Environmental analysis of biotechnologies for biofuels, bioplastics, and bioproducts: a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions review

Biotechnology and biomanufacturing development has the potential to strengthen the bioeconomy as new opportunities in many areas such as the energy, chemical, agriculture, pharmaceutical, and food industries can be unlocked. Biotechnology and biomanufacturing refer to the technologies that use microorganisms, molecular biology, metabolic engineering, and chemical processing to transform biobased resources (e.g., biomass) into new products. These microorganisms are genetically engineered in such a way that the production of new products happens more efficiently. Creating new products through biotechnology and biomanufacturing will promote shifting from a fossil-based economy to a bioeconomy. However, these new technologies will need to be evaluated from the accessibility, affordability, and sustainability point of view. In this paper, a review of recent studies evaluating the carbon footprint of biotechnologies to produce fuel, bioplastics, and bioproducts is presented. The assumptions, biogenic and coproduct credit subtraction, and co-product treatment methods in the life-cycle assessment (LCA) showed an important impact on the results of the different studies. Besides, integrated biorefineries presented an alternative to improve the environmental impact of bioproducts compared to single-product refineries.