Dataset: Sustainability footprints of a renewable carbon transition for the petrochemical sector within planetary boundaries

  1. Galán-Martín, Ángel 1
  2. Tulus, Victor 1
  3. Díaz, Ismael 2
  4. Pozo, Carlos 3
  5. Pérez-Ramírez, Javier 1
  6. Guillén-Gosálbez, Gonzalo 1
  1. 1 Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering, Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland
  2. 2 Departamento de Ingeniería Química Industrial y del Medio Ambiente, ETSI Industriales, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, C/ José Gutiérrez Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain
  3. 3 LEPAMAP research group, University of Girona, C/ Maria Aurèlia Capmany 61, 17003 Girona, Spain
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Editor: Zenodo

Year of publication: 2021

Type: Dataset

CC BY 4.0

DOI: 10.5281/ZENODO.4652039 lock_openOpen access editor

Abstract

Dataset of the article “<em>Sustainability footprints of a renewable carbon transition for the petrochemical sector within planetary boundaries</em>”. LCI and cost-related data used for the calculations are included in <strong>Input-dataset.zip</strong> Selected results of the analysis are included in <strong>Resulting-dataset.zip</strong> <strong>Summary:</strong> The petrochemical industry will play a crucial role in developing low-carbon transition technologies to curb greenhouse gas emissions in the industrial sector. Momentum is building to help reduce the carbon footprint of this hard-to-abate sector, particularly through replacing fossil carbon feedstocks with carbon from biomass, captured CO<sub>2</sub>, and other recycled resources, but the broader implications of these so-called ‘solutions’ remain unclear. Here, we assess the overall sustainability of such ‘renewable carbon pathways’ by quantifying their life-cycle environmental footprints with respect to the previously defined nine planetary boundaries. We show that although a shift toward renewable carbon pathways could indeed reduce CO<sub>2</sub> emissions by 25% to over 100%, the scenario with the lowest carbon footprint could exceed the biodiversity planetary boundary by at least 30%. Our work highlights the potential pitfalls of overlooking global environmental guardrails beyond greenhouse gas emissions reduction and identifies new avenues for quantifying the environmental footprint of decarbonization solutions for hard-to-abate sectors.