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The decentralization of waste management argues to support better planning, fair distribution of material and economic resources, and increased citizen participation. This study aims at assessing the environmental and economic performance of a decentralized biowaste management system, using the frameworks of life cycle assessment and net present value analysis. Five scenarios are designed to reflect the transition from an energy-centered biowaste management (scenario 1) towards a novel biorefinery system (scenario 2) and its expansion to a decentralized network (scenarios 3, 4, and 5) of small-scale plants treating urban biowaste. The global warming potential of the energy-centered system is 134 kg CO2 eq, while the biorefinery system offers mitigation of the global warming by -4324 kg CO2 eq t−1 biowaste treated. The decentralized network designed to capture 20% of the urban biowaste generated in Lyon Metropolitan (S5) provides environmental (S5a: -1983 kg CO2 eq, S5b: -1992 kg CO2 eq) and economic (S5a: 491€, S5b: 475€) benefits, especially when collection is performed with electric bikes (S5b) and the bio-products substitute resource and energy intensive equivalents in the market. Collection with electric bikes contributes to a low-carbon economy while significantly increases labor costs. The transition towards a bio-based economy can transform biowaste management into novel cascading biorefineries of multiple high-value products. Resilient and optimized system design can support low carbon economies and increase employment while being economically sustainable.

Biobased industries require to be assessed on their positive and negative impacts on sustainable development. However, social factors are usually neglected in the majority of impact assessments of biobased industries: they are mainly focused on environmental performance and (techno)-economic assessments. This review proposes a new systemic approach for assessing and integrating the social dimension into sustainability assessments of biobased industries. First the main methodologies for assessing social impacts in biobased industries are compared. Social Life Cycle Analysis (SLCA) is considered to have promising methodological attributes for biobased industries’ social sustainability assessment, although it is still in its early steps of development. Second, a new systemic framework was developed following the four main iterative steps of an SLCA framework and based on three useful SLCA-based approaches including Product Social Impact Assessment; Prosuite and the UNEP SETAC Guidelines for SLCA of Products. Theproposed framework allows incorporating the social impacts into a techno-economic assessments (TEA) model through providing both a final social score and separate scores for each indicator category and life cycle phase. The result of this study particularly highlights the importance of considering social issues in biobased industries’design and innovation. Using the proposed systemic approach, industry and policy makers gain a better insight into the full sustainability performance (i.e. including social aspects) of biobased industries.

The economic competitiveness of biobased industries is discussed by comparing the South relative to other regions of the United States and biomass as a feedstock source relative to fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum. An estimate of the biomass resource base is provided. Estimated changes in the agricultural sector over time resulting from the development of a large-scale biobased industry are reported, and a study on the potential to produce electricity from biomass compared with coal in the southern United States is reviewed. A biobased industry can increase net farm income and enhance economics development and job creation.