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Abstract: The growing need to use biofuel raw materials that do not compete with food and feed have resulted in a growing interest in lignocellulosic materials and microalgae. However, the life cycle environmental benefits of both biofuels have been questioned. The aim of this study was to evaluate how environmental sustainability of forest-based and microalgae biodiesel can be estimated by using the life cycle assessment framework. These biofuel chains were chosen because they are contrasting systems, as the first one is based on a “natural” feedstock production system, while the second one is an entirely anthropogenic system using an artificial infrastructure and external inputs to grow microalgae. This study focuses on life cycle impact categories still under methodological development, namely resource depletion, land use and land use change, water use, soil quality impacts and biodiversity. In addition, climate impacts were quantified in order to exemplify the uncertainty of the results and the complexity of estimating the parameters. This study demonstrates the difficulty to assess the absolute range of the total environmental impacts of the two systems. The results propose that the greenhouse gas emissions of microalgae biodiesel are higher than those of forest residue-based biodiesel, but the results of the microalgae chain are very uncertain due to the early development stage of the technology, and due to assumptions made concerning the electricity mix. On the other hand, the microalgae system has other advantages such as low competition on productive land and low biodiversity impacts. The findings help to recognise the main characteristics of the two production chains, and the main remaining research issues on bioenergy assessment along with the methodological development needs of life cycle approaches. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A commonly agreed methodology for weighting the relative importance of different environmental impacts in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is lacking, although it is becoming a typical phase in LCA. Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) provides an avenue to develop weighting tools applicable in LCA. The purpose of this paper is to describe a process of assessing environmental impacts of two alternative raw materials and to present the problems related to it. A panel which includes experts in measuring the environmental impacts of biomass production was requested to identify and weight impact categories to assess environmental impacts of biomass production. The panelists identified new environmental impacts (such as biodiversity) not included to the standard LCA. The highest weights were given by the panelists to climate change, natural land use change and biodiversity. The environmental impacts were analyzed for four case biomass production chains producing biodiesel and pulp in Finland. In case chains, the raw material for biodiesel is Asian palm oil or Finnish rapeseed oil, while the raw material for pulp is South American eucalyptus or Finnish birch. The calculations of the LCA impacts were limited to the impact categories for which inventory data were available. In calculations, different types of normalization procedures were tested to receive information on their effects on the LCA results. According to the results, in some cases normalization have considerable impact on the magnitude of the results. In general, the results imply that biomass imported from developing countries has less environmental impacts compared to the local forest and field biomass produced in Finland. However, due to the several sources of uncertainties included in the results, they are only to be used for illustrative purposes. In the future, applying the MCDA in LCA may deepen the applicability of the analyses, if valid and reliable data is available. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The study describes how qualitative stakeholder feedback can be used in quantitative scenarios to simulate forest resource use under alternative management objectives. In earlier studies in the region of eastern Finland, stakeholders did not see a possible conflict between increased bioenergy use and nature conservation; this finding is contrary to the results of other studies. The aim of this study was to test with a quantitative modelling approach whether the stakeholder expectation holds and whether forest management in eastern Finland can simultaneously increase biomass utilization and biodiversity protection. Prior to this study, three alternative scenarios on forest resource use were created in a participatory stakeholder process, involving a broad range of stakeholders, with half of them being from research and education. In the current study, a large-scale forest resource planning model (MELA) and a sustainability impact assessment tool (ToSIA) were used to simulate the different alternative scenarios and present the results back to the stakeholders in order to evaluate them. The scenarios were evaluated by stakeholders using multi-criteria analysis. In a survey, the stakeholders indicated that biodiversity, employment, recreational value and greenhouse gas emissions were the most important indicators to them, whereas growing stock, amount of harvested roundwood, energy wood and protected forest area were considered less important. Of the created scenarios, the scenario combining bioenergy and biodiversity targets was the most preferred by the stakeholders as it performed well on those indicators that were identified by stakeholders as the most important. In this scenario, the area of protected forest and bioenergy production were increased simultaneously. With this study we offer a framework for evaluating different alternatives for future land use. The framework helps to identify key issues that are important to the stakeholders so that they can be taken into consideration in future land-use planning. In addition, the results confirm the stakeholder expectation that by protecting more forests while simultaneously increasing the mobilization of potentially available wood resources, both targets can be met without compromising too much other forest functions such as timber production and recreation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impacts of bioeconomy on climate have been much discussed, but less attention has been given to biodiversity deterioration. One approach to assess biodiversity impacts is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Finland is a forested country with intensive forest industries, but only coarse biodiversity LCA methods are available. The aim of this study was to further develop and apply approaches to assess the biodiversity impacts of wood use in Finland. With the species richness approach (all taxons included), biodiversity impacts were higher in Southern than in Northern Finland but impacts in Southern and Northern Finland were lower when mammals, birds and molluscs were included. With the ecosystem indicators approach, if the reference situation were forest in its natural state, biodiversity impacts were higher than in the case where the initial state of forest before final felling was used to derive biodiversity loss. In both cases, the biodiversity impacts were higher in Northern Finland. These results were not coherent as the model applying species richness data assesses biodiversity loss based on all species, whereas the ecosystem indicators approach considers vulnerable species. One limitation of the species richness approach was that there were no reliable datasets available. In the ecosystem indicators approach, it was noticed that the biodiversity of managed Finnish forests is substantially lower than in natural forests. Biodiversity LCA approaches are highly sensitive to reference states, applied model and data. It is essential to develop approaches capable of comparing biodiversity impacts of forest management practices, or when looking at multiple environmental impacts simultaneously with the LCA framework. Image 1 • A life cycle approach was applied to assess the biodiversity impacts of wood use. • Characterisation factors were developed for boreal forests. • Approaches based on different indicators are not coherent. • Biodiversity impacts depend on the reference situation, indicators and datasets. • With the models, the biodiversity impact of forest products in LCA can be assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]