Applying Natural Capital thinking for sustainable biomass ......Natural Capital thinking •Natural Capital is an asset •Natural Capital = elements of nature (soil, water, air, land)

Applying Natural Capital thinking for

sustainable biomass utilisation

Prof. Richard Murphy

Centre for Environment & Sustainability,

University of Surrey, UK [email protected]

www.surrey.ac.uk/ces

Newton Bhabha Fund Researcher Links Workshop 23-27 October 2017

CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP), Dehradun, India

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.surrey.ac.uk/ces

Aims

• Brief introduction

• Natural Capital ‘thinking’ and its use in the

county of Surrey, England

• Natural Capital assets for sustainable products,

ecosystem services and green infrastructure

• Concluding remarks

Centre for Environment & Sustainabilitypreviously Centre for Environmental Strategy

Established 1992 by Professor Roland Clift as a multi-

disciplinary centre for research & teaching on

‘sustainability’.

Currently ~12 academic staff, 10 visiting staff, 10 Post-docs/

academic visitors, 50 PhD/EngD/Practitioner Doctorates:

• sustainable systems analysis • LCA, sLCA, carbon footprinting, agent-based models, multi-criteria

decision making, supply-chain and value chain analysis

• social research on sustainability• values, attitudes, behaviours, lifestyles with departments of Psychology,

Sociology, Economics

• policy/governance and corporate sustainability strategy risk, roles of innovation, CSR, communication, regulation

Prof Richard Murphy, Centre for Environmental Strategy (CES)

CES: Tools for multi-disciplinary research &

analysis on environment and sustainability

Effect of Social Factors incl. Policy & Governance

Material & Energy Flows

Environmental Impact

Effect of Economic

Factors

Decision Support

Material Flow Analysis

Life Cycle Assessment

Carbon Footprinting

Environmental

Input Output Analysis

Economic

Value Chain Analysis

Policy Analysis

Social

Value Chain Analysis

Novel Problem Structuring Techniques - Stakeholder

engagement, participatory approaches

Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Complexity Science & Modelling

Energy Analysis

Image I.Christie

Behaviour change

Surrey – in brief

Approx 1.2 million inhabitants, adjacent to London

Most densely populated county in the South East of UK

Surrey – in brief contd.

Area 1,600 km2, many planning and development restrictions

Surrey – in brief contd.

Surrey has

30% tree

cover

whole UK

av. 10%

(from Daily Mail 2014)

• Local Nature Partnerships

mandated to ‘work at a

strategic scale to improve the

range of benefits and

services we get from a

healthy natural environment’

Surrey Nature Partnership (SNP) with thanks to Sarah-Jane Chimbwandira

UK govt. Natural Environment White Paper (2011)

http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm80/8082/8082.asp

http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm80/8082/8082.asp

• Sustainable land use and management

• Smart (Green) economic growth

• Quality of life and local health and wellbeing

SWT, Heather Angel

Suggested themes for all Local

Nature Partnerships:

SNP - Structure and activities to date

•Executive Board

•Working GroupsGovernance

• Engagement with Local Enterprise Partnerships, business, MPs & Local Authorities, academia

• Communications Strategy

• Stakeholder Engagement PlanRaising Profile

• Biodiversity Offsetting (Habitat Creation Register)

• Valuing Surrey

• Future Skills

• Joint Greenspace & Health Conference

Projects

•Natural Capital Investment Strategy

•Sustainable PartnershipsBusiness Plan

Natural Capital thinking

Latest TweetsLatest Tweets

Natural Capital thinking

• Natural Capital is an asset

• Natural Capital = elements of nature (soil,

water, air, land) which directly or indirectly

provide value or benefits to people

• Natural Capital assets can be renewable (e.g.

forests) or non-renewable (e.g. fossil oil)

see:the Natural Capital Coalition http://naturalcapitalcoalition.org/

UK Govt’s. Natural Capital Committee

https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/natural-capital-committee


http://naturalcapitalcoalition.org/

https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/natural-capital-committee

Natural Capital thinking contd.

