Sustainability assessment of international LOHC-based hydrogen supply chains: integration of social into environmental and techno-economic perspectives

The emerging global green hydrogen economy may reproduce asymmetric trade patterns, where the Global South acts as a producer while bearing socio-environmental burdens, and the Global North benefits from decarbonization. Current research focuses predominantly on techno-economic and environmental aspects, leaving a gap in the social and integrated sustainability assessment of global hydrogen supply chains. This study addresses this gap through a life cycle sustainability assessment of hydrogen transport using a liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC). A baseline Namibia-Germany scenario is analysed together with six alternative configurations varying production locations and transport routes. The results show that geographical configuration determines sustainability performance, generating trade-offs between environmental, economic, and social dimensions. Production emerges as the dominant hotspot across all pillars. Environmentally, a tension is identified between climate change mitigation and material resource depletion, largely driven by electricity supply, dehydrogenation heat demand, and PGM-catalyst use. Sensitivity analyses using a low-carbon heat and recycled Pt confirms that these trade-offs persist despite reducing dehydrogenation and catalysts-related impacts. Economically, costs vary across regions and are primarily driven by regional energy prices, with limited influence of discount rate variations on cost trends. Socially, the results show strong geographical differences in social risk profiles, with higher values in the Namibian production route than in European configurations. Three strategic pathways emerge: cost-competitive routes with socio-environmental impacts, sustainability-oriented routes with higher costs, and balanced configurations. Overall, the results highlight how the sustainability of LOHC-based hydrogen supply chains depends strongly on geographical configuration and may involve burden-shifting across sustainability dimensions.