The promises of drop-in vs. functional innovations: The case of bioplastics

The more things change, the more they stay the same: promises of bioeconomy and the economy of promises

“…The concrete 'solutions' presented in these visions are mostly technologies promising to boost biomass production by improved control over genetic and environmental factors (GMOs, precision agriculture), and/or substitute fossil-based materials and processes as bio-based dropin replacements, such as tires made from dandelion or biopolymers produced by genetically modified bacteria (Boyer et al 2022, in this feature). Even though specific innovations may bring about functional change (such as the example of PLA studied by Befort 2021), within the bioeconomy discourse, the expected role of innovation is that of a "drop-in" that helps maintain the existing paradigm (Befort 2021). Yet, the feasibility of both upscaling such solutions to the macroeconomic, even global, level and combining them into an overall economic framework to fully substitute for the enormous and still-growing amounts of fossil resources currently used, while avoiding overexploitation of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity, soil degradation and other detrimental effects, remains largely unaddressed.…”

“…Does not all this indicate institutional change pointing in a beneficial, salutary direction? In other words, is not the successive revision of policies and the broader rhetorical integration of socio-ecological concerns a sign that policymaking itself follows the logic of the 'promise cycle' observed in industrial innovation (Befort 2021;Joly 2013), in which initially exaggerated claims are inevitably disappointed by the limitations of reality, giving way to renewed processes of scientific invention and discovery that lead to new, less hyperbolic and more feasible solutions bound to be further improved in the next round of the cycle? We argue that this salutary view, instructive as it may be with regard to industrial product innovation processes, misses the point when applied to policy formation.…”

“…the 'claim to the possibility and desirability of a certain vision' (Eversberg et al 2022a, p. 4, in this feature) of bioeconomy in which more of the same in technological advance and economic expansion will transform societies toward sustainability without actually transforming anything substantial about them. Following Joly (2013; see also Befort 2021;Giampietro 2019), they can be seen as expressions of an 'economics of techno-scientific promises' (ETP): starting from the widely accepted problematization (Joly 2013, p. 206) of ecological crisis, they posit technological 'innovation' as the one solution that will solve all problems, dethematizing any aspect of change in practices, social relations and basic economic institutions, and turning an issue of socio-political conflict into one of solution-seeking by techno-scientific experts (Boyer et al 2022, in this feature;Lühmann and Vogelpohl 2023). The promise is legitimized by appeal to both the 'ideology of technological progress' (Joly 2013, p. 207) and the notion of sustainable development, with the latter as well as the pervasive competitiveness argument serving to back up the claims with a 'diagnosis of urgency' (Joly 2013, p. 208).…”

“…Building on both theoretical considerations and empirical research on cases of bioeconomy policymaking and implementation from across the globe, including several from the Global South, this special feature aims to provide a nuanced assessment and critical discussion of the promise that the type of bioeconomic 'transformation' envisioned by such policy concepts can contribute to more socially and ecologically sustainable societies. It scrutinizes not only the ways in which this promise is legitimized, made credible and turned into a 'self-fulfilling prophecy' creating path dependencies and lock-ins (Joly 2013;Befort 2021), but also the increasingly evident globally unequal developments and socioecological consequences it triggers.…”

Synthesis and characterization of biodegradable and photocrosslinkable multi‐block poly(ether‐ester): Molecular‐weight and component of the polyethylene glycol segment dependence

“…21 As production of biodegradable plastics increases and technology advances, the cost of production is getting closer to that of fossil-based polymers. 22,23 The design of polymer molecular chains can often lead to materials with different properties. Fumaric acid is a derivative of maleic anhydride, which is an important organic chemical raw material and intermediate of fine chemical products.…”