Analysis of Standards, Certifications and Labels for Bio-based Products in the Context of Sustainable Bioeconomy

Abstract

Bioeconomy has been proposed as a pathway to sustainable development in many countries. However, the difficulties in defining the bioeconomy boundaries at the national level might necessitate the adoption of a sectoral approach to monitor and evaluate the success of its development. In this resolution, standards, certifications and labelling (SCL) schemes for bioeconomy-related sectors might be an essential source of data. The study evaluates the potential to use SCL schemes as a source for monitoring and evaluating sustainable bioeconomy, by analysing the sustainability aspects (chain-of-custody, environmental, economic and social themes) considered in selected SCL schemes. A variety of SCL schemes for different stages of the bioeconomy value chains were subjected to analysis on whether they consider internationally agreed aspirational principles and criteria for sustainable bioeconomy. The aspects most frequently mentioned by the requirement lists of the analysed SCL schemes were identified, along with the highlights on the least-frequently mentioned sustainability topics.

Irreversible Thermodynamics and Bioeconomy: Toward a Human-Oriented Sustainability

“…[32]. However, bioeconomic approach requires a measurement of its action [33][34][35], in order to evaluate the results, both in environmental sustainability and in socioeconomics [30,36]. Of course, it is not possible to use the usual economic indicators, because the bioeconomic impacts require a new method of evaluation, related to social, economic, ecological but also technological indexes.…”

Assessing the potential of bioeconomy in Slovakia based on public perception of renewable materials in contrast to non-renewable materials

“…The focus of researchers is on biomass (Scarlat et al 2015 ), bio-based plastics (Philp and Krishna 2013 ), biofuels (Philp 2015 ), and biorefineries (Stafford et al 2020 ). Several studies also focus on perception, especially of bio-based products (Bracco et al 2019 ). This attention is understandable, as there is an ongoing change in the demand of materials, influenced by concepts such as sustainability and bioeconomy (Laibach et al 2019 ; Lynch et al 2016 ).…”