Pathways to Shape the Bioeconomy

By Carmen Priefer, J. Jörissen, O. Frör. 2017

157 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In view of the increasing depletion of fossil fuel resources, the concept “bioeconomy” aims at the gradual replacement of fossil fuels by renewable feedstock. Seen as a comprehensive societal transition, the bioeconomy is a complex field that includes a variety of sectors, actors, and interests and is related to far-reaching changes in today’s production systems. While the objectives pursued—such as reducing dependence on fossil fuels, mitigating climate change, ensuring global food security, and increasing the industrial use of biogenic resources—are not generally contentious, there is fierce controversy over the possible pathways for achieving these objectives. Based on a thorough literature review, the article identifies major lines of conflict in the current discourse. Criticism of the prevalent concept refers mainly to the strong focus on technology, the lack of consideration given to alternative implementation pathways, the insufficient differentiation of underlying sustainability requirements, and the inadequate participation of societal stakeholders. Since today it cannot be predicted which pathway will be the most expedient—the one already being taken or one of the others proposed—this paper suggests pursuing a strategy of diversity concerning the approaches to shape the bioeconomy, the funding of research topics, and the involvement of stakeholders.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c3b464f35655462c711197e2c8c7fb6936533b6b

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

1. Carmen Priefer
2. A. Petit‐Boix
3. R. Meyer
4. Sina Leipold

In Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

1. A. Petit‐Boix
2. Sina Leipold

In Strategy and Management

1. A. Petit‐Boix
2. D. D’Amato
3. Pekka Leskinen
4. N. Droste
5. Sina Leipold

Citations in the corpus

• Transforming the bio-based sector towards a circular economy - What can we learn from wood cascading? (2020, background): “The same priority is observable in discussions on the bioeconomy (Priefer et al., 2017) and CE (Ghisellini et al.”
• Green, circular, bio economy: A comparative analysis of sustainability avenues (2017, methodology): “Such analysis is based on latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) (Blei et al., 2003; cf. Pritchard et al., 2000) and it is supported by the LDAvis 0.3.3 package in R (Sievert and Shirley, 2014).”