrass in Argentina: Part B Environmental and socio-economic impacts on a regional level. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 13(8):1679–1709. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2009.03.012
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Esteves, V.P.P., Morgado, C.d.V. & Fernandes Araújo, O.d. Regional and temporal sustainability assessment of agricultural-based biodiesel. Clean Techn Environ Policy 22, 965–978 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-020-01842-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-020-01842-x