New sources for paper that have low environmental impact and avoid damage to ecosystems are being sought to limit the effects of mass production and consumption, and there is an intensifying trend towards using wood from designated forests and plantations. However, as 90% of wood chips being used in Japan have been imported from overseas, there is a need to diversify resource procurement using materials such as sugarcane, bagasse, and bamboo, but the advantages and disadvantages of using these resources have yet to be quantified or analyzed numerically. With this in mind, this research aims to quantify the environmental impact of the cultivation, harvesting, transportation, processing and disposal of different biomass materials to provide an objective reference for sustainable biomass resource procurement, as well as create an LCA* comparison model for conducting a comparative study of the environmental impact of different biomass resources in terms of species and scale of cultivation. LCA data will be acquired in cooperation with the following groups: Mitsubishi Paper Mills Limited (pulp, domestically produced wood chips, and recycled wastepaper), Chuetsu Pulp & Paper's Sendai Plant (bamboo chips), the Eco Future Fund (eucalyptus and kenaf chips, etc.), Nippon Biodiesel Fuel (biofuel), the Raks Thai Foundation, EPPCO, and the Sugarcane Functional Research Center.
*Life Cycle Assessment - a method for comprehensively assessing environmental impact at every stage of a life cycle including production, transportation, usage, disposal, and reusage.