TY - JOUR

T1 - Recycling nutrients and reducing carbon emissions in the Baltic Sea Region

T2 - Sustainable or economically infeasible?

AU - Callesen, Gustav Marquard

AU - Pedersen, Søren Marcus

AU - Carolus, Johannes

AU - Johannesdottir, Solveig

AU - López, Jesica Murcia

AU - Kärrman, Erik

AU - Hjerppe, Turo

AU - Barquet, Karina

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Ecotechnologies have the potential to reduce the use of finite resources while providing a variety of co-benefits to society, though they often lack in market competitiveness. In this study, we investigate the sustainability of ecotechnologies for recovering carbon and nutrients, and demonstrate how a so-called “bottom-up” approach can serve as a decision-making instrument. Based on three case study catchments with a focus on domestic wastewater in Sweden and Poland, and on manure, grass and blackwater substrates in Finland, we apply a cost–benefit analysis (CBA) on system alternatives derived from a participatory process. After drawing on an initial systematic mapping of relevant ecotechnologies, the scope of the CBA is determined by stakeholder suggestions, namely in terms of the considered assessment criteria, the physical impacts and the utilised data. Thus, this CBA is rooted in a localised consideration of ecotechnologies rather than a centralised governmental approach to systems boundaries. The key advantage of applying such a bottom-up approach is that it has gone through a robust participatory selection process by local stakeholders, which provides more legitimacy to the decisions reached compared with traditional feasibility studies. Despite considering the revenues of the recovered products as well as the provision of the non-market goods CO2 mitigation and reduced eutrophication, findings from this study indicate that the benefits of the considered ecotechnologies are often outweighed by their costs. Only anaerobic digestion of agricultural wastes appears to be economically feasible under the current conditions, highlighting that further efforts and incentives may be required to mainstream ecotechnologies.

AB - Ecotechnologies have the potential to reduce the use of finite resources while providing a variety of co-benefits to society, though they often lack in market competitiveness. In this study, we investigate the sustainability of ecotechnologies for recovering carbon and nutrients, and demonstrate how a so-called “bottom-up” approach can serve as a decision-making instrument. Based on three case study catchments with a focus on domestic wastewater in Sweden and Poland, and on manure, grass and blackwater substrates in Finland, we apply a cost–benefit analysis (CBA) on system alternatives derived from a participatory process. After drawing on an initial systematic mapping of relevant ecotechnologies, the scope of the CBA is determined by stakeholder suggestions, namely in terms of the considered assessment criteria, the physical impacts and the utilised data. Thus, this CBA is rooted in a localised consideration of ecotechnologies rather than a centralised governmental approach to systems boundaries. The key advantage of applying such a bottom-up approach is that it has gone through a robust participatory selection process by local stakeholders, which provides more legitimacy to the decisions reached compared with traditional feasibility studies. Despite considering the revenues of the recovered products as well as the provision of the non-market goods CO2 mitigation and reduced eutrophication, findings from this study indicate that the benefits of the considered ecotechnologies are often outweighed by their costs. Only anaerobic digestion of agricultural wastes appears to be economically feasible under the current conditions, highlighting that further efforts and incentives may be required to mainstream ecotechnologies.

KW - Baltic Sea Region

KW - Bottom-up

KW - Circular economy

KW - Cost–benefit analysis

KW - Ecotechnologies

KW - Nutrient recovery

U2 - 10.1007/s00267-021-01537-z

DO - 10.1007/s00267-021-01537-z

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 34542659

AN - SCOPUS:85115160906

VL - 69

SP - 213

EP - 225

JO - Environmental Management

JF - Environmental Management

SN - 0364-152X

ER -