Abstract
AbstractCountries are responding to unsustainable resource extraction, rising emissions, and increasing waste streams by implementing national bioeconomy strategies. Assuming that the purpose of a bioeconomy is to replace fossil use by biogenic resource use, we estimate biomass and fossil raw material consumption (RMC) by applying multiregional input–output methodology for middle and high income countries. Next, we use a panel fixed effects model to explain RMC with economically active population, urban population, GDP, land cover, and fossil/biomass domestic material consumption. With this model, we project RMC under five Shared Socioeconomic Pathway scenarios up to 2050. The projections show an increase in per capita biomass RMC between 2010 and 2050, accompanied by—in many cases pronounced—per capita growth of fossil RMC across most of the countries and scenarios. We conclude that, if GDP continues to drive fossil RMC at its current magnitude, upcoming conditions are likely to counteract a potential bioeconomic transition and increase, instead of decrease, fossil RMC. Thus, increasing biomass use will not necessarily lead to reduced fossil resource consumption. When considering the relative scarcity of biomass, land and water, more focus needs to be placed on the relevance of technological bio‐based innovations in the reconfiguration of RMC drivers.
Highlights
Factors such as insufficient material efficiency gains in middle and high income countries, the rapid economic growth of emerging economies, and the unsustainable extraction of finite natural resources, have all contributed to raising the significance of emission and waste issues on a global scale (Krausmann, Schandl, Eisenmenger, Giljum, & Jackson, 2017)
We found a general tendency for the log-transformed models to deliver slightly better results and opted for log– log models, which is consistent with previous studies (Teixidó-Figueras et al, 2016; Wiedmann et al, 2015) and with theoretical considerations on the nature of driving forces behind anthropogenic environmental impacts (Ehrlich & Holdren, 1971)
While domestic material consumption (DMC) continues to be an important driver of raw material consumption (RMC), the findings identify the presence of leakages with respect to production-based policy actions to promote the bioeconomy and highlight the need for flanking measures targeted at consumption
Summary
Factors such as insufficient material efficiency gains in middle and high income countries, the rapid economic growth of emerging economies, and the unsustainable extraction of finite natural resources, have all contributed to raising the significance of emission and waste issues on a global scale (Krausmann, Schandl, Eisenmenger, Giljum, & Jackson, 2017). The intentional and unintentional effects of a supposed bioeconomic transition are described in terms of a gradual reduction of fossil resource use, facilitated by an intensified use of biomass This process is related to environmental changes involving emissions to air, land, and water use, biogenic carbon storage, finite resource depletion, biodiversity (Clancy, Fröling, & Svanström, 2013; Pawelzik et al, 2013), eutrophication, ozone depletion (Weiss et al, 2012), as well as the accompanying socioeconomic changes in primary energy use (Weiss et al, 2012), operating. Journal of Industrial Ecology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Yale University
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