Pathways to sustainable bioenergy: Navigating the energy-ecosystem services-biodiversity nexus in agricultural landscapes

Bioenergy plays a major role in the renewable energy supply and is projected to be an important part of the path towards a decarbonised society. Over the past decade, increasing attention has been given to agricultural bioenergy to act as a multifunctional climate mitigation strategy. Energy crops may mitigate climate change while simultaneously contributing to reducing the negative environmental impacts of agriculture if placed in intensive cropping regions or serve as alternative land use and source of income when placed on unused or marginal land. The deployment of extensive biomass production for energy is however potentially limited by competition with food, feed, and fibre production, as well as the need for nature conservation. To avoid conflicts between climate mitigation, food security, and biodiversity conservation, bioenergy strategies have to be thoroughly evaluated to ensure sustainable policy recommendations. This thesis aims to increase the knowledge of sustainable bioenergy production from Swedish agricultural landscapes and to understand the challenges and opportunities of extended agricultural bioenergy production for other societal goals. With a main focus on sustainable land use, I have studied the interaction between different bioenergy strategies, ecosystem service supply, and biodiversity conservation. I have combined methods from ecology, economy, and geography to provide a holistic view of agricultural bioenergy, covering different landscape contexts, production sites, biomass sources, spatiotemporal scales, and taxonomic groups. From the four chapters of this thesis, three main findings can be communicated: i) both ecosystem services and biodiversity impacts need to be considered when assessing bioenergy strategies to avoid trade-offs between climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation, ii) integrated production of bioenergy crops in intensive arable cropping regions may positively affect multiple ecosystem services and taxonomic groups if it is combined with protection of species-rich habitats, however, it requires substantial financial incentives and has consequences for food production, iii) there is a high risk of overestimating bioenergy potentials from marginal and unused land if land characteristics and alternative use-values are not considered. These results highlight the challenges of increasing agricultural bioenergy production without compromising other societal needs, but they also show the opportunities for sustainable bioenergy to contribute to a fossil-free society if coupled with sustainable food systems and broader reductions in energy use and consumption.