Experts address the question: “Can the growing demand for biofuels be met without threatening food security?”

McNeely, Jeffrey A.; Solh, Mahmoud; Hiremath, Rahul; Kumar, Bimlesh; Suarez, Paulo A. Z.; Uprety, Kishor; Abdulrahim, Marufdeen Adekunle; Ruf, François; Legoupil, Jean‐Claude

doi:10.1111/j.1477-8947.2009.01220.x

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The same study concludes that agrofuels only contribute to modest increases in agricultural value in developing countries and also create additional risks of deforestation and other threats to biodiversity. Others acknowledge that improvements are needed in policies and technology in order to meet global demands for both food and biofuel feedstocks (McNeely et al, 2009;Tilman et al, 2009). The same argumentation should be applicable to an increase in the overall use of biomaterials in society, which could be one of the results of turning to wood-based diapers.…”

Section: Agrofuel and Petrofuelmentioning

confidence: 98%

Changing from petroleum to wood-based materials: critical review of how product sustainability characteristics can be assessed and compared

Clancy

Fröling

Svanström

2013

Journal of Cleaner Production

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Life cycle perspective Sustainable resource management Material development Diaper Nappy Absorbent hygiene product a b s t r a c t This paper reports on a literature survey on available approaches for the assessment of product sustainability, with a specific focus on assessing the replacement of non-renewable petroleum-based materials with renewable wood-based materials in absorbent hygiene products. The results are contrasted to needs in a specific material development project.A diverse number of methods exist that can help in assessing different product sustainability characteristics for parts of or whole product life cycles. None of the assessment methods found include guidelines for how to make a case-specific interpretation of sustainability and there is a general lack of assessment parameters that can describe considerations in the comparison between the use of wood or petroleum as main raw material. One reason for this is lack of knowledge and/or consensus on how to describe and assess impacts of land and water use, e.g. on ecosystem services, different types of resource depletion and social impacts.

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Section: Agrofuel and Petrofuelmentioning

confidence: 98%