Optimising sustainability: Circular pathways for Scotch Whisky distillery co-products

Colm Duffy; David Styles; Isabel Schestak; Kenneth Macgregor; Frances Jack; Daniel Henn; Kirsty Black; Pietro P.M. Iannetta

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.136436

Optimising sustainability: Circular pathways for Scotch Whisky distillery co-products

Colm Duffy, David Styles, Isabel Schestak, Kenneth Macgregor, Frances Jack, Daniel Henn, Kirsty Black, Pietro P.M. Iannetta

School of Environmental & Natural Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

The use of co-products for animal feed can potentially have a higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and water scarcity offset compared to bio-energy (bio-electricity/fuel) production. We cluster 136 Scotch Whisky distilleries and evaluate the co-product pathways for the production of animal-feed and/or bio-energy at centralised processing facilities. Production of animal feed, and the subsequent displacement of imported animal feed, offered the most significant GHG offset, which was between a factor of c.a. 2.5 to 8 times greater than the bio-electricity/fuel and bio-energy/feed scenarios. This offers significant potential from a global net-zero carbon emissions perspective. However, this comes at a cost to local energy security potential. Bio-electricity produced in the electricity intensive scenarios was 481 GWh per year. This would significantly increase Scotland's bio-energy production and equates to c.a. 5% of Scotland's non-commercial electricity needs.

Original language	English
Article number	136436
Journal	Journal of Cleaner Production
Volume	395
Early online date	15 Feb 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.136436
Publication status	Published - 1 Apr 2023

Keywords

Consequential LCA
Circular economy
Climate change
Anaerobic digestion

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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1-s2.0-S0959652623005942-mainFinal published version, 5.74 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

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title = "Optimising sustainability: Circular pathways for Scotch Whisky distillery co-products",

abstract = "The use of co-products for animal feed can potentially have a higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and water scarcity offset compared to bio-energy (bio-electricity/fuel) production. We cluster 136 Scotch Whisky distilleries and evaluate the co-product pathways for the production of animal-feed and/or bio-energy at centralised processing facilities. Production of animal feed, and the subsequent displacement of imported animal feed, offered the most significant GHG offset, which was between a factor of c.a. 2.5 to 8 times greater than the bio-electricity/fuel and bio-energy/feed scenarios. This offers significant potential from a global net-zero carbon emissions perspective. However, this comes at a cost to local energy security potential. Bio-electricity produced in the electricity intensive scenarios was 481 GWh per year. This would significantly increase Scotland's bio-energy production and equates to c.a. 5\% of Scotland's non-commercial electricity needs.",

keywords = "Consequential LCA, Circular economy, Climate change, Anaerobic digestion",

author = "Colm Duffy and David Styles and Isabel Schestak and Kenneth Macgregor and Frances Jack and Daniel Henn and Kirsty Black and Iannetta, \{Pietro P.M.\}",

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T1 - Optimising sustainability: Circular pathways for Scotch Whisky distillery co-products

AU - Duffy, Colm

AU - Styles, David

AU - Schestak, Isabel

AU - Macgregor, Kenneth

AU - Jack, Frances

AU - Henn, Daniel

AU - Black, Kirsty

AU - Iannetta, Pietro P.M.

PY - 2023/4/1

Y1 - 2023/4/1

N2 - The use of co-products for animal feed can potentially have a higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and water scarcity offset compared to bio-energy (bio-electricity/fuel) production. We cluster 136 Scotch Whisky distilleries and evaluate the co-product pathways for the production of animal-feed and/or bio-energy at centralised processing facilities. Production of animal feed, and the subsequent displacement of imported animal feed, offered the most significant GHG offset, which was between a factor of c.a. 2.5 to 8 times greater than the bio-electricity/fuel and bio-energy/feed scenarios. This offers significant potential from a global net-zero carbon emissions perspective. However, this comes at a cost to local energy security potential. Bio-electricity produced in the electricity intensive scenarios was 481 GWh per year. This would significantly increase Scotland's bio-energy production and equates to c.a. 5% of Scotland's non-commercial electricity needs.

AB - The use of co-products for animal feed can potentially have a higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and water scarcity offset compared to bio-energy (bio-electricity/fuel) production. We cluster 136 Scotch Whisky distilleries and evaluate the co-product pathways for the production of animal-feed and/or bio-energy at centralised processing facilities. Production of animal feed, and the subsequent displacement of imported animal feed, offered the most significant GHG offset, which was between a factor of c.a. 2.5 to 8 times greater than the bio-electricity/fuel and bio-energy/feed scenarios. This offers significant potential from a global net-zero carbon emissions perspective. However, this comes at a cost to local energy security potential. Bio-electricity produced in the electricity intensive scenarios was 481 GWh per year. This would significantly increase Scotland's bio-energy production and equates to c.a. 5% of Scotland's non-commercial electricity needs.

KW - Consequential LCA

KW - Circular economy

KW - Climate change

KW - Anaerobic digestion

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DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.136436

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SN - 0959-6526

VL - 395

JO - Journal of Cleaner Production

JF - Journal of Cleaner Production

M1 - 136436

ER -

Optimising sustainability: Circular pathways for Scotch Whisky distillery co-products

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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