Bioeconomy for Sustainable Development

Abstract

Bioeconomy is an emerging paradigm under which the creation, development, and revitalization of economic systems based on a sustainable use of renewable biological resources in a balanced way is rapidly spreading globally. Bioeconomy is building bridges between biotechnology and economy as well as between science, industry, and society. Biotechnology, from its ancient origins up to the present is at the core of the scientific and innovative foundation of bioeconomy policies developed in numerous countries. The challenges and perspectives of bioeconomies are immense, from resource‐efficient large‐scale manufacturing of products such as chemicals, materials, food, pharmaceuticals, polymers, flavors, and fragrances to the production of new biomaterials and bioenergy in a sustainable and economic way for a growing world population. Key success factors for different countries working on the bioeconomy vary widely from high‐tech bioeconomies, emerging diversified or diversified bioeconomies to advanced and basic primary sector bioeconomies. Despite the large variety of bioeconomies, several common elements are identified, which are simultaneously needed altogether.

Anthropocene, the plastic age and future perspectives

“…To become commercially competitive, one way is to make use of existing waste streams. Therefore, even though the early use of the term bioeconomy referred to any use of biological knowledge for commercial and industrial purposes, today the bioplastics are assuming a pivotal role, not only because of the goal of obtaining maximum value from biological resources, but also because they contribute to a shift away from the circular economy of traditional plastics [24,25]. Nowadays, one of the main challenges is to use agri-food and marine residues, as well as other industrial by-products and carbon-rich waste streams without market value, for the development of high-quality bioplastics that can be managed at the end of their life as organic waste by industrial composting.…”

Biodiplomacy, the new frontier for bioeconomy

“…Therefore, the need for an integrative and coherent approach that addresses global issues with a battery of convergent initiatives is badly needed. Current UN initiatives on climate change or the EU activities on bioeconomy, circular economy, sustainable food systems, blue growth, etc., would have a much wider impact if operated under the’ umbrella’ of a global biodiplomacy [ 8 ]. The authors applaud and support all initiatives currently in place, but are of the opinion that: there is a need for a holistic approach which acknowledges that natural resources, and particularly biological resources, are finite, there is a physical limit to the capacity of the biosphere to produce and renew the world biomass and, the current economic paradigm of unlimited economic growth based on steadily increasing production is biologically unsustainable.…”

A Natural Capital Lens for a Sustainable Bioeconomy: Determining the Unrealised and Unrecognised Services from Nature

“…The updated EU Bioeconomy Strategy, published in 2018, features more environmental aspects following criticism of the original's dominant economic focus [58,102]. The opening section emphasises the challenges of "ecological degradation" and "ecological boundaries" with a "respect for the ecological limitations of the planet" (p. 1).…”

“…This framework could encompass the full basket of services provided from ecosystems-as depicted by the rival or agroecology vision-and also be weighted towards services attributed high value, such as target provisioning services-aligned with the bioresource vision. This approach could bring together advocates of different "narratives," such as civil society groups who promote the agroecology approach [109] and private sector and policy actors who promote more biotechnological narratives [8,102]. By creating a shared understanding, precise vocabulary, and unifying foundation to explore the concept, the natural capital lens may also address some of the criticisms of the bioeconomy as a "master narrative" with "shades of green", moving towards a platform for collaboration and knowledge sharing [10,45,47].…”