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Abstract
In industrial-natural systems, energy measures both industrial efficiency and environmental impacts. However, these aspects are often studied disparately and across disciplines. This research addresses this gap by improving sustainability assessments of biomass production systems to account for ecosystem impacts and uncertainty in greenhouse gas emissions. First, system boundaries of forestry energy analyses are expanded to include changes in potential ecosystem biomass stocks, or foregone biomass, allowing for comparisons between forest management's human and ecological dimensions. Trade-offs show more intensive practices harvest more net energy and result in greater foregone biomass while less intensive practices are more efficient and reduce these impacts. Imbalances between the human and ecological metrics persisted across all managements, indicating that reducing intensity is insufficient for completely mitigating biomass losses. Nevertheless, this extended model identifies strategies that enhance industrial efficiency while minimizing ecological impacts, paving the way for more effective biomass production practices. Second, this research assesses uncertainty in the global warming impacts of biochemicalproduction to identify factors ensuring emission reductions. Global warming impacts vary based on processing and modeling factors, but reductions are consistently achieved with low-intensity feedstocks, such as energy crops. Uncertainty in factors like enzyme production can negate these benefits, yet integrating coproducts emerges as a necessary factor for ensuring emission reductions. Identifying and producing coproducts is thus essential for a bioeconomy and global emission reduction efforts. Highlighting the interconnected nature between the human and environmental dimensions in industrial-natural systems provides invaluable insight into biomass production and current versus needed management strategies.