The Bioeconomy in Europe: An Overview
By K. McCormick, Niina Kautto. 2013
688 citations recorded by the source corpus.
A bioeconomy can be defined as an economy where the basic building blocks for materials, chemicals and energy are derived from renewable biological resources. This paper provides an overview of the bioeconomy in Europe, examining it from a policy framework and concept perspective. The role of bioenergy in the bioeconomy is discussed particularly through biofuels for transport and biorefineries. The study finds that the definitions of the bioeconomy are evolving and vary depending on the actor, but display similarities such as the emphasis on economic output and a broad, cross-sectoral focus. While there is great optimism about the benefits and opportunities associated with developing an advanced bioeconomy in Europe, significant risks and trade-offs are also expressed. Furthermore, the bioeconomy concept has been criticised for presenting a technical fix and pre-empting alternative visions. To advance a competitive and sustainable bioeconomy, this paper calls for attention on two important themes: participatory governance that engages the general public and key stakeholders in an open and informed dialogue as well as a commitment by government and industry to innovation that drives concerted efforts on sustainable development of the bioeconomy.
Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Molecular Biology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/49af047f80f1d369fb502a9154177e9b04b75192
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Citations in the corpus
- Review and Analysis of Alternatives for the Valorisation of Agro-Industrial Olive Oil By-Products (2018, background): “In our opinion and as McCormick and Kautto [35] conclude, “emphasis on an economic perspective and creating public welfare; realising the latent value in biological resources; and a broad, cross-sectoral focus that allows flexible interpretations and enables (possibly) far-reaching impacts”.”
- A Systematic Literature Review of Bio, Green and Circular Economy Trends in Publications in the Field of Economics and Business Management (2018, background): “At the European level, [92] analyses the BE from a political and conceptual perspective, highlighting the opportunities and benefits it offers.”
- Biodegradable polymer films from seaweed polysaccharides: A review on cellulose as a reinforcement material (2017, background): “The benefits of transitioning from a fossilbased to a bio-based economy include a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, decrease in the dependence on fossil resources, wiser management of natural resources, and improved food security [121].”
- The Role of Trials and Demonstration Projects in the Development of a Sustainable Bioeconomy (2017, background): “We believe that these insights are important not only for bioenergy, which has so far been a prominent part of the bioeconomy, but also for biofuels and bio-products, which is expected to become an increasingly important part of the bioeconomy in coming years [41].”
- Green, circular, bio economy: A comparative analysis of sustainability avenues (2017, background): “Generally, BE advocates that industrial inputs (material, chemicals, energy) should be derived from renewable biological resources, with research and innovation enabling the transformational process (McCormick and Kautto, 2013; Pfau et al., 2014).”
- Green economy and related concepts: An overview (2016, positive): “Following OECD approach, bioeconomy, bio-based economy or knowledge based bio-435 economy can be viewed as synonymous (McCormick and Kautto, 2013).”
- Bioeconomy Strategies: Contexts, Visions, Guiding Implementation Principles and Resulting Debates (2017, background): “The concept of bioeconomy originates from the life sciences and biotechnology spheres [32].”
- Ten Years of Sustainability (2009 to 2018): A Bibliometric Overview (2018, background): “6 The bioeconomy in Europe: an overview [27] McCormick, K.”
- Analysis of the relations between circular economy and sustainable development goals (2019, neutral): “Bioeconomy is also an open concept (McCormick and Kautto 2013).”