Sustainability performance of national bio-economies

Biber‐Freudenberger, Lisa; Basukala, Amit Kumar; Brückner, Martin; Börner, Jan

doi:10.17011/conference/eccb2018/107375

Cited by 6 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…In reality, however, most innovations promoted under the label of bioeconomy lack a systematic evaluation of their sustainability effects and trade‐offs. Therefore, we adopt a sector‐based definition of bioeconomy that does not a priori exclude non‐sustainable manifestations of bioeconomy including bio‐based economic sectors (e.g., agriculture; forestry; bio‐based pharmaceuticals, cosmeceuticals, and natural products; organic waste treatment; and bioenergy, bioplastics, and biochemicals, compare Biber‐Freudenberger, Basukala, Bruckner, & Börner, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is an ongoing scholarly and political discourse about the benefits and risks of the bioeconomy (Biber‐Freudenberger et al, 2018; Dietz et al, 2018; Förster, Downsborough, Biber‐Freudenberger, Kelboro, & Börner, 2020; Gottwald & Krätzer, 2014; Grefe, 2016; Heimann, 2019; Liobikiene, Balezentis, Streimikiene, & Chen, 2019). Proponents of the bioeconomy highlight the prospects of bioeconomic innovations, to produce food, materials, and other products in a more efficient and therefore sustainable way (Geng, Haight, & Zhu, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They argue that bioeconomy or eco‐industrial development has the potential to provide solutions for some of the most pressing sustainability challenges including combating hunger (SDG 2), providing clean and affordable energy (SDG 7) and the fight against climate change (SDG 13) (El‐Chichakli, von Braun, Lang, Barben, & Philp, 2016). Critics of the bioeconomy approach, for example, argue that an increasing reliance on biomass—for example, to substitute fossil fuel resources—has the potential to exacerbate pressures on natural resources while also accelerating biodiversity loss and land degradation in biomass supplier countries (Biber‐Freudenberger et al, 2018; Escobar, Haddad, Börner, & Britz, 2018; Rajeswar, 2010). Furthermore, it is pointed out that bioeconomic growth might not be able to solve or will not even contribute to alleviate classical development challenges related, for example, to unequal societal distribution of benefits from economic activities as long as these concerns are not being properly targeted by appropriate policies (Förster et al, 2020; Kleinschmit et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bioeconomy futures: Expectation patterns of scientists and practitioners on the sustainability of bio‐based transformation

Biber‐Freudenberger

Ergeneman

Förster

et al. 2020

Sustainable Development

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Economic sectors relying on the use of biological organisms, processes, and principles to create products and services are expected to experience accelerated growth due to innovation in the bioeconomy. Associated benefits and risks for sustainable development are increasingly subject to societal debate. We compiled expectation patterns from a global survey with bioeconomy experts and a systematic literature review identifying areas of consensus and controversy across dimensions of the sustainable development goals (SDG). Positive connotations dominated in both expert opinions and the scientific literature, but the level of consensus varied across sectors of the bioeconomy and in relation to applied methodological approaches (scientific literature) and type of employer (experts). In both sources, we found more differentiated views on potential impacts of bioeconomic development pathways on sustainability in more established bioeconomy-related discourses, which indicates that expectation patterns in more recent fields of bio-based innovation are subject to early "hype cycle" dynamics. Our findings suggest the need to systematically mainstream sustainability risk appraisals across relevant application contexts in technology impact assessments for the bioeconomy.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bioeconomy futures: Expectation patterns of scientists and practitioners on the sustainability of bio‐based transformation

Biber‐Freudenberger

Ergeneman

Förster

et al. 2020

Sustainable Development

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“…Although several national and supranational strategy papers on the concept of a bioeconomy have recently been formulated in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa, considerable variation in terms of definitional scope still remains (Biber‐Freudenberger, Basukala, Bruckner, & Börner, ; Bracco, Calicioglu, Gomez San Juan, & Flammini, ; Hausknost, Schriefl, Lauk, & Kalt, ; Priefer, Jörissen, & Frör, ). While some strategies focus on traditional biomass production and processing sectors, such as forestry and the pulp and paper industry, others highlight the significance of innovations in the high‐tech sectors to develop the bioeconomy of the respective country (Beermann, Jungmeier, Pignatelli, Monni, & Van Ree, ; Dubois & Juan, ; Pülzl et al., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, a perspective that only considers direct material consumption is insufficient and needs to be complemented by the telecoupling effects relating to international trade (Giljum, Bruckner, & Martinez, ; Schaffartzik, Eisenmenger, Krausmann, & Weisz, ). Accordingly, some recent studies suggest that the state of bioeconomies should be monitored, among other things, based on resource footprint indicators including raw material consumption (RMC) flows (Biber‐Freudenberger et al., ; Egenolf & Bringezu, ; O'Brien, Wechsler, Bringezu, & Schaldach, ) as a central assessment metric. Given such a background, the following questions arise: (a) how does the prevailing configuration of RMC drivers affect material use patterns in middle and high income countries, (b) to what extent is a future shift from fossil to biomass RMC to be expected in these countries, and (c) how sensitive are the results to alternative scenario assumptions?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bioeconomic transition?: Projecting consumption‐based biomass and fossil material flows to 2050

