Fielding The Call For Sustainability

Abstract

Thanks to the emerging bioeconomy, renewable substances made from plants can now be found in places as varied as car interiors, laundry detergent, and plastic bottles. But as the industry works feverishly to increase its scale, the marketing trope that “plant-based” is equal to sustainable may lose luster, unless green claims can be backed by data. Consumer goods makers want to buy more biobased materials. Yet they point out that most life-cycle assessments for these chemicals, which purport to measure environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions, generally do not take into account the first part of the supply chain—the farm where raw materials are grown. And it is the agriculture portion of the chain that contains many variables in which society has a stake, including land use, food security, labor rights, and water scarcity and quality. The Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade group that represents both pharmaceutical and industrial ...