Prospective Life Cycle Assessment for future-oriented decision making: the case of sulfate pulp production

Several EU policies have been implemented to drive the pulp and paper industries to adopt more sustainable practises, highlighting the need for expanded pulp production capacity. Extracting Kraft Lignin (KL) from black liquor offers a solution to increase the pulp mill's production capacity without requiring structural modifications to the plant, while also yielding a valuable byproduct. Although the benefits of this process are already recognized, the diverse applications of KL and the expected greener evolution of the EU economy necessitate a forward-looking analysis to assess the impacts of each KL alternative within a hypothetically more sustainable market. To address this need, the present work conducts a Prospective Life Cycle Assessment (pLCA) to identify the most adequate future-oriented solution for the pulp and paper sector. Firstly, an up-to-dated framework for developing pLCA was established through a comprehensive literature review, which identified key methodological criteria essential for pLCA analysis. Secondly, these criteria were applied to conduct the pLCA study on pulping sector, providing results that serve as a decision-making tool for selecting the most environmentally advantageous KL application pathway.