Asada

Krisztin

Fulvio

et al. 2020

J of Industrial Ecology

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Countries are responding to unsustainable resource extraction, rising emissions, and increasing waste streams by implementing national bioeconomy strategies. Assuming that the purpose of a bioeconomy is to replace fossil use by biogenic resource use, we estimate biomass and fossil raw material consumption (RMC) by applying multiregional input-output methodology for middle and high income countries. Next, we use a panel fixed effects model to explain RMC with economically active population, urban population, GDP, land cover, and fossil/biomass domestic material consumption. With this model, we project RMC under five Shared Socioeconomic Pathway scenarios up to 2050. The projections show an increase in per capita biomass RMC between 2010 and 2050, accompanied by-in many cases pronounced-per capita growth of fossil RMC across most of the countries and scenarios. We conclude that, if GDP continues to drive fossil RMC at its current magnitude, upcoming conditions are likely to counteract a potential bioeconomic transition and increase, instead of decrease, fossil RMC. Thus, increasing biomass use will not necessarily lead to reduced fossil resource consumption. When considering the relative scarcity of biomass, land and water, more focus needs to be placed on the relevance of technological bio-based innovations in the reconfiguration of RMC drivers.

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From stars to stripes: RNA‐directed shaping of plant viral protein templates—structural synthetic virology for smart biohybrid nanostructures

Wege

Koch

2019

WIREs Nanomed Nanobiotechnol

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The self‐assembly of viral building blocks bears exciting prospects for fabricating new types of bionanoparticles with multivalent protein shells. These enable a spatially controlled immobilization of functionalities at highest surface densities—an increasing demand worldwide for applications from vaccination to tissue engineering, biocatalysis, and sensing. Certain plant viruses hold particular promise because they are sustainably available, biodegradable, nonpathogenic for mammals, and amenable to in vitro self‐organization of virus‐like particles. This offers great opportunities for their redesign into novel “green” carrier systems by spatial and structural synthetic biology approaches, as worked out here for the robust nanotubular tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) as prime example. Natural TMV of 300 x 18 nm is built from more than 2,100 identical coat proteins (CPs) helically arranged around a 6,395 nucleotides ssRNA. In vitro, TMV‐like particles (TLPs) may self‐assemble also from modified CPs and RNAs if the latter contain an Origin of Assembly structure, which initiates a bidirectional encapsidation. By way of tailored RNA, the process can be reprogrammed to yield uncommon shapes such as branched nanoobjects. The nonsymmetric mechanism also proceeds on 3'‐terminally immobilized RNA and can integrate distinct CP types in blends or serially. Other emerging plant virus‐deduced systems include the usually isometric cowpea chlorotic mottle virus (CCMV) with further strikingly altered structures up to “cherrybombs” with protruding nucleic acids. Cartoon strips and pictorial descriptions of major RNA‐based strategies induct the reader into a rare field of nanoconstruction that can give rise to utile soft‐matter architectures for complex tasks. This article is categorized under: Biology‐Inspired Nanomaterials > Protein and Virus‐Based Structures Nanotechnology Approaches to Biology > Nanoscale Systems in Biology Biology‐Inspired Nanomaterials > Nucleic Acid‐Based Structures

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Sustainability performance of national bio-economies

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Bioeconomy futures: Expectation patterns of scientists and practitioners on the sustainability of bio‐based transformation

Bioeconomy futures: Expectation patterns of scientists and practitioners on the sustainability of bio‐based transformation

Bioeconomic transition?: Projecting consumption‐based biomass and fossil material flows to 2050

From stars to stripes: RNA‐directed shaping of plant viral protein templates—structural synthetic virology for smart biohybrid nanostructures

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