Stakeholders’ Interests and Perceptions of Bioeconomy Monitoring Using a Sustainable Development Goal Framework

Abstract

The bioeconomy as an industrial metabolism based on renewable resources is characterized by, not intrinsic, but rather potential benefits for global sustainability, depending on many factors and actors. Hence, an appropriate systematic monitoring of its development is vital and complexly linked to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as diverse stakeholder expectations. To structure a framework of the important aspects of such a monitoring system, we conducted a series of stakeholder workshops to assess the relevance of SDGs for the bioeconomy. Our results show how the complexities of these issues are perceived by 64 stakeholders, indicating significant commonalities and differences among six SDGs, including specific interests, perceptions, and, in some cases, counterintuitive and contradictory issues. Eventually, the idea of a bioeconomy is a question of the perception of ends and means of a societal transformation toward holistic sustainability. Global implications like trade-offs, hunger, poverty, and inequalities are aspects of high relevance for monitoring of bioeconomy regions in which they actually do not seem to be substantial.

A Regional Socio-Economic Life Cycle Assessment of a Bioeconomy Value Chain

“…Initially, SDG 1 (no poverty), 2 (zero hunger), 3 (good health), 4 (quality education), 5 (gender equality), 8 (work and growth), 10 (reduced inequalities), and 16 (peace, justice, institutions) were selected, in order to cover most social aspects. For this comparison, we related the RESPONSA indicator set with the results provided by Zeug et al [1], as they examined the SDGs underlying targets, with concern to their relevance in a German bioeconomy monitoring system. In the latter work, identified targets were evaluated by national stakeholders from the sciences, businesses, and society in terms of their relevance to a national bioeconomy monitoring system.…”

“…Comparison of the rated SDG targets by stakeholders showed very few parallels to the indicator set of RESPONSA. Only two of the targets ranked as "must" and seven as "may" relevant for German BE monitoring, as classified by Zeug et al [1], were covered by RESPONSA, whereby 36 were proposed for inclusion in the monitoring of social sustainability (16 "must" and 20 "may"; see Appendix A). The reasons for this are presented in the discussions.…”

“…At present, the bioeconomy (BE) is seen as one of the major pathways for achieving sustainable development, as it relies on the optimized use of renewable bio-based resources for the provisioning of food, materials, and energy to meet societal demands. However, the implementation of such a global transformation process faces not only challenges related to economic efficiency and technical and scientific innovation to cope with economic and environmental factors, but also the challenge of socio-economic transformation, in which societal aspects are at least as important as those previously mentioned [1][2][3]. In addition, with the three dimensions of sustainability-environmental, economic, and social-in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a global normative goal framework for sustainable development has been addressed for the first time [4].…”

A Path Transition Towards a Bioeconomy—The Crucial Role of Sustainability

“…As the SDG's cover nature, economy and society as the three pillars of sustainability, the question remains, how and in what way the bioeconomy can support synergies of diverse sustainability goals from different pillars and thus, help to contribute to as many SDGs as possible. Previous research outlined 11 out of 17 SDGs to be potentially highly relevant to a developing global bioeconomy [66,69], but as the SDGs represent complex and interlinked socioeconomic relationships of sustainability as a holistic subject, they cannot be put into a hierarchical order [70]. To meet challenges due to normative conflicts resulting from the complexity of the bioeconomy, stakeholder participation is the most appropriate means to identify societal interests and perceptions and to identify key objectives, for instance, the goals "Zero Hunger" (SDG 2), "Responsible Consumption and Production" (SDG 12), "Life on Land" (SDG 15), "Life below Water" (SDG 14) and "Clean Water and Sanitation" (SDG 6) have been categorised as the most important ones for monitoring the bioeconomy by stakeholders from science, business, and society in Germany [70].…”

“…For instance, the German Bioeconomy Council still promotes biotechnology as a magic bullet for solving all sustainability problems regarding scarce biomass resources (see e.g., Reference [76].) Albeit, there is a step forward in bioeconomy strategies to contribute to the SDGs and the Paris Agreement [70], for instance, ecological boundaries of a bioeconomy are proposed to be respected, circular economy approaches are taken into account [77] and a resource, nature and climate friendly and an ethically acceptable production ought to be the valuation standard for the bioeconomy [15]. However, bioeconomy policies in Germany, the EU and the OECD-countries still focus on the time-honoured understanding of the "knowledge-based bioeconomy" which is predominantly characterized by the substitution of resource inputs and high tech innovations, mainly in the form of biotechnology (e.g., References [2,15]).…”