Page 59 - Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future

Triple bottom line, sustainability and sustainability assessment, an overview 53

Fig. 3.1 Typical life cycle stages of biofuels design, production, and use to be evaluated
within sustainability assessment and complemented with key concept for their
improvement.

production occurs. A wide spectrum of knowledge and competences are
needed to govern bioenergy expansion to harness opportunities and mini-
mize risks of negative impacts.
Assessment of biofuels from environmental, economic, and political
point of view has been growing over time (Demirbas, 2009) highlighting
the multidimensional nature of the problems and the existence of multiple,
often conflicting, objectives (Lovett et al., 2011). Indeed, biofuels are pro-
moted as replacements for transport fuels, but biofuel policies are also asked
to fulfill socioeconomic goals and strategic goals such as security of energy
supply. Notwithstanding biofuel has been evolved from first to fourth gen-
eration along with the assessment of different feedstock and production
technologies, sustainability concerns still exist. Liew et al. (2014) reviewed
the state of the art of technologies and assessment methods on economic per-
formance, safety, health, and environment (SHE) as well as social impact for
biofuel production, starting from the early process design phase of biofuel
production.
The following section illustrates key aspects of the sustainability assess-
ment, which are essential for a robust assessment, especially considering
the bioeconomy context.