Bioenergy and nutrition: Positive linkages for the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Bioenergy and nutrition represent two key elements in maintaining health andwell-being. Bioenergy is a form of renewable energy produced from organicmaterials, which can be used for generating power, while nutrition, on theother hand, is related to the ability of food to provide the proper nutrients toliving beings and the factors that make up a healthy diet. The 2030 SustainableDevelopment Agenda has brought considerable attention to the importance offood security and nutrition, particularly under SDG2, while concurrentlyhighlighting the need to ensure affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modernenergy access for all under SDG7. The accomplishment of these two Goals iscrucial for almost all others, as they are closely interconnected with manycross-cutting elements and commonly framed in the Water Energy FoodNexus. In this context, modern bioenergy has the potential to aid in the accom-plishment of the SDGs, when value chains and conversion processes aredesigned and managed in an appropriate and sustainable manner. Neverthe-less, the positive relationship between bioenergy and nutrition is an over-looked nexus, whose analysis has been too often limited to the competition forresources, such as land, water, energy, and other inputs. Considering this, thepresent review was developed for both the nutrition and bioenergy communi-ties to begin to overcome the limits of the food versus fuel paradigm, by ana-lyzing this intricate nexus and bringing to light interlinkages and potentialsynergies existing between bioenergy and nutrition. So far, such linkagesappear indirect or implied, therefore further research in this area would bebeneficial. The strongest links between bioenergy and nutrition identifiedinclude: greater cooking efficiency, reduced indoor air pollution, and improvedenvironmental sanitation through bioenergy clean cooking solutions; energyaccess for transporting, storing, and cooking food, thus reducing food loss and waste and diversifying diets; improved soil fertility through Carbon Captureand Storage (CCS), phytoremediation, and integrated biomass production sys-tems; and better rural livelihoods and increased income by introducing bio-energy production and use as a circular economy practice. The majorsignificance of this review is the identification of examples of good practicesapplied along the different stages of the bioenergy value chain with potentialco-benefits for nutrition. In this way, this work aims to provide preliminaryfindings for researchers to better determine the ways in which bioenergy canbe deployed to improve global nutrition.