Perspectives on the bioeconomy as an emerging policy field

The Bioeconomy–Biodiversity Nexus: Enhancing or Undermining Nature’s Contributions to People?

“…What qualifies as bioeconomy and the specific agenda of such a transformation, however, are highly debated issues. The bioeconomy is both a disputed concept and a contested policy field [32][33][34][35]. There are multiple and often competing visions, some clearly linked to biotechnology developments (a biotechnological vision), others focused on upgrading biomass-based value chains (a bioresource vision), and broader views that seek to address sustainability issues at large, such as ecosystem health, through bioeconomy promotion (a bioecology vision) [36].…”

“…The idea of a "bioeconomy" has its origins in the work of Georgescu-Roegen in the 1970s, with his advocacy for a new economy based on resource conservation and fair distribution to meet human needs, as opposed to resource exploitation driven by profitseeking (see [35] for a discussion). Nowadays, however, bioeconomy has come to mainly signify the expansion of bio-based economic sectors, leading to criticism that it is just "capitalism and biotechnology" [34].…”

“…Nowadays, however, bioeconomy has come to mainly signify the expansion of bio-based economic sectors, leading to criticism that it is just "capitalism and biotechnology" [34]. As such, bioeconomy is not just an umbrella term for various economic activities derived from biological goods and processes; it has also become linked to agendas for post-fossil economic development marketed as a solution to sustainability issues [9,35]. The concerns about conservation or fair resource distribution found in Georgescu-Roegen's original plea are, indeed, not always present in current formulations.…”

“…Social participation, therefore, means not only economic but also political inclusion when designing bioeconomy strategies. It means thinking not simply of "rational" or "sustainable" resource use within "planetary boundaries" but also of access patterns, i.e., the just distribution of resources originally envisaged in Georgescu-Roegen's original formulation (see [35]).…”

Legislación costarricense y su relación con la bioeconomía moderna

“…El cuadro 1 muestra diferentes definiciones bioeconómicas, y permite identificar que el fortalecimiento de mercados, la inversión en I&D, las alianzas público-privadas, com-petitividad, biomasa, adaptación social, bioenergía o entrenamiento vocacional (Vogelpohl & Töller, 2021), son puntos homogéneos en los que el mundo ha concentrado sus esfuerzos bioeconómicos y debe ajustar su legislación para hacerlos efectivos dentro del entendimiento propio de bioeconomía.…”