Life cycle assessment of wood-energy supply chains in mediterranean forests

This paper tackles the issue of using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology as a decision making tool for the sustainable design of wood-energy supply chains in the Mediterranean area. This work is based on linking forest protection, its sustainable use to meet the local energy demand, efficiency and economic/environmental sustainability of plants. This study integrated the LCA and sustainable design of supply chains, by applying it to a public forest located in Southern Italy. Environmental impacts were estimated for each phase of the supply chain, to identify the most critical processes to be improved for an increased sustainability. The LCA allowed identifying the most impactful phases, as well as recognizing the most relevant environmental impact categories, by performing also an uncertainty analysis on the results. It emerged that the wood chipping is the most impactful phase of the designed supply chain, and the Climate Change is the most impactful environmental impact category on the Areas of Protection (AoP). This scenario is more sustainable than a similar one based on fossil fuels.