6. Sustainability and environmental performance

The development of new industries using biomass as a raw material to produce a wide variety of products, via a large number of different transformation processes, raises the question of the associated environmental impacts. Under no circumstances does the use of bio-based carbon guarantee environmental neutrality.

The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method [G 5 500] provides a methodological framework for assessing the impacts of complete processes (in comparison with "site" approaches, which assess impacts at the point of installation). Ademe provides a database based on European...