A holistic sustainability assessment tool for bioenergy using the Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) sustainability indicators

• Published in: Biomass & bioenergy Vol. 66; pp. 70 - 80
• Main Authors: Hayashi, Takashi, van Ierland, Ekko C., Zhu, Xueqin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.07.2014; Elsevier
• Subjects: Alternative fuels. Production and utilization; Applied sciences; Biodiesel; Biofuel production; biofuels; Biological and medical sciences; Biomass; Biotechnology; case studies; diesel fuel; Energy; Exact sciences and technology; food-prices; fuel production; Fuels; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP); Holistic assessment; Industrial applications and implications. Economical aspects; issues and policy; Miscellaneous; Multi Criteria Analysis; Natural energy; Sustainability indicator; Weak sustainability; Asia; Japan; Japan, Honshu, Kyoto Prefect., Kyoto; Multi Criteria Analysis; Biodiesel; Sustainability indicator; Weak sustainability; Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP); Holistic assessment; Multicriteria analysis; Power production; System sustainability; Biofuel; Indicator; Aggregation; Case study; Global bioenergy partnership; Bioenergy
• ISSN: 0961-9534; 1873-2909
• DOI: 10.1016/j.biombioe.2014.01.040

In 2011 the Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) released a set of indicators for sustainable bioenergy. However, two important issues still remain unresolved. One of them is the definition of “sustainability”, and the other is the lack of a holistic assessment tool for drawing conclusions from the indicators. The aim of this paper is to provide clarification on the concept of sustainability in the context of the GBEP indicators, and to develop a holistic assessment tool for assessing the sustainability of bioenergy programmes. The GBEP indicators are diverse in terms of “what to measure”, and some of them are not sufficiently directly related to the concept of sustainability. This makes the indicators ambiguous regarding to sustainability assessment. This study identifies whether the GBEP indicators are concerned with strong or weak sustainability, and develops a tool based on Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA) which can be used for assessing sustainability of bioenergy programmes using the GBEP indicators. The tool is demonstrated in an example for assessing the sustainability of biofuel production in a case study of Kyoto. We found that the biodiesel production in Kyoto performs well on the environmental pillar, but badly on the economic pillar, and based on the weights applied in this study the overall sustainability is better than diesel fuel. The holistic assessment tool provides practical information to policymakers on both ex-ante and ex-post policy evaluations. •We clarified the sustainability concept of Global Bioenergy Partnership indicators.•We identified whether the GBEP indicators are based on strong or weak sustainability.•We developed a holistic sustainability assessment tool using Multi Criteria Analysis.•We demonstrated the tool using a case study of the biodiesel production in Kyoto.•Biodiesel in Kyoto performed better than diesel especially in environmental field.