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• Proposed BECCS deployment criteria are based on socio-enviro-economic objectives. • Life cycle emissions and carbon abatement costs are calculated. • Some of the BECCS pathways are less likely to achieve net negative emissions. • Balancing between socioeconomic aspects such as local job creation opportunities, cost, feedstock supply chain disruptions, and emission reduction targets is discussed. Countries are considering different options to achieve net zero emissions including Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), which is the process of capturing and storing CO 2 from processes that use bioenergy to produce heat, electricity, or biofuels. However, this technology faces sustainability concerns and possesses complex value chains of its emissions. Adding further to this complexity, the literature indicates two opposing views with respect to the potential of BECCS in terms of being able (or unable) to achieve negative emissions. Hence, this paper analyzes in detail a wide range of BECCS pathways in terms of their ability to achieve negative emissions along with their associated costs. Out of seven assessed pathways, our analysis shows that corn to ethanol and biomethane production from maize BECCS pathway in the USA, biomethane production from wet manure in Europe, and baling of straw pellets with trans-Atlantic shipment can achieve negative emissions at a cost of 50, 108, 159, and 232 dollars per ton of CO 2 ($/tCO 2) respectively. Other technologies like poplar pellets, forest residue, and agricultural residue with trans-Atlantic shipment are not able to achieve negative emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]