Abstract
An increasing number of countries develop bio-economy strategies to promote a stronger reliance on the efficient use of renewable biological resources in order to meet multiple sustainability challenges. At the global scale, however, bio-economies are diverse, with sectors such as agriculture, forestry, energy, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, as well as science and education. In this study, we developed a typology of bio-economies based on country-specific characteristics, and describe five different bio-economy types with varying degrees of importance in the primary and the high-tech sector. We also matched the bio-economy types against the foci of their bio-economy strategies and evaluated their sustainability performance. Overall, high-tech bio-economies seem to be more diversified in terms of their policy strategies while the policies of those relying on the primary sector are focused on bioenergy and high-tech industries. In terms of sustainability performance, indicators suggest that diversified high-tech economies have experienced a slight sustainability improvement, especially in terms of resource consumption. Footprints remain, however, at the highest levels compared to all other bio-economy types with large amounts of resources and raw materials being imported from other countries. These results highlight the necessity of developed high-tech bio-economies to further decrease their environmental footprint domestically and internationally, and the importance of biotechnology innovation transfer after critical and comprehensive sustainability assessments.
Highlights
Despite the current drop in price, many fossil fuel resources are becoming increasingly scarce [1], and their consumption is associated with climate change, and harmful effects on ecosystems and human health
This paper aims at improving our understanding of the determinants and sustainability implications of the supply and demand of bio-based products, and our knowledge about the global bio-economy by answering the following research questions: (1) How do countries differ in terms of their bio-economy and comparative advantages? (2) Can these differences be explained by the adoption of different national policies? And (3) what are the sustainability implications of these different bio-economy pathways? First, we characterize bio-economy types based on a set of indicators that we expect to be associated with countries’ strategic decisions to embark on a particular bio-based development pathway
Our results revealed four different bio-economy types which we named according to their characteristics, Diversified bio-economies (Diverse), Advanced primary sector bio-economies (AdvancedPrim), High-tech bio-economies (HighTech), and Basic primary sector bio-economies (BasicPrim)
Summary
Despite the current drop in price, many fossil fuel resources are becoming increasingly scarce [1], and their consumption is associated with climate change, and harmful effects on ecosystems and human health. Population growth and corresponding pressures on natural resources have risen beyond safe ecological limits [2]. In response to these societal challenges, countries have adopted ambitious global goals such as the 2 ◦C limit to global warming, the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While early publications adopted sector specific definitions or focused purely on biotechnology [8,9], the bio-economy is increasingly being understood to include all kinds of economic activity that rely on biological processes, products, and principles [10]. In this study we adopt a broad definition that includes traditionally bio-based sectors such as agriculture and forestry, and bio-based pharmaceutics, waste treatment, energy, bio-plastics, and chemicals
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