The bioeconomy transition is a double-edged sword that may either address fossil fuel dependence sustainably or aggravate human pressures on the environment, depending on how it is pursued. Using the emblematic case of Brazil, this article analyzes how corporate agribusiness dominance limits the bioeconomy agenda, shapes innovation pathways, and ultimately threatens the sustainability of this transition. Drawing from scholarship on power in agri-food governance and sustainability transitions, an analytical framework is then applied to the Brazilian case. The analysis of current policies, recent institutional changes and the case-specific literature reveals that, despite a strategic framing of the bioeconomy transition as a panacea for job creation, biodiversity conservation and local development (particularly for the Amazon region), in practice major soy, sugarcane and meatpacking conglomerates dominate Brazil’s bioeconomy agenda. In what can be described as conservative ecological modernization, there is some reflexivity regarding environmental issues but also an effort to maintain (unequal) social and political structures. Significant agribusiness dominance does not bode well for smallholder farmers, food diversity or natural ecosystems, as major drivers of deforestation and land-use change (e.g., soy plantations, cattle ranching) gain renewed economic and political stimulus as well as greater societal legitimacy under the bioeconomy umbrella.

Biofuels have provided the earliest large-scale experience of bioeconomy deployment on the globe. Biofuel controversies, therefore, represent early bioeconomy contestations. Besides providing a state-of-the-art overview of biofuel technologies and production pathways, this chapter reviews various ecological and social issues related to bioeconomy promotion. It shows that, despite replacing fossil fuels or other fossil-based products, the sector's environmental sustainability is far from straightforward. From ecological issues (e.g., climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, freshwater consumption) to socio-economic ones, such as the food vs. fuel debate, the chapter reviews the potentials for rural development promotion through the bioeconomy and examines it also in terms of North-South equity. It characterizes strategies that help bridge the North-South gap and contrasts them with bioeconomy approaches that fail to address that gap-or which widen it (neocolonialist approaches). While advancing the concept of equalizing development to qualify strategies that help close that global gap, this overview expounds on the breadth of sustainability issues linked to biofuels and the bioeconomy. That is an essential step towards a critical understanding of what is at stake and of the multiple contestations in this policy area.

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Socio-economic and political inequalities in the world are not fortuitous. They usually are the product of inequity, i.e., structural causes that unevenly attribute roles, distribute benefits and burdens, and create skewed conditions of access to resources. Understanding the workings of governance-how institutions operate, how actors can exert power, and how allocation patterns take shape-behind the reproduction of inequalities is key to solving them. This task is particularly imperative in sustainable development governance (or any specific sector therein, such as the bioeconomy), where the promotion of social equity is a principled part of it. Drawing from institutions theory and studies on power and distributive justice, this chapter develops a conceptual framework to analyze how (in)equity gains shape. It advances the idea that short and long feedback loops link various elements of governance. Agent power configurations are related to the institutional milieu, as are the distributive outcomes of governance and agents' material capabilities that, in turn, help them shape institutions in their favor. The chapter unpacks each of these governance elements to show why inequality is so hard to address, while also offering a lens to analyze and eventually tackle its "lock-in" nature. Keywords Equity • Institutions • Power • Agency • Access and allocation • Governance architectures The Inequity of InequalityAs income and wealth inequalities rise to their highest levels in decades in OECD countries-while persisting in much of the developing world-fairness debates have become increasingly common in the social sciences and beyond. As an illustration, Oxfam has noted that the combined wealth of the world's 22 richest men is larger than that of all the women in Africa (Coffey et al. 2020). Relative easiness to measure makes income a common focus of attention, but inequalities are multi-dimensional. There are social inequalities related to differences and imbalances across genders, races or classes, cultural inequalities between social groups, and political inequalities in terms of capacity to influence social norms and decision-making processes. There are also other dimensions of economic inequality, besides those of wealth and income,

