Sustainable development – A ‘selling point’ of the emerging EU bioeconomy policy framework?

Exploring the Dedicated Knowledge Base of a Transformation towards a Sustainable Bioeconomy

“…Based on the example of two common issues of critique in the current bioeconomy policy approaches, we will substantiate our knowledge-based argument. Bioeconomy policies have been identified (i) to be biased towards economic goals and, therefore, take an unequal account of all three dimensions of sustainability [21,[164][165][166][167][168]; and, to some extent related to it; (ii) to only superficially integrate all relevant stakeholders into policy making [21,165,[169][170][171][172][173].…”

“…While using the term sustainable as an attribute to a range of goals and principles frequently, the EU bioeconomy framework, for example, still overemphasizes the economic dimension. This is reflected by the main priority areas of various political bioeconomy agendas which remain quite technocratic: keywords include biotechnology, eco-efficiency, competitiveness, innovation, economic output, and industry in general [14,164]. The EU's proposed policy action along the three large areas (i) the investment in research, innovation and skills; (ii) the reinforcement of policy interaction and stakeholder engagement; and (iii) the enhancement of markets and competitiveness in bioeconomy sectors ( [174], p. 22), reveals a strong focus on fostering economically relevant and technological knowledge creation.…”

Utilisation of Lignins in the Bioeconomy: Projections on Ionic Liquids and Molecularly Imprinted Polymers for Selective Separation and Recovery of Base Metals and Gold

“…To understand the term bioeconomy [22], two main schools of thoughts have conceptualise it and have tried to explain profoundly the aspirations behind the concept, irrespective from its origin [30]. The first school of thought widely publicised in the literature [133][134][135][136] defines the concept based on the understanding that bioeconomy will rely on renewable biomass instead of finite fossil inputs for the production of a wide range of value-added products such as food, feed, bio-based products and bioenergy.…”

“…Due to the nature of the molecule(s) as a novel commodity for many interesting natural and manufactured products [26][27][28][29], a modern bioeconomy [30][31][32][33] is not simply a rerun of former ones. This new discourse needs to help us understand how technologies [34][35][36][37][38] for managing and processing lignocellulosic materials both as biosynthetic moieties [39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49], biogenic wastes [50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58] or simply renewable biopolymer [59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69]-both established and novel-should be deployed and integrated (or not) to meet developmental requirements of the sustainability paradigm [70][71]…”

“…For example, during and after the aforementioned period, biomass usage was constant or even on the increased in the timber and fibre industries [128], during the 1930s agricultural surplus in the USA [129] and during World War II petroleum shortages in Europe [130]. As one of the twenty-first century human goal to reduce society's climate footprint and other environmental burdens, there is now a renewed interest in biomass, sparked by the aim to achieve a more secure supply of resources and to encourage the bioeconomy [21,25,30,32]. Unfortunately, activities designed to achieve those aims are at the centre of a battlefield where recent food versus fuel and deforestation debates reveal that the source of the biomass being exploited is an important consideration.…”