Polytechnic School, Post-Graduation Program in Materials Engineering and Technology, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
Research Article
Evaluating Sustainability of Biodiesel production Chain
Author(s): Rafael Batista Zortea, Vinícius Gonçalves Maciel*, Jaylton Bonacina de Araujo and Cássia Maria Lie Ugaya
This work provides an evaluating of the life cycle sustainability of biodiesel from soybean in Southern Brazil, one of Brazil's most important production regions of biodiesel and soybean. Life cycle approach and Dashboard of Sustainability (DoS) were applied to identify the hotspots gathering social, environmental and economic dimensions with the intention to obtain a sustainability factor index (SFI). Primary and secondary data were collected (specific and generic) covering all biodiesel soybean factories in Southern Brazil. Three environmental impact categories, three types of costs and four stakeholders were assessed. The results suggest that biodiesel production presented the most positive contribution to the economic dimension among all stages and that transportation had the worst value in all sustainability dimensions. In terms of the biodiesel production chain, the most critica.. View More»
