Assessing eco-efficiency of alternative biorefining technologies in agri-food supply chains

To remain competitive, current agri-food supply chains must become eco-efficient which implies that they will have to maximize productivity while minimising their environmental burden. Biomass and side streams which currently are considered waste should be valorized efficiently. Modern biorefining technologies provide feasible alternative production possibilities that enable production of biomass-based products like bioethanol and biogas from crop residues. Their implementation also allows for alternative supply chain configurations. The capacity of these technologies to improve eco-efficiency of agri-food supply chains must be evaluated quantitatively before implementation.
Diffusion of these technologies depends on the way benefits are distributed to the involved links of the supply chain. This implies that important decisions at strategic and operational level in different links of the chain must be taken into account explicitly. We develop a multi-objective Mixed Integer Linear Programming model to optimize decision making at farm and processing level of the sugar supply chain in the Netherlands. Optimal solutions at chain level led to unattractive decisions for individual decision making units. Therefore, a set of eco-efficient solutions was calculated, taking into account cost or benefit sharing between the decision making units considered. Financial incentives for individual decision making units affect the overall eco-efficiency performance of the entire chain.