Due to the rising demand for food and feed, agricultural waste increases, while plastic pollution increases due to hostile human activities. The sustainable way to utilize agricultural waste and promote the bioeconomy concept is to produce an alternative product of plastic, i.e., ‘bioplastic’. This paper used different keywords to perform the bibliometric analysis of the scientific publication related to bioplastic, agricultural waste, and sustainability. Remarkably, results show the increasing research interest in bioplastic with the key developing trends in sustainable bioplastic production, agriculture waste management, biopolymer, and biological processes. The identified developing trends can be used for further research to create a sustainable agricultural sector and produce higher added-value products. Moreover, this study discovered that the agro-biopolymer area needs more focus on sustainable development considering the economic, social, and environmental dimensions.

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Sustainable development in the agriculture sector can be boosted by integrating a sustainable bioeconomy and transforming renewable resources into added-value products. There are various methods to determine, measure, and compare the extent of sustainability. We promote the bioeconomy concept by utilizing agricultural waste in biopolymers considering the sustainable development in the agriculture sector. This research aims to evaluate biopolymer alternatives based on sustainability criteria and indicators using the integrated multi-criteria decision analysis approach under the sustainability umbrella. We evaluated the PLA, PHA/PHB, starch, protein, and cellulose-based biopolymers. As a result, the cellulose-based biopolymer shows the best performance. The research findings provide valuable information to establish a sustainable pathway for biopolymer production for industries.

The awareness of bioeconomy role within currently set EU policy targets towards zero carbon emissions and its contribution to achieving the sustainable development goals has been increasing during the last decade. However, it is not always straightforward how the development scenarios for bioeconomy can be evaluated on national level. Moreover, the large number of factors affecting the development of bioconomy is hard to evaluate altogether. Therefore, this study reviews currently available tools for bioresource value modelling in order to select an approach that is suitable for modelling different scenarios of bioeconomy development. As a result of the review, the study presents a methodology, which allows to estimate how higher added values of bioresource products can be achieved in different bioeconomy sectors. The concept of model is tested within a case study of fisheries sector in Latvia. The results of case study show economically viable scenario for added value target set for 2030. The concept of model is found to be adequate, and the use of the defined methodology is appropriate for bioresource value modelling.

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