Economic Gain vs. Ecological Pain—Environmental Sustainability in Economies Based on Renewable Biological Resources

Abstract

There are two main international strategies concerning how to ensure a sustainable environment: one is to develop a globally bio-based economy, or bioeconomy, to meet the increased demand of goods and products to maintain our well-being and to reduce climate change. On the other hand, there is an aim to decrease the negative impacts on nature and natural habitats to conserve and maintain ecosystems and control the loss of biodiversity. There is a trade-off between these two strategies; as we increase the commitment to the bioeconomy by intensifying biomass production, we will simultaneously challenge biodiversity through the increased pressure on, and the utilization of, biological raw materials. Here, we first review and discuss the challenges and opportunities in terrestrial and marine ecosystems for the production of biomass for the bioeconomy. We focus on the trade-offs between economic sustainability on one hand, and environmental sustainability and resilience on the other hand. We conclude with a discussion of the various bioeconomy strategies. Finally, we present a conceptual model on how to sustainably develop the bioeconomies (by introducing the concept of optimizing the economic gain/ecological pain ratio) to be able to manage the biodiversity in a sustainable way.

U.S. beef producer perspectives on “sustainable beef” and implications for sustainability transitions

“…For example, for producers who have grazing operations, economic sustainability is directly connected to the condition of their range or pastureland as well as access to land considering rising land prices and the challenges related to retaining leases on public grazing land [31]. In this way, producers are sometimes faced with trade-offs between the economic sustainability of their operation and the environmental sustainability of the natural resources that support the operation [45]. These https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-024-00253-y trade-offs and linkages across multiple pillars of sustainability in the beef industry have not been well documented in the scientific literature, particularly from the perspective of producers.…”

Decision Tree and AHP Methods Application for Projects Assessment: A Case Study

“…There is usually a trade-off between the different objective functions that can help the decision-maker to choose a particular solution according to the preference of an organisation [5]. For example, [6] focus on the trade-offs between economic sustainability on one hand, and environmental sustainability and resilience on the other hand. As pointed out by Kamali [7], multi-criteria assessment (MCA) studies generally do not evaluate the robustness of the overall MCA outcome to uncertainty regarding scores and weights; in such studies the sensitivity analysis is usually addressed in terms of sensitivity of the results to the choice of MCA method [8].…”

Trust in researchers and researchers' statements in large carnivore conservation

“…Species such as large carnivores, which require large areas, are particularly vulnerable to land use pressure and interactions with humans, as conservation of large tracts of land is difficult and affects many different land use interests, owners and stakeholders (Gangaas et al, 2015;Pedersen et al, 2020). Human-carnivore interactions create social conflicts between people with differing attitudes, values and tolerances of sharing landscapes with these species.…”