Evaluating prospective environmental impacts and market integration for enzymatic sugar beet pulp treatment against planetary boundaries

Modern enzymatic biorefineries present promising potential for global decarbonization, offering value-added products from biological resources. However, their role within a sustainable societal trajectory remains unclear, particularly when evaluated against prospective environmental boundaries. This uncertainty stems from the lack of a robust methodology for allocating future impacts to biorefinery products. To bridge this gap, this study presents an innovative approach to achieve short- and long-term mitigation targets (2030–2050), as specified by a dynamic prospective Safe Operating Space (SOS). Different sharing principles are combined with shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and the learning theory to project the environmental thresholds for pectin and Cellulose Nanofibers (CNFs) produced via enzymatic and chemical routes. The analysis reveals that pectin production via enzymatic treatment exceeds the allocated SOS within the climate change Planetary Boundary by a factor of 238, while the conventional method surpasses it by 423 times. In comparison, CNFs show exceedances of 84 and 103 times for the enzymatic and the conventional routes, respectively. Products' penetration into the market is analyzed within the dynamic framework, capturing their internal progression towards meeting absolute sustainability targets. Pectin produced via enzymatic treatment can meet 2050 targets, with a 15% learning rate and 14.78% market penetration, whereas CNFs require no additional market penetration under the SSP1 and SSP2, remaining below the prospective threshold of 8.3 × 10⁻⁵ ppm CO₂ per functional unit. Overall, this study introduces an integrated methodology combining process design, prospective LCA, absolute sustainability, and market modeling to guide biorefinery development within the Planetary Boundaries.