Bioplastic production is a small but fast growing sector in the global bioeconomy, which may benefit from public support measures in the future as governments seek to promote more sustainable consumption patterns. Here we assess the potential net economy-wide impacts of a 5% bioplastic target relative to current plastic consumption in the main producing regions. We compare two alternative policy strategies to achieve the target in a general equilibrium framework that allows for substitution between conventional and bio-based plastics: a subsidy on bioplastics versus a tax on fossil-based plastic consumption. Our study is the first to quantify global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from an increased demand for bioplastics on a global scale, produced from arable crops, considering both direct and indirect land use change (LUC). The tax provokes a contraction of all sectors that employ plastics, which leads to a drop of 0.07% in global real GDP, whereas the subsidy has no significant effect on the global economy. Both tax and subsidy reduce world demand for petroleum products, by 0.37% and 0.07%, respectively, boosting demand for sugar-and starch-based feedstock in the bioplastic industry. This leads to emissions from LUC globally, which correspond to a carbon payback time of 22 years on average, with the associated annual abatement costs of over US$2000 per tonne of CO 2 -eq. The tax has greater GHG reduction potential in bioplastic producing regions but generates greater economic and environmental spillover effects in countries that do not enforce the target. Results show that promoting bioplastic consumption is not a cost-effective strategy for climate change mitigation if based on conventional feedstock, due to market-mediated GHG emissions from LUC. Bioplastics are not necessarily more sustainable than conventional polymers just because they are biobased, although further assessment of potential environmental gains associated with biodegradability and recyclability is desirable.

The European forestry sector is a potential driver of transformation towards a sustainable bioeconomy. Forest products are increasingly used in high-tech and high-value-added industries, e.g., chemicals and the automotive industry. So far, however, research on the European bioeconomy has largely focused on agriculture as a provider of food, feed, fuel, and fiber to bio-based industries. Here we assess the potential impacts of a stronger reliance on forestry sector inputs to the European Union (EU28) bioeconomy on output, prices, final demand, and land use. Specifically, we run a sensitivity analysis of a 1% increase of input use of forest products in the EU28 economy in a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) framework accounting for land use by Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZ) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at high regional and sectoral resolution. We find that such a shift to a more forest-based bioeconomy would provoke small indirect land use effects globally due to existing international trade linkages and land market effects. Simulated increases in planted forest cover are associated with net GHG emission savings, but our scenario analysis also points to higher imports of forest products from countries with vulnerable tropical forest biomes, such as Brazil and Indonesia.

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