Woody biomass could potentially become a viable raw material for the future sustainable chemical industry. For this, a suitable regulatory framework must exist, that would create favourable economic conditions for wood biorefineries. Such policies must be developed on the basis of scientific evidence—in this case, data supporting the environmental advantages of the bio-based feedstocks to the chemical industry. The most suitable methodology for comprehensive evaluation of environmental performance of technologies is life cycle assessment (LCA). In this review, the available LCA studies of woody biomass fractionation and conversion to bulk chemical feedstocks are critically evaluated. It has been revealed that the majority of the openly available studies do not contain transparent inventory data and, therefore, cannot be verified or re-used; studies containing inventory data are reported in this review. The lack of inventory data also prevents comparison between studies of the same processes performed with different evaluation methods or using different system boundaries. Recommendations are proposed on how to overcome issues of commercial data sensitivity by using black-box modelling when reporting environmental information. From several comparable LCA studies, it has been concluded that today the most environmentally favourable technology for wood biomass fractionation is organosolv.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Bio-derived and bioinspired sustainable advanced materials for emerging technologies (part 1)’.

木本生物质有可能成为未来可持续化学工业的可行原材料。为此，必须存在合适的监管框架，为木材生物精炼厂创造有利的经济条件。这些政策必须在科学证据的基础上制定——在这种情况下，数据支持生物基原料对化学工业的环境优势。对技术的环境绩效进行综合评价最合适的方法是生命周期评估（LCA）。在这篇综述中，对木质生物质分馏和转化为大宗化学原料的现有 LCA 研究进行了严格评估。据透露，大多数公开可用的研究不包含透明的清单数据，因此无法验证或重复使用；本次审查报告了包含清单数据的研究。清单数据的缺乏也妨碍了对使用不同评估方法或使用不同系统边界执行的相同过程的研究进行比较。就如何在报告环境信息时使用黑盒建模来克服商业数据敏感性问题提出了建议。从几项可比较的 LCA 研究中得出的结论是，当今最环保的木材生物质分馏技术是有机溶剂。就如何在报告环境信息时使用黑盒建模来克服商业数据敏感性问题提出了建议。从几项可比较的 LCA 研究中得出的结论是，当今最环保的木材生物质分馏技术是有机溶剂。就如何在报告环境信息时使用黑盒建模来克服商业数据敏感性问题提出了建议。从几项可比较的 LCA 研究中得出的结论是，当今最环保的木材生物质分馏技术是有机溶剂。

本文是主题问题“用于新兴技术的生物衍生和仿生可持续先进材料（第 1 部分）”的一部分。