Sustainability Indicators for Biobased Product Manufacturing: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Indicators are effective decision-supporting tools to assess and evaluate progress toward sustainability for a given system. This paper reviews the literature on the four pillars of sustainability (environmental, economic, technical, and social) and relevant indicators used in the agricultural, manufacturing, and materials sectors to determine a framework for manufacturing biobased products as only individual sectors have been studied in detail. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) methodology is used to select 40 papers for review in this study. This paper suggests 22 categories encompassing 33 core measurable indicators with respective units for biobased manufacturing sectors to determine the sustainability of an end product while holistically understanding the standpoint of biomaterial industries in assessing a sustainable supply chain.

Embodied Energy in Pyrolysis and Solvolysis Approaches to Recycling for Carbon Fiber-Epoxy Reinforced Composite Waste Streams

“…The hot gases condense to form oil within the hydrocracking system. The post-processing of recycled carbon fiber can follow number of routes [12]. In this work, the post-recycle conversion into intermediate mats was assumed.…”

“…Solvolysis is a chemical process that is applied at low (subcritical) or high (supercritical) temperatures [9]. Solvolysis acts on the composite at supercritical temperature and pressure (conducted at 375-650 • C ranging between 22-35 MPa [12] of the solvent. A catalyst decreases operation time [9] to dissolve the resin and recover the fiber for remanufacture.…”

“…With respect to solvolysis, solvents related to the supercritical process have been considered. Additionally, the overall reduction in EE from one generation to the next is demonstrated using the cut-off approach [12,13]. This helps determine the change in EE within the product from one generation to the next.…”

“…The cut-off by classification recycling approach [12,13,28,29] was applied to distinguish how energy values are split between the two generations of CF-epoxy laminates postrecycling as allocation is a key issue in LCA. Key takeaways from the cut-off approach are: (1) the recycler is rewarded for the amount of EOL waste recycled in that life (meaning, this energy is not considered in Life 1); (2) landfilling is always considered a burden, irrespective of the life it occurs in (energy is counted); (3) refurbished material used in post-recycled lives take up the value of recycling that was earlier not counted, based on the ratio that is used in place of the virgin material; (4) virgin burdens are always accounted for in all lives.…”

A systematic review of research on food loss and waste prevention and management for the circular economy

“…Much attention is given to environmental and economic assessments, while the inclusion of social aspects is rare and mainly constrained to job creation (Ubando et al, 2020), which demands further consideration. A list of social indicators proposed by Kooduvalli et al (2019); Ioannidou et al (2020) can be employed.…”