Policies promoting use of renewable energy contribute to climate change mitigation. Among alternative sources of renewable energy, bioenergy has become the most challenged in policy debates due to its conflicting contributions to economic, social and ecological sustainability, for example, energy security versus food security, rural development versus people displacement, etc. The project aimed to thoroughly investigate the trade-offs and pathways for the development of bioenergy sector in Asia, in particular China, India and the Philippines. Trade-offs define the relative importance of economic, social and ecological factors affecting bioenergy production and pathways describe the direction or course to achieving bioenergy sustainability. The project’s interdisciplinary team applied complementary analytical tools from various scientific fields and use different kinds of data to understand these trade-offs and pathways from the policy, community, and scientific perspectives. The policy analysis was based on review of relevant literature, community perspective was analysed from survey of respondents from different groups of society, and scientific inquiries were based on statistical data, geographic information, and expert opinions. The results reveal that the main objectives of bioenergy policies are energy security and rural development; communities perceived bioenergy as good for the economy despites its negative impacts on food security; and few scientific evidence conforms to community preferences and expert opinions on the relevance of economic, social and ecological criteria for bioenergy sustainability.