Integrated Systems for the Production of Food, Energy and Materials as a Sustainable Strategy for Decarbonization and Land Use: The Case of Sugarcane in Brazil

Abstract

The projected escalating use of renewables to meet the Paris Agreement goals has raised concerns about land-use pressures, particularly from biomass-based systems. This study introduces the concept of Integrated Food, Energy, and Materials Systems (IFEMS) as an strategy to optimize land-use efficiency for decarbonization. To evaluate the land-use efficiency of of IFEMS and other renewable resource-based systems, a novel parameter termed decarbonization density (DD) is proposed, which aggregates all services that reduce GHG emissions and remove carbon from atmosphere per unit of land. A case study on an archetypical integral sugarcane utilization system in Brazil is analyzed, indicating that the simultaneous production of food, energy, and materials can synergistically aid decarbonization efforts. The estimated DD for the baseline scenario is 20 tCO2e/ha, while in the innovative scenario (SC-innov), it rises to 145 tCO2e/ha. Most of this increase stems from including the production of fermented meat as a substitute of beef, which accounts for three quarters of DD’s value in SC-innov, indicating a high potential of this technology for contributing to decarbonization. These findings suggest that despite the relatively low yield of photosynthesis in storing solar energy over a given area, IFEMS may represent a land-use strategy for achieving decarbonization goals that is at least as efficient as other renewable energy systems.

Keywords: Integrated food, energy and materials system, Decarbonization, Land-use, Biomass conversion, Hard-to-abate, Mitigation