Identification and certification of low indirect land use impact biomass for the eu bioeconomy

The EU Bioeconomy is considered an ambitious concept aiming at to promote several targets related to environmental, social and economic sustainability. One of the main concerns and risks associated with the development of a growing bioeconomy in the EU is the increasing demand for land to support additional biomass production. This increasing demand might be associated with a number of negative impacts such as for example deforestation, the loss of natural habitats and ecosystem services. The EU H2020 project STAR-ProBio aims at the development of a comprehensive framework for the sustainability assessment of biobased products. As part of this framework development, we are analyzing potential strategies for the production of biomass associated with low indirect impacts and a low demand for land, respectively. This paper highlights the main intermediate findings and describes potential next steps until the end of the STAR-ProBio project.