A decentralized supply chain that integrates biomass depots as an intermediate pre‐processing hub may be an efficient way to obtain stable and dense non‐food carbohydrate commodities that are economically transportable over long distances. This paper presents an integrated geographic information systems (GIS) method based on transport optimization to design and compare the performance of a decentralized versus a centralized biorefinery supply system. The method determines the suitable locations, allocations, sizing, and number of depots according to different demand location scenarios. The method is exemplified by a real case study in southern Quebec. In the design, the biomass depot generates raw sugar, shipped to the biorefinery, and co‐products that are used on site without transportation as animal feed and bioenergy. This diversification strategy provided by a joint production permits savings amounting to two‐thirds of the tonnage on the second transportation arc. The results present the average travel time performance in minutes in different scenarios. In the centralized configuration, the optimized stand‐alone biorefinery location scenario is 45% (59 min) and 58% (100 min) more efficient in terms of transportation than the two biorefineries located in existing industrial parks. However, the latter have a decentralized configuration that is more efficient than their centralized equivalents. In the decentralized configuration, depending on farmer participation, the biorefineries located in the existing industrial park have a transportation performance 16–42% (27–55 min) that is more efficient than their respective centralized configuration. Smaller depots and the use of numerous depots tend to reduce the average impedance as biomass availability increases. This is due to the economies of transportation related to a denser and more meshed network. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Quebec, a province in Canada, is well positioned in the global bioeconomy. Its regions are overflowing with forest, agricultural crops or other organic residues that can be recovered and converted into bioproducts and bioenergy. Quebec's strength has long been in the forest products industry and municipal solid waste recycling. Product diversification is now targeted by many companies and municipalities. Value chains for bioproducts and bioenergy are set in practically all of Quebec's regions. In fact, most of them have their own ''communityscale'' bioeconomy project, even if the province of Quebec itself does not have yet its own bioproducts or bioeconomy roadmap. In this paper, various community-scale bioeconomy projects are presented and discussed. The role of cities and other local stakeholders in the deployment of these projects and the focus on getting products or coproducts for local uses are also elaborated. A framework involving the positive involvement of national and regional institutions and the development of a network with local stakeholders is proposed to increase the chance of success of community-scale bioeconomy projects. Community-Scale Bioeconomy Case Studies in Quebec Community-scale bioeconomy refers to activities related to the development of bioresources production and processing supported actively by local private and public stakeholders in a

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