• Renewable Natural Capital assets, such as

ecosystems, habitats and species, will continue

to provide their ecoservices for free and

indefinitely so long as they are not driven to a

point where they can no longer reproduce

themselves

• Science is now beginning to provide knowledge

to identify biophysical thresholds and

resilience levels and safe limits for renewable

Natural Capital assets to remain sustainable



• Renewable Natural Capital assets can be

recognised as being ‘at risk’ and actions taken

to improve the stock of such assets

• Prioritising which Natural Capital assets should

be tackled urgently can be done by cost benefit

analysis with recognition that improvement to

the system as a whole is sought

• This satisfies the concept of the “aggregate

natural capital rule” as presented in Dieter

Helm’s ‘Natural Capital: valuing the Planet’



• briefly, the “aggregate natural capital rule”

states that the aggregate level of renewable

natural capital should be kept at least constant

• this requires that any damage to the present

stock of renewable Natural Capital must be at

least compensated by a balancing increase in

renewable Natural Capital somewhere else

see Dieter Helm (2015) ‘Natural Capital;

valuing the Planet’. Yale University Press


Currently Natural Capital assets are being over-utilised and pressure from population and consumption is increasing

Both chronic and acute impacts result for the economy, business, health & quality of life and the environment

Global &International •EEA State of the Environment Report

•IUCN Business Engagement Strategy

•Natural Capital Declaration

•Forest Trends

•Natural Capital Coalition

•World Forum on Natural Capital

•McKinsey reports

•NatureVest - $23bn

“We have crossed 4 out of 9 Planetary Boundaries” Stockholm Institute, 2015

Drivers for Action

“The [UK] decline in natural capital is likely to accelerate, unless there is some radical departure from the approaches of the past” Third Report of Natural Capital Committee, January 2015

Drivers for Action

•Natural Environment White Paper/Biodiversity 2020 Strategy

•UK National Ecosystem Assessments

•Natural Capital Committee - State of Natural Capital 1, 2, 3 & Government response – (agrees 8 out of 9)

•Ecosystems Markets Task Force

•Natural Capital Initiative

•Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Therefore the challenge is how to meet the needs of people and the economy despite increasing pressures

“We agree with the Committee that if economic growth is to be sustained, natural capital has to be safeguarded” Government ‘s Response, September

National

Local

• Resource Balance Sheet

• Valuing Surrey

• Biodiversity Offsetting

• Joint Strategic Needs Assessment

• Natural Capital Investment Strategy

Surrey situation reflects global and national situation:• Planned population to increase from 1.17M in 2015 to 1.37M in 2037 • 2014 flood damage created a repair bill of £12.5M for Surrey County Council• Surrey residents currently consume per capita at a rate equivalent almost 3

planets worth of resources, compared with 2.5 planets UK average• Only 23% of residents have access to 2ha greenspace within walking distance• Significant assets e.g. Surrey’s 41 kha of woodland

Drivers for Action

Evidence for Surrey’s Natural Capital

Investment Strategy: National

Ecosystem Markets Task Force identified >£1bn UK latent

markets

Five Largest Opportunities:

1) Biodiversity Offsetting: mandatory application of the

metrics, all development delivers no net loss/net gain

2) Bio-energy and Anaerobic Digestion on Farms:

closing the loop using farm waste to generate energy

3) Local Woodfuel supply chains: active sustainable

management supporting local rural economies

4) Nature-based Certification and Labelling: connecting

consumers with nature

5) Water-cycle Catchment Management: integrating

nature into water, wastewater and flood management

‘Valuing Surrey’ – Creating a Natural Capital Asset Register of key natural capital assets and their worth e.g. woodland recreation + wood products + carbon sequestration, but also aspects such as air quality, noise attenuation and health benefits and flood alleviation.

