In 2021, Europe produced a staggering 34 billion litres of beer. Each cubic meter of beer yields 0.2 tons of valuable side-product, known as brewer’s spent grain. However, within beer production, residues and side streams occurring from agricultural products are often overlooked and considered waste. The project CHEERS, funded by Horizon Europe, is revolutionizing the beer industry by transforming these side streams into innovative bio-based products. By taking a holistic perspective, an LCSA (including environmental, social, and economic impacts) analysis aims to identify potential hotspots, trade-offs, and synergies across different life cycle stages and sustainability dimensions of the new value chains.

At the Life Cycle Assessment Conference LCA Food 2024 on September 8th in Barcelona, France, Dimitri Chryssolouris from the LCA research group at ZHAW presented the LCSA approach for the CHEERS biorefinery in the poster session.

 

The suggested comprehensive Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) quantifies the environmental, social, and economic impacts of the entire CHEERS biorefinery system, with a specific focus on biodiversity, socio-economic effects, and economic feasibility through Techno-Economic Assessment (TEA). Furthermore, different brewery scale-up scenarios and allocation methods be applied to provide diverse effects on results, since it is crucial whether cut-off approach or economic allocation is applied for residues and side stream valorization.

The LCA Food Conference was the perfect opportunity to share our insights, to exchange with fellow researcher and foster discussions!