Sustainability assessment of biogas plants

A methodology for the sustainability assessment of agricultural anaerobic digestion (AD) plants (biogas plants) is discussed. It consists of many different models like for instance eco-efficiency models with using the Economic Value Added (EVA) model and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models to evaluate Sustainable Value Added (SVA) of the agricultural AD plant. One of the most used and most common methods for measuring corporate sustainability which incorporates the three dimensions (economic, environmental and social) is called “the triple bottom line approach”. It calculates the value by using not only financial but also non-financial resources. This value is called SVA. This approach simplifies the measurements and allows the sustainable performance of agricultural AD plants to be measured in monetary terms depending on the data availability on the farm level as well as on the benchmark. It shows how much value of biomass energy recovery is created as a result of using economic, environmental and social resources, compared to a benchmark. In order to use this method, the benchmark company should be chosen. In our research, DEA is used for this purpose. It is a very powerful mathematical model of decision-making in farms with AD plants. The main purpose of applying this analysis is to evaluate the level of efficiency of biomass energy recovery of farms in Moravia region. The efficiency in our case is represented as a share of output in a weighted sum of inputs. In other words, it depicts a certain degree to which desirable outputs can offset key performance economic, environmental, social and corporate governance indicators. The case study of aggregated SVA of biogas plants of Moravia region is presented.