Navigating the Biocosmos: Cornerstones of a Bioeconomic Utopia

Abstract

One important insight from complexity science is that the future is open, and that this openness is an opportunity for us to participate in its shaping. The bioeconomy has been part of this process of “future-making”. But instead of a fertile ecosystem of imagined futures, a dry monoculture of ideas seems to dominate the landscape, promising salvation through technology. With this article, we intend to contribute to regenerating the ecological foundations of the bioeconomy. What would it entail if we were to merge with the biosphere instead of machines? To lay the cornerstones of a bioeconomic utopia, we explore the basic principles of self-organization that underlie biological, ecological, social, and psychological processes alike. All these are self-assembling and self-regulating elastic structures that exist at the edge of chaos and order. We then revisit the Promethean problem that lies at the foundation of bioeconomic thought and discuss how, during industrialization, the principles of spontaneous self-organization were replaced by the linear processes of the assembly line. We ultimately propose a bioeconomy based on human needs with the household as the basic unit: the biocosmos. The biocosmos is an agroecological habitat system of irreducible complexity, a new human niche embedded into the local ecosystem.

The Role of Consumers in Business Model Innovations for a Sustainable Circular Bioeconomy

“…Simple substitution of conventional products with bio-based ones is not enough if we want to avoid further transgressing planetary boundaries. Fundamental transformations of production and consumption patterns are needed in accordance with an overarching normative turn from the dominant techno-economic innovation paradigm focused on competitiveness, economic growth, and technological solutions towards an innovation paradigm dedicated towards transformative innovation, sustainability, regeneration, and justice (e.g., [30,[63][64][65][66]69,[87][88][89][90][91]). Similar to the differentiation of sustainability concepts into a continuum between very weak and very strong sustainability (e.g., [88,92]), BE approaches and visions range from substitution and green growth narratives following the rationale of neoclassical economics to a comprehensive ecological and evolutionary economy in the sense of Georgescu-Roegen's bioeconomics [16,69,[93][94][95][96].…”

“…Fundamental transformations of production and consumption patterns are needed in accordance with an overarching normative turn from the dominant techno-economic innovation paradigm focused on competitiveness, economic growth, and technological solutions towards an innovation paradigm dedicated towards transformative innovation, sustainability, regeneration, and justice (e.g., [30,[63][64][65][66]69,[87][88][89][90][91]). Similar to the differentiation of sustainability concepts into a continuum between very weak and very strong sustainability (e.g., [88,92]), BE approaches and visions range from substitution and green growth narratives following the rationale of neoclassical economics to a comprehensive ecological and evolutionary economy in the sense of Georgescu-Roegen's bioeconomics [16,69,[93][94][95][96]. Although the notion of a CBE aims for economic processes more in line with the laws of thermodynamics, the CBE also runs the risk of being "hijacked" or misappropriated to fit the logics of what Joly has called the economics of techno-scientific promises [16,30,89,97].…”

“…Generally, there are multiple ways in which CBMs can create value, for example, through optimization of resource use, reduction of waste, and the generation of new revenue streams (e.g., [127]). More broadly, CBMs may reflect different sustainability approaches, ranging from very weak sustainability (efficiency) and intermediate sustainability (consistency) approaches towards (very) strong sustainability (sufficiency and/or agroecology) (e.g., [69,[128][129][130][131][132]). Implementing circularity in bio-based business models can thus contribute to the production of novel materials, technologies, skills, and knowledge and the co-creation of value in the form of more sustainable practices for all actors in the economic system [47,114,128].…”

“…The "Faustian aspect" [62] of innovation (i.e., the ambiguity of innovation due to the coexistence of creative and destructive elements and impacts) and a normative turn resulting from the awareness that innovations have "dark sides" and that, consequently, other modes of innovation (e.g., transformative, social, and organizational) may be needed beyond an ecomodernist belief in new technologies as a panacea (e.g., [63][64][65][66][67][68][69]);…”