Bioeconomy Beneath and Beyond: Persisting Challenges from a Philosophical and Ethical Perspective

Pinsdorf, Christina

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-87402-5_20

Christina Pinsdorf⁵

600 Accesses
2 Citations

Abstract

The concept of bioeconomy is currently discussed worldwide as an attempt to solve global problems relating to climate change, ecological crisis, and global population growth. Bioeconomic applications are of enormous range and affect key sectors of society, such as the food and feed sector, the energy, transportation and construction sector, the chemical sector as well as the textile and clothing industry. Social and environmental justice are meant to be central aims of the concept of bioeconomy just like sustainable economic growth and prosperity. But as promising as the concept of bioeconomy may sound, it still faces various challenges, both from a more theory-driven philosophical perspective and from a rather application-oriented ethical point of view. The present study analyzes persisting philosophical challenges underlying the concept of bioeconomy in view of tensions concerning the relations between economy and man as well as between economy and nature and reveals bioeconomic promises and disillusions. Persisting ethical challenges are scrutinized on the basis of the Precautionary Principle (PP), the principle of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) as well as the differentiation of a technological and a behavioral fix. Eventually, it is argued that bioeconomy is no panacea. What is needed rather is a great sustainable transformation to globally address the urgent ecological, social and economic problems of the Anthropocene.

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Notes

1.
Cf. Grefe (2018, 21 f.) and Vogt (2018, p. 32).
2.
Cf. Georgescu-Roegen (1971) and Meadows et al. (1972).
3.
Cf. Enríquez-Cabot (1998, 925 f.) and Birner (2018, p. 19).
4.
Cf. von Braun (2018, p. 11).
5.
Cf. for instance Leshem (2016), Müller (2017). Cf. also Lanzerath and Schurr (2022) in this volume.
6.
Cf. Radke (2004, pp. 147–155).
7.
Cf. for instance Schoop (2022) in this volume.
8.
Cf. Bonaiuti (2015).
9.
Cf. Radke (2004, pp. 157–162).
10.
Cf. ibid., 163.
11.
Cf. Gottwald and Krätzer (2014, p. 12) and Vogt (2018, 31 f).
12.
European Parliament (2000). At the conference “New Perspectives on the Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy” of the European Commission in 2005, the European Commissioner for Science and Research, Janez Potočnik, held a talk entitled “Transforming Life Sciences Knowledge into New, Sustainable, Eco-Efficient and Competitive Products” which is meant to be a definition of the knowledge-based bioeconomy (cf. Birner, 2018, 20).
13.
Cf. Birch (2006), Gottwald and Krätzer (2014), Fatheuer et al. (2015) and Grefe (2018).
14.
Cf. Gottwald and Krätzer (2014, 8 f).
15.
Cf. Fatheuer et al. (2015, pp. 137–167), Vogt (2018, p. 33) and Pies et al. (2018, p. 107).
16.
In its relevant report “Our Common Future” (also known as “Brundtland Report”), the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (also known as Brundtland Commission) defines “sustainable development” as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, par. 27). Furthermore, at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment & Development in Rio de Janeiro the global action program “Agenda 21” has been worked out, which determined three dimensions of sustainable development: environmental, social, and economic (cf. United Nations, 1992).
17.
Cf. Gottwald and Krätzer (2014, p. 19).
18.
Cf. ibid., 154. Cf. also Schleissing (2018, p. 72).
19.
Birch (2006, p. 4).
20.
Cf. Birner (2018, p. 24).
21.
Indeed, bioeconomic applications can be energy-intensive, have negative water-footprints and/or negative biodiversity records (cf. for instance Fritsche and Rösch, 2017; Heimann, 2018; Lago et al. 2019).
22.
Cf. Birner (2018, 24 f).
23.
Cf. Victor (2019, p. 49).
24.
TEEB DE links to the international study “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)” and exhibits that through the use of natural resources, valuable biospheres get lost also in Germany (cf. Naturkapital Deutschland – TEEB DE 2012).
25.
Cf. Naturkapital Deutschland – TEEB DE (2012, p. 23).
26.
After a typical definition, natural capital is “the world’s stocks of natural assets which include geology, soil, air, water and all living things. It is from this Natural Capital that humans derive a wide range of goods and services, often called ecological goods and services, which make human life possible” (World Forum on Natural Capital, 2017).
27.
Cf. Naturkapital Deutschland – TEEB DE (2012, p. 10).
28.
Cf. ibid., 6.
29.
Cf. ibid., 9, 15.
30.
Cf. Pinsdorf (2020).
31.
Cf. Naturkapital Deutschland – TEEB DE (2012, p. 14).
32.
Cf. Vogt (2018, 34 f).
33.
Cf. for instance Naturkapital Deutschland – TEEB DE (2012, 46) and Jackson (2009, p. 174).
34.
Naturkapital Deutschland – TEEB DE (2012, p. 11).
35.
Cf. Pinsdorf (2020).
36.
Cf. ibid., 79.
37.
Victor (2019, p. 89).
38.
Cf. Naturkapital Deutschland – TEEB DE (2012, pp. 12, