Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Book chapters
DOI 10.1007/978-3-031-29294-1_8
Licence creative commons licence
Title (Primary) Life cycle sustainability assessment for sustainable bioeconomy, societal-ecological transformation and beyond
Title (Secondary) Progress in life cycle assessment 2021
Author Zeug, W.; Bezama, A.; Thrän, D.
Publisher Hesser, F.; Kral, I.; Obersteiner, G.; Hörtenhuber, S.; Kühmaier, M.; Zeller, V.; Schebek, L.
Source Titel Sustainable Production, Life Cycle Engineering and Management
Year 2023
Department BIOENERGIE
Page From 131
Page To 159
Language englisch
Topic T5 Future Landscapes
Keywords Life cycle sustainability assessment; Bioeconomy; Political economy; Decoupling
Abstract Decoupling the fulfillment of societal needs from an ever-increasing production of goods together with decoupling this sufficient production from negative environmental, social and economic impacts, is and will be the major challenge of our economic systems to avoid an even deeper socio-ecological crisis. The ascending bioeconomy practices have to be assessed with regard to their potential to provide a good life for all within planetary boundaries Addressing this, life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) is necessary to integrate social, environmental and economic sustainability assessments. However, LCSAs are still in their infancy and a series of practical problems can be traced back to a lack of sound sustainability concepts and applied political economy/ecology. We reflect on social, ecological and economic sustainability, our societal relations to nature and a necessary societal-ecological transformation in order to structure a systemic framework for holistic and integrated LCSA (HILCSA). This framework allows an implementation in openLCA, conducting the inventory and impact assessment with harmonized databases and more coherent results compared to previous approaches. For further development we identify questions of political economy/ecology as significant. The idea of a bioeconomy as well as systemic assessments is a question of the perception of ends and means of a societal transformation.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=27383
Zeug, W., Bezama, A., Thrän, D. (2023):
Life cycle sustainability assessment for sustainable bioeconomy, societal-ecological transformation and beyond
In: Hesser, F., Kral, I., Obersteiner, G., Hörtenhuber, S., Kühmaier, M., Zeller, V., Schebek, L. (eds.)
Progress in life cycle assessment 2021
Sustainable Production, Life Cycle Engineering and Management
Springer, Cham, p. 131 - 159 10.1007/978-3-031-29294-1_8