TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose This paper aims to understand the implementation of a circular economic business where animal manure is used to produce biogas and alternative fertilizer in a regional network of manure suppliers and biogas producers and to reveal the impacts of five variables (manure quantity, transportation distance, manure dry content, manure price and manure discharge price) on the economic sustainability of manure-based biogas supply chains.Design/methodology/approach An enterprise input-output approach is used to model physical and monetary flows of the manure-based biogas supply chain. Computational experiments are performed on all variables to identify under which conditions the cooperation is beneficial for all actors.Findings The cooperation is profitable for a large-scale farm (>20,000 t/year) if biogas producer (b) pays farmer (f) to receive its manure (5 €/t) or if f sells manure for free and manure disposal costs are >10 €/t. Cooperation is always profitable for b if f pays b to supply its manure (5€/t). If b receives manure for free, benefits are always positive if b is a medium-large-scale plant (>20,000 t/year). For a small-scale plant, benefits are positive if manure dry content (MDC) is ≥12 per cent and transportation distance is ≤10 km.Originality/value The paper adds value to the biogas production research, as it makes holistic analysis of five variables which might change under different policy and geographical conditions. The investors in biogas production, suppliers and transportation companies can find correspondence to empirical findings for their own site-specific cases.
VL  - 41
IS  - 5
SN  - 2040-8269
DO  - 10.1108/MRR-02-2018-0053
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/MRR-02-2018-0053
AU  - Yazan Devrim Murat
AU  - Cafagna Davide
AU  - Fraccascia Luca
AU  - Mes Martijn
AU  - Pontrandolfo Pierpaolo
AU  - Zijm Henk
PY  - 2018
Y1  - 2018/01/01
TI  - Economic sustainability of biogas production from animal manure: a regional circular economy model
T2  - Management Research Review
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 605
EP  - 624
Y2  - 2024/04/25
ER  -