Understanding current cost of limited or poor quality Natural Capita assets:

- Total care costs associated with physical inactivity in Surrey is £18m, 60.8% of adults are overweight or obese

- 527 excess deaths a year in Surrey in 2014 due to air pollution and 5337 associated life years lost

- in 2012/13 cost of repairs to flood damaged roads alone exceeded £12 million

Evidence for Surrey’s Natural Capital

Investment Strategy: Local

Surrey’s 40,000ha of woodland provide an estimated social and economic benefit of approx. £90 million per year. [£63M recreation, £18M air pollutants removed, £12M carbon sequestration, £2.5M timber products]

This includes: 800 tonnes air pollutant removal 350,000 tonnes carbon removal 18 million recreational visits 150,000m3 timber production

Valuing Surrey: key initial findings

not reflected in market prices

Modelling Biodiversity Offsetting in Surrey

Biodiversity Opportunity Areas

Habitat Creation Register

Role of Regulation & Policies – Investment in Surrey’s Natural Capital

• Area of development requiring offsets over next 5 years - 739ha

• Area of habitat restoration/creation to achieve no net loss - 1,059ha and 84 km hedgerow

• This would generate £1.6M funding for conservation

Delivering an Investment Plan for Natural Capital in Surrey

• Land developers – Biodiversity offsetting• Businesses – Increased worker

productivity, access to skills, competitive advantage and long term security

• Acute Healthcare – Reduced admissions• Public Health – Less obesity, more active

population• Mental health – Increased well-being• Infrastructure and utilities – Increased

resilience, lower operating costs• Community funds – investing in local

opportunities

Partnership approach is essential so that all beneficiaries

can play their part e.g.:

Learning from, and

using, Natural Capital

four brief examples ….


Life Cycle Assessment

(LCA) of Local SE UK

Wood Energy Supply

Chains

Weiqun Wu - MSc student researcher

Supervisors:Richard Murphy CES, University of SurreyMartin Head CEP, Imperial College LondonRoland Clift CES, University of Surrey

Participating Company: LC Energy Ltd, Surrey UK

LCA research approach

• Literature review

• Goal and scope

• Defining boundary

• Data collection

• Data questionnaires

• Literature

• Data analysis and interpretation

• Compare wood energy with fossil fuel

alternatives

Wood chip heat for Surrey University

Sports Park (SSP) – system boundaries

Functional unit

The functional unit acts as a reference flow,

which connects all other modelled flows. The

functional unit was:

• the annual supply of wood fuel energy at the

Sports Park = 1,114,030 kWh of heat.

• Comparison with ‘heat production by natural

gas, at industrial furnace >100kW’ and ‘heat

production, at hard coal industrial furnace 1-

10MW’.

Results - process contributions

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Acidification

Climate Change-GWP100a

Depletion of abiotic resources

Depletion of fossil fuels

Eutrophication

Freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity

Human toxicity

Marine aquatic ecotoxicity

Ozone layer depletion

Photochemical oxidation

Terrestrial ecotoxicity

Combustion of wood chip Furnace use Disposal of ashes

Transportation Wood chipping Forest

Results – Acidification indicator

67%

9%

5%

2%

1%

7%

4%4%

1%

AcidificationCombustion of wood chip

Furnace use

Disposal of ashes

Transport of chip to SSP

Transport of wood to hub

Transport of chipper

Wood chipping

Harvesting

Forwading

Forestry management

Results – Climate Change

indicator

12%

19%

7%

3%

30%

14%

12%

3%

Climate Change-GWP100a

Furnace use

Transport of chip to SSP

Transport of wood to hub

Transport of chipper

Wood chipping

Harvesting

Forwading

Forestry management

Results – Wood fuel vs fossil

coal or gas

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

coal

naturalgas

SSP wood

Summary – GWP100

GWP in this study was 15.6 kg CO2e/MWh

Typical literature values are approx.:

18 kg CO2e/MWh for UK forest residue / chips

26 kg CO2e/MWh for wood pellets

227 kg CO2e/MWh for Natural Gas

414 kg CO2e/MWh for Hard Coal

Discussion: local woodfuel

• Wood fuel (chip) – generally performs better

than fossil fuels, especially in global warming,

ozone layer depletion and photochemical

oxidation (main exception is eutrophication due to

ash disposal).

• Transportation and Chipping operation each

account for ~30% of GWP impact

CONCLUSION: Wood fuel maximises local

economic value and helps support the sustainable

management of a renewable Natural Capital asset

Extension of the wood fuel study

LC Energy w/ Alexander Dale MSc researcher

• Building on the LCA systems analysis to go

further and account for social & economic

factors across the supply chain

Prof Richard Murphy, Centre for Environmental Strategy (CES)

Green infrastructure

with thanks to

Dr Jonathan Chenoweth (CES, Surrey)

&

Professor Bill Hunt

(Biological and Agricultural Engineering

North Carolina State University, USA)

Definitions: green infrastructure

Green infrastructure is a planned network, not just a

collection of open spaces in urban areas:

• Green infrastructure refers to the combined structure,

position and connectivity of green spaces

• “a strategically planned network of high quality

natural and semi-natural areas” European Commission

(2013, p7)

• Not all green space is necessarily green

infrastructure – must be part of a planned network

Ecosystem service delivery is a key feature

Types of green infrastructure

Source: http://general-contractor.co/rooftop-garden/

• Green and blue roofs

Source: John Tolva, http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2013/03/rooftop-

garden-chicago-city-hall-reduce-urban-heat-island-effect/


• Swales, infiltration and filter drains and strips

Source: http://chesapeakestormwater.net/events/

webcast-advanced-stormwater-design-grass-swales-and-channels/

Source: http://www.cleanwateriowa.org/residential-practices.aspx


• Wetlands and ponds

Source: http://www.surrey.ac.uk

Source: http://naturanaute.com/2013/06/27/riverside-walk/


• Bio-retention areas and rain gardens

Source: http://www.spiire.com.au/

case-studies/were-street-raingardenSource: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/


• Detention and infiltration

basins

Source: http://www.stormwaterpartners.com/facilities/basin.html

Source: http://www.sudswales.com/types/source-control/infiltration-basins/


• Permeable surfaces

Source: http://kreinbrookpaving.com/permeable-pavers-driveway/

Source: http://www.lastormwater.org/green-la/low-impact-

development/residential-solutions/permeable-pavements-or-porous-

pavement-systems/

Benefits: green infrastructure

• Benefits to humans: Wellbeing, quality of life and health

• Filtering of air and water pollution

• Reducing heat island effect

• Health benefits due to enhanced opportunities for

exercise, sport and recreation

• Benefits to ecosystems and landscapes

• Green corridors to improve the permeability of urban

areas to wildlife

• Increased habitat area and connectivity leading to

increased biodiversity & increase in renewable

Natural Capital

Benefits: green infrastructure

• Benefits to society and the economy

• Green infrastructure helps to reconcile economic

growth with maintenance of or increase in renewable

Natural Capital assets

• Temporary and permanent job creation

• Reduced storm water treatment costs

• Increased property values

Economic costs: example green

infrastructure projects

A survey of 94 green infrastructure projects across

Europe showed that:

• Most projects had a budget of between €0.5 and €5

million

• Five very large projects with budgets over €25 million –

one with a budget of €177 million – the UK National

Forest project

• Costs per hectare for projects ranged from €250 to

€942,000 (Naumann et al, 2011)

Economic benefits: example

green infrastructure projects

• A study of UK’s National Forest for the

1991-2100 period estimated costs of £188

million but benefits of £909 million = net

benefits of £721 million

• The Merseyside Objective 1 Programme

to create 8000 hectares of community

woodlands was estimated to be providing

£2 million in net benefits per year, and

had a net present value of £71 million

Source: http://www.nationalforest.org/forest/

Tree evapotranspiration & cooling

CES MSc researcher Joe Moss w/ Forest Research

• New research to introduce evapotranspiration

factors for UK species into the i-TREE model for

the benefits assessment of trees (USDA Forest

Service software, see http://www.itreetools.org/).

Has been applied by the Forestry Commission

England to urban tree valuation see

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/london-itree

• Estimate the value of cooling effect of trees in

urban situations

http://www.itreetools.org/

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/london-itree


Joe Moss MSc dissertation results summary


Joe Moss MSc dissertation results summary


• Greater London urban forest evapotranspiration

energy was 139GW, 50% of that is able to

contribute to additional urban cooling (70GW)

• For comparison, total UK electricity demand at

20:30hrs on 25 August 2016 was 36.6GW.

NOTE: these are preliminary results which require

further careful interpretation but which are

indicative of the scale of benefit that examples of

this renewable Natural Capital asset can provide

Oil Palm Mill residues green

electricity in Peninsular Malaysia

CES PhD researcher Ida Fahani Md Jaye

Sadhukhan et al (2017). Role

of bioenergy, biorefinery and

bioeconomy in sustainable

development: Strategic

pathways for Malaysia



Can these renewable natural capital assets be a

‘sustainable’ source of green electricity?

POMR= Green Electricity

?

Are they sustainable

?

Which feedstock

is suitable?

What is the

optimal scale?

Resource, Technical,

Economic, Environment

Depends on the aim of

utilising the feedstock

Based on the

optimisation criteria



Preliminary results - Techno-Economic Model, w/

Chem. Eng. process integ. (CAPEX @ $US 2.3 M/MW)

Jhuma Sadhukhan, Kok Siew Ng, Elias Martinez-Hernandez (2014) Bio refineries and Chemical Process: Design,

Integration and Sustainability Analysis

Wan et al. (2016). Techno-economic evaluations for feasibility of sago-based biorefinery, Part 1: Alternative

energy systems.

Chin et al., (2013). Biogas from palm oil effluent (POME) : Opportunities and challenges from Malaysia’s

perspective

*based on personal communications with millers

POMs Size Small (10 t/hr) Medium (50 t/hr) Large (120 t/hr)

EFBs Biogas EFBs Biogas EFBs Biogas

Economic Assessment Interest Rate 12%*

ROI (%)

Payback Period (years)

Annualised Cost of Electricity ($US/kWh)

-67

11.6

0.070

-352

>15

0.112

157

4.6

0.042

-80

12.9

0.070

265

3.8

0.033

34

6.6

0.050



Preliminary results – w/100% usage of POM’s EFB,

current economic regulatory setting, electricity

generation plant at 2.55 MW scale can yield 20% ROI

Falls within the current mill production capacities

Preliminary results – considerable

theoretical scale is available for

POMR to green electricity

POMR =Green

Electricity

Are they sustainable

?

Which feedstock

is suitable?

What is the

optimal scale?

How to promote

the system?

Adequate resources and

compatible technology to

generate green electricity

EFB POMR-SE has better

technical, economic and

environmental performance than

Biogas POMR-SE

2.55 MW EFB based POMR-SE

(20% ROI)

3.70 MW EFB based POMR-SE

(75% ROI)

Functional business models

for scaling up and effort

duplication

• We need to measure and sustain renewable

Natural Capital assets in our development –

this will require new tools, thinking and

knowledge in planning, design and policy

• How we think about and use

Natural Capital assets is

essential if we are to progress

towards the UN’s Sustainable

Development Goals

Closing Remarks

you will be most welcome to visit us at The University of Surrey and the Centre for Environment & Sustainability

Documents

Applying Natural Capital thinking for sustainable biomass ......Natural Capital thinking •Natural Capital is an asset •Natural Capital = elements of nature (soil, water, air, land)