What Is the Bioeconomy? A Review of the Literature

By Markus M. Bugge, Teis Hansen, Antje Klitkou. 2016

652 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The notion of the bioeconomy has gained importance in both research and policy debates over the last decade, and is frequently argued to be a key part of the solution to multiple grand challenges. Despite this, there seems to be little consensus concerning what bioeconomy actually implies. Consequently, this paper seeks to enhance our understanding of what the notion of bioeconomy means by exploring the origins, uptake, and contents of the term “bioeconomy” in the academic literature. Firstly, we perform a bibliometric analysis that highlights that the bioeconomy research community is still rather fragmented and distributed across many different fields of science, even if natural and engineering sciences take up the most central role. Secondly, we carry out a literature review that identifies three visions of the bioeconomy. The bio-technology vision emphasises the importance of bio-technology research and application and commercialisation of bio-technology in different sectors of the economy. The bio-resource vision focuses on processing and upgrading of biological raw materials, as well as on the establishment of new value chains. Finally, the bio-ecology vision highlights sustainability and ecological processes that optimise the use of energy and nutrients, promote biodiversity, and avoid monocultures and soil degradation.

Subfields: General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8b77718cb114f3feedbd8185c0f2286c3888fbfa

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Citations in the corpus

Development of the Circular Bioeconomy: Drivers and Indicators (2021, background): “identified three visions of the bioeconomy, that is a biotechnology vision, a bio-resource vision, and a bio-ecology vision, which are associated with different actors and reflect their priorities in the bioeconomy [67].”
The circular economy and the bio-based sector - Perspectives of European and German stakeholders (2018, methodology): “As the bio-based sector is by no means a uniform term in the literature (Bugge et al., 2016) nor among stakeholders, and is often used synonymously with the term bio-economy, this paper applies a perception-based definition.”
Prioritization of sustainability indicators for promoting the circular economy: The case of developing countries (2019, background): “[46] categorized bioeconomy into three main groups, namely biotechnology vision, bio-resource”
Agency and actors in regional industrial path development. A framework and longitudinal analysis (2020, background): “Through a cluster approach, the region has expanded from the traditional pulp and paper industry into a broader bioeconomy, where bio-resources are exploited for the production of multiple types of products (Bugge et al., 2016).”
Pathways to Shape the Bioeconomy (2017, background): “Assessing the contrasting positions taken on the key issues discussed in the previous paragraphs, two different pathways for shaping the bioeconomy emerge: a technology-based approach, which is the currently prevailing one, and a socio-ecological approach (Table 2; see similar distinctions in [96,10”
A Transition to Which Bioeconomy? An Exploration of Diverging Techno-Political Choices (2017, background): “[10] runs the risk of neglecting important—and, in our view, decisive—political dimensions that reveal the highly conflictive developmental trajectories associated with each vision.”
Bioeconomy Strategies: Contexts, Visions, Guiding Implementation Principles and Resulting Debates (2017, background): “This alternative vision is called agroecology vision [54,144–146], alternative agriculture vision [147], bio-ecology vision [148], eco-economy vision [149] or socio-ecological approach [150] and is formulated with slight variations.”
A Systematic Literature Review of Bio, Green and Circular Economy Trends in Publications in the Field of Economics and Business Management (2018, background): “At a global level, increased adoption of bioeconomy strategies in recent years can be observed [6,8,22,23].”
On the Circular Bioeconomy and Decoupling: Implications for Sustainable Growth (2019, background): “Definitions and interpretations of the term ‘bioeconomy’ are surrounded by similar confusion (Bauer, 2018; Bugge et al., 2016; McCormick and Kautto, 2013).”
A Path Transition Towards a Bioeconomy—The Crucial Role of Sustainability (2019, background): “[44] distinguish between a (i) bio-technology vision (focus on research, application and commercialisation of bio-technology), (ii) bio-resource vision (focus on processing and upgrading of biological raw materials and establishment of new value chains) and (iii) bio-ecology vision (focus on sustain”