The change in process industry from fossil resources to alternative feedstock is indispensable due to the scarcity of resources and global warming. This leads to new challenges for the production systems. On the market side, rapid innovation is accompanied by shorter product life cycles leading to an increasing uncertainty of demand in terms of product type, volume and location. Therefore, the following five elements are combined into a concept to address these challenges: transformable production systems, local bio-based resources, CO 2 as feedstock, renewable energy and decentral production network with local economies.

Due to high energy-intensive processes and a dependence on carbon-based materials, the process industry plays a major role in climate change. Therefore, the substitution of fossil resources by biobased resources is indispensable. This leads to challenges arising from accompanying changes of the type, amount and location of resources. At the same time, transformable production systems are currently in the focus of research addressing the required flexibility. These systems which consist of modular production and logistics units offer the possibility to adapt flexibly in volatile conditions within dynamic supply chains. Hence, this work compiles elements for environmental sustainability, which minimize the carbon footprint in the process industry: transformable production systems, the utilization of bio-based resources, carbon dioxide and renewable energy as well as the application of these elements in decentral production networks. Finally, possible use cases are determined based on the combination of these elements through a multi-criteria analysis.

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