OSiD: opening the conceptual design of biobased processes to a context-sensitive sustainability analysis

Biobased production has been promoted as an alternative to fossil-based production to mitigate climate change. However, emerging concerns over the sustainability of biobased products have shown that tensions can emerge between different objectives and concerns, like emission reduction targets and food security, and that these are dependent on...

A techno-economic analysis of membrane-based advanced treatment processes for the reuse of municipal wastewater

The objective of this paper is to compare, under Dutch market conditions, the energy consumption and net costs of membrane-based advanced treatment processes for three water reuse types (i.e. potable, industrial, agricultural reuse). The water source is municipal waste-water treatment plant effluent. Results indicate that the application of...

Incumbents' enabling role in niche-innovation: Power dynamics in a wastewater project

More pluralised understandings of incumbencies are often overlooked in transitions research, which may lead to underestimating the enabling roles of incumbents in niche projects. This study explores these roles by applying a power framework to five struggles revolving around a path-breaking decentralised wastewater treatment project in the...

Mitigating carbon emissions through sustainable aviation fuels: costs and potential

In general, the certified pathways for the production of sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) are still far from being competitive with fossil kerosene, although they have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, the mitigation costs related to SAFs and how they compete with the carbon credits market remain unclear. The...

Human health impacts of aviation biofuel production: Exploring the application of different life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methods for biofuel supply chains

The life cycle human health (HH) impacts related to aviation biofuels have been understood in a limited way. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methods for assessing HH are often associated with a high level of uncertainty and a low level of consensus. As a result, it remains challenging to perform a robust assessment of HH impacts with a...

Integrating Value Considerations in the Decision Making for the Design of Biorefineries

Biobased production has been promoted as a sustainable alternative to fossil resources. However, controversies over its impact on sustainability highlight societal concerns, value tensions and uncertainties that have not been taken into account during its development. In this work, the consideration of stakeholders’ values in a biorefinery...

The SPPD-WRF framework: A novel and holistic methodology for strategical planning and process design of water resource factories

This paper guides decision making in more sustainable urban water management practices that feed into a circular economy by presenting a novel framework for conceptually designing and strategically planning wastewater treatment processes from a resource recovery perspective. Municipal wastewater cannot any longer be perceived as waste stream...

Socioeconomic effects of aviation biofuel production in Brazil: A scenarios-based Input-Output analysis

Derived from renewable feedstocks, aviation biofuel is generally perceived as inherently sustainable. However, its production involves a wide range of sectors and interacts with different actors in society. It is therefore important to understand and evaluate not only the environmental impacts of that process, but also its socioeconomic...

Societal and Ethical Issues in Industrial Biotechnology

In this chapter we aim to give an overview of the main societal and ethical issues that are currently voiced around industrial biotechnology. We will illustrate this with some recent cases, such as the development of synthetic artemisinin, synthetic vanillin and vegetable oil produced by engineered algae. We show that current societal and...

Setting the design space of biorefineries through sustainability values, a practical approach

Sustainable development has become an outstanding aspiration in our society. However, the meaning of sustainability and how it should be operationalized is a complex issue that depends on subjective beliefs and values. To advance toward sustainable biobased production, we present an approach to delimit the design space of biorefineries by...

The role of bioenergy in a climate-changing world

Bioenergy has been under intense scrutiny over the last ten years with significant research efforts in many countries taking place to define and measure sustainable practices. We describe here the main challenges and policy issues and provide policy recommendations for scaling up sustainable bioenergy approaches globally. The 2016 Intended...

Reconciling food security and bioenergy: Priorities for action

Understanding the complex interactions among food security, bioenergy sustainability, and resource management requires a focus on specific contextual problems and opportunities. The United Nations' 2030 Sustainable Development Goals place a high priority on food and energy security; bioenergy plays an important role in achieving both goals....

A new tool to map the major worldviews in the Netherlands and USA, and explore how they relate to climate change

For addressing climate change, public support for changes in policy is needed, as well changes in individual lifestyles. Both of these appear to be intimately related with people's worldviews. Understanding these worldviews is therefore essential. In order to research and 'map' them, we translated the theoretical 'Integrative Worldview...