Data for life cycle assessment of legume biorefining for alcohol

Abstract Benchmarking the environmental sustainability of alcohol produced from legume starch against alcohol produced from cereal grains requires considering of crop production, nutrient cyclingand use of protein-rich co-products via life cycle assessment. This article describes the mass balance flowsbehind the life cycle inventories for gin produced from wheat and peas ( Pisum sativumL.) in an associated article summarising the environmental footprints of wheat- and pea-gin [1], and also presents detailed supplementary results. Activity data were collected from interviews with actors along the entire gin value chainincluding a distillery manager and ingredient and packaging suppliers. Important fertiliser and animal-feed substitution effectsof co-product use were derived using detailed information and models on nutrient flows and animal feedcomposition, along with linear optimisation modelling. Secondary data on environmental burdens of specific materials and processes were obtained from the Ecoinvent v3.4 life cycle assessmentdatabase. This article provides a basis for further quantitative evaluation of the environmental sustainability of legume-alcohol value chains.