Project level assessment of indirect land use changes arising from biofuel production
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Di Lucia, Lorenzo
Sevigne-Itoiz, Eva
Peterson, Steve
Bauen, Ausilio
Slade, Raphael
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The use of land resources has a strong influence on the sustainability of biofuel production. An assessment of both direct and indirect changes in land use is necessary if an accurate assessment of sustainability is to be made. An increasing number of studies have developed approaches to estimate the Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) impacts of biofuels at global, national or regional level, but assessing ILUC remains a challenging task and estimates vary widely. In this study, we suggest that a socially motivated, project level approach can provide robust insight into the conditions affecting land use change dynamics. We developed a causal‐descriptive approach named ILUC Project ASsessment Tool (ILUC PAST) for project level assessment of ILUC. It uses a tiered multitool analysis—from local to global—combined with extensive stakeholder engagement. A real‐world project for the production of cellulosic ethanol in Sardinia (Italy) was used to evaluate the tool and benchmark the results against two alternatives for project level assessment: the ‘Low Indirect Impact Biofuel’ methodology and the ‘iLUC Club’ method. The results of the case study of advanced biofuels suggest that the quantitative estimates of ILUC combined with the in‐depth understanding of the cause‐and‐effect dynamics provided by ILUC PAST are sufficiently credible, salient and legitimate to support project level and local decision‐making.
Date Issued
2019-11
Date Acceptance
2019-06-18
Citation
Global Change Biology Bioenergy, 2019, 11 (11), pp.1361-1375
ISSN
1757-1693
Publisher
Wiley Open Access
Start Page
1361
End Page
1375
Journal / Book Title
Global Change Biology Bioenergy
Volume
11
Issue
11
Copyright Statement
© 2019 The Authors. GCB Bioenergy Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (E
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000487440100001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Grant Number
EP/M013200/1
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Technology
Agronomy
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Energy & Fuels
Agriculture
biofuels
cellulosic ethanol
iLUC Club
ILUC PAST
indirect land use changes
land use models
Low Indirect Impact Biofuel
Sardinia
LOW-ILUC-RISK
MODELS
ETHANOL
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2019-07-01