Page 289 - Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future

CHAPTER 9

Social life cycle assessment

of biofuel production

Rosana Adami Mattioda, David Ribeiro Tavares, Jos e Luiz Casela,
Osiris Canciglieri Junior
Industrial and Systems Engineering Graduate Program (PPGEPS), Polytechnic School, Pontifical Catholic
University of Parana ´ (PUCPR), Curitiba, Brazil

Contents
1 Introduction 255
2 Social life cycle assessment (SLCA) 257
2.1 Social aspects and stakeholders in the production of biofuels 260
2.2 Cases of SLCA of biofuel 263
3 Conclusions 267
Acknowledgments 268
References 268

1 Introduction

Sustainability is now an essential principle in the management of environ-
mental resources where it is increasingly clear to society that the continued
use of fossil fuels for energy purposes has become unsustainable. The increas-
ing difficulties and costs of exploiting global oil reserves and the need to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with their use around the world
are undermining the use of fossil fuels. First generation biofuels which derive
from terrestrial crops put a lot of pressure on global food markets, contribute
to water scarcity, and accelerate the destruction of forests. The sustainability
of biofuels will depend on the development of advanced, sustainable, and
commercially viable technologies. Several studies have been conducted
on the technical feasibility of growing different types of organisms for the
production of biofuels in laboratory, which have proven the absence of
many of the major disadvantages associated with current biofuels. It is
believed that economic viability is currently the main obstacle to be over-
come by still immature biofuel technologies. The issue is not whether
advanced biofuels are technically possible but focuses on whether they

Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future © 2020 Elsevier Inc.
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-815581-3.00009-9 All rights reserved. 255