Figure 4: Comparison of impacts resulting from different assumptions of land-use change under increased bio-feedstock demand.
From: Life cycle assessment needs predictive spatial modelling for biodiversity and ecosystem services
LUCI-LCA impacts of HDPE production on (a) global warming potential, (b) eutrophication potential, (c) erosion potential and (d) biodiversity damage potential. Impacts modelled using the logistic LCM (in dark yellow) and proximity-based LCM (in light yellow) are presented per tonne of HDPE for production scenario 3 (321,000 tonnes). LUCI-LCA impacts corresponding to actual LUC (in orange) are the impacts modelled in LUCI-LCA for agricultural expansion that occurred between 2007 and 2012 in both regions (Iowa for maize and Mato Grosso for sugarcane), converted to per tonne of HDPE production possible if that amount of additional agricultural acreage were used for HDPE production from the respective bio-feedstocks. Standard LCA results (in red) are shown as the per-tonne impact for every scenario (all identical, as shown in Fig. 2). Error bars show the high and low estimates of sensitivity analysis resulting from uncertainty in InVEST parameter and crop yields (Supplementary Methods and Supplementary Table 29). LUC, land-use change.
