To guide the research and development (R&D) of encapsulated anaerobic technologies, models are needed to simulate the effects of wastewater composition, encapsulation matrix properties, and reactor design and operation on treatment performance as well as the input and output flows of the system throughout its life cycle. Work has been done to understand certain aspects of treatment performance in response to design and operating conditions of encapsulated biological systems. For example, Zhu et al. parameterized the effects of changing HRT, bead size, and feed substrate concentration on the hydrogen production rate of alginate-encapsulated biomass based on a classic diffusion-reaction model. Wang et al. modified a 1-D biofilm model to describe encapsulated growth of ammonia oxidizing bacteria and enabled optimizations of critical design decisions of the encapsulation matrix for nitrogen removal. Although it has been recognized that the use of encapsulant materialsespecially petroleum-based hydrogels (e.g., polyvinyl alcohol, waterborne polyurethane, polyethylene glycol )can affect system sustainability in complicated ways, there is still a lack of understanding of how individual design decisions and technology performance parameters are likely to impact the net cost and life cycle environmental impacts. Thus far, quantitative discussions to guide the R&D of encapsulated biological treatment systems have generally focused on improving treatment efficacy. To better inform the early-stage R&D of encapsulation technology, specifically for its industrial application in distributed anaerobic treatment of high strength wastewater, it is imperative to computationally couple process modeling with rigorous economic and environmental impact analyses so we can understand how individual decision variables (e.g., reactor design, single-stage vs. two-stage configuration) and technological uncertainty (e.g., biomass encapsulation capacity, encapsulant durability) drive system-level financial viability and environmental sustainability.