As the global population increases and becomes more affluent, biomass demands for food and biomaterials will increase. Demand growth is further accelerated by the implementation of climate policies and strategies to replace fossil resources with biomass. There are, however, concerns about the size of the prospective biomass demand and the environmental and social consequences of the corresponding resource mobilization, especially concerning impacts from the associated land-use change. Strategically integrating perennials into landscapes dominated by intensive agriculture can, for example, improve biodiversity, reduce soil erosion and nutrient emissions to water, increase soil carbon, enhance pollination, and avoid or mitigate flooding events. Such "multifunctional perennial production systems" can thus contribute to improving overall land-use sustainability, while maintaining or increasing overall biomass productivity in the landscape. Seven different cases in different world regions are here reviewed to exemplify and evaluate (a) multifunctional production systems that have been established to meet emerging bioenergy demands, and (b) efforts to identify locations where the establishment of perennial crops will be particularly beneficial. An important barrier towards wider implementation of multifunctional systems is the lack of markets, or policies, compensating producers for enhanced ecosystem services and other environmental benefits. This deficiency is particularly important since prices for fossil-based fuels are low relative to bioenergy production costs. Without such compensation, multifunctional perennial production systems will be unlikely to contribute to the development of a sustainable bioeconomy. This article is categorized under: Bioenergy > Systems and Infrastructure Bioenergy > Climate and Environment Energy Policy and Planning > Climate and Environment

This chapter provides a perspective on developments since the mid-1970s from the viewpoint of an active biomass conversion facility. It highlights five key areas of concern when commercializing dedicated energy crop biomass supply chains. These key areas are: land availability, crop selection, financing, agronomic challenges and risk management. As conversion technologies near commercialization, increased emphasis has been placed on commercial scale biomass production. Producing hundreds of thousands of tons of a given crop for a single facility is an industrial supply chain challenge that involves many players, including landowners, farmers, harvesting equipment manufacturers, truckers and logistical firms. Therefore, to be successful, commercial scale biomass supply chains must achieve a sustainable environmental and economic balance while overcoming several logistic and other obstacles.