Integrated assessment of sustainability trade-offs and pathways for global bioenergy production: Framing a novel hybrid approach

Current controversies and debates on bioenergy production in the areas of greenhouse gases emission reduction, food and energy security, social exclusion and welfare erosion, and ecosystem deterioration attest to the challenges which the bioenergy sector has to overcome to achieve its global production potentials. Because it is yet an evolving sector, the sustainability of bioenergy production in different regions is very elusive. Experiences show that bioenergy policies in one region can have impacts not only on its own but also on other regions’ social, economic and ecological sustainability. It is thus important to assess development pathways for bioenergy to exploit the potential benefits and forestall any unnecessary costs. This paper frames a novel hybrid approach for assessing bioenergy potentials for regions with diverging economic, social and ecological systems. The approach is based on a conceptual framework that takes into account trade-offs decisions on sustainability goals and production options in the assessment of bioenergy pathways. It combines different empirical techniques for the systematic investigation of trade-offs and pathways including fuzzy logic, conjoint, logit, and path analyses. To show the relevance and utility of these techniques for the integrated assessment of trade-offs and pathways in bioenergy development, we illustrated their application using results and data from previous related studies.