A seemingly inevitable transition to a bioeconomy is underway, raising expectations as well as important social and environmental questions. Climate change, ocean plastic pollution and other ecological issues have made the phase-out of fossil resources an imperative. Still, greater global reliance on biomass alternatives poses as many opportunities as risks. Ensuring that such a transition delivers sustainable development-with the inclusion of marginalized groups, addressing inequalities, and eradicating poverty in line with the Sustainable Development Goals rather than aggravating these problems-is a daunting task, yet a fundamental one. For that, more attention is needed on governance, on the political dynamics that have steered bioeconomy promotion, and on the often-overlooked social dimensions of sustainability. This introductory chapter discusses the concept of bioeconomy, its tenets, goals, potentials, and key risks. It presents an initial critical inquiry into the political ecology of bioeconomy promotion and then outlines this book's in-depth assessment focused particularly on emerging economies. As these actors increasingly come to shape the fate of global sustainability in the twenty-first century, the bioeconomy reveals to be an essential domain in which to analyze sustainable development politics in large democracies of the Global South. Keywords Environmental governance • Biofuels • Social equity • Political ecology • Sustainable development • Ecological modernization Rescuing the Social Pillar of Sustainable DevelopmentSomething goes missing when anyone describes sustainability as a win-win strategy. If the concept is three-dimensional, at least a third win should be there, including the ecological, economic, and social aspects.People are strongly impacted by environmental degradation and the different strategies adopted to avoid or cope with it. Yet the social dimensions of sustainable development remain understudied, obfuscated, and at times ignored. The United Nations' (UN) 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have duly recognized social aspects of inclusiveness, justice, and poverty alleviation. However, these issues arguably remain marginal in most sustainability assessments,

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Bioeconomies are yet to meet their sustainable development potentials. Thus far, mostly unsustainable production has prevailed, due to reasons on four different levels. First, domestic regulatory and economic incentives have favored conventional, input-intensive monocultures and big agribusiness-controlled systems. Second, some norms have been crucial in underlying those policies: (i) the economic but not political inclusion of smallholders and low-income countries; (ii) the preeminence of climate and wild biodiversity conservation over other sustainability issues, assuming "renewable" to mean "sustainable" and disregarding the performance of bio-based production on other social and environmental criteria; and (iii) an implicit urban bias that limits rural development strategies and prioritizes the provision of resources to cities. Third, state and private agroindustry agents who espouse those norms have formed winning coalitions to concretize policy beliefs held in common. Ultimately, there are feedback loops between agency, governance architectures, and allocation and access patterns. Therefore, the prevailing production patterns' very distributive outcomes can be identified as a cause underlying their dominance. As such, social equity reveals to be not just a normative goal but also a key determinant of governance. To not aggravate inequalities and be more sustainable, bioeconomy promotion needs policies that reconfigure allocation patterns and promote structural change.

Despite grand bioeconomy ambitions in this megadiverse country, sugarcane and soy dominate Brazil's agenda so far. National policies have driven particularly biofuel expansion, consumed essentially in the domestic market. Those policies have included regulatory and economic instruments such as blending mandates, fiscal incentives, and public credit to key agroindustries, in addition to public investments in biofuel R&D, production, and storage infrastructure. This agenda has economically benefited agribusiness, helped substitute fossil fuels, and supported Brazil's energy independence. However, by relying only on a few industrial monocultures, this expansion has also furthered socio-environmental impacts, such as on agrobiodiversity and freshwater resources. Sugarcane-ethanol production has helped increase large agribusiness' control over natural resources at the expense of smallholders and indigenous peoples. Biodiesel chains, in turn, have attempted but broadly failed to include smallholders, relying in the end mainly on soy. The prevalence of these production patterns reflects the dominance of an agribusiness coalition in governance. Some critics advocate for structural change towards agroecology, but private agroindustries and like-minded state actors have prevailed thanks to their more considerable material capabilities, better access to positions of legal authority, and a successful discourse that promotes large Brazilian agribusiness as working for the national interest.Brazil has long been a hub of biofuel and now bioeconomy promotion. With a large ethanol sector since the 1970s, an expanding biodiesel industry, and coordinated efforts to export its production model abroad (most notably in Africa), the South American country is a key player as well as a significant case study for how biofuels and the bioeconomy may develop. Brazil is the only nation where biofuels account for more than 10% of the energy used in the transport sector (REN21 2019). From economic and ecological standpoints, its sugarcane-ethanol is considered the most efficient biofuel commercially produced from standard crops (Pereira et al. 2019). The country also pioneered policies to include the rural poor in biodiesel production chains, and many have regarded it as an example that other developing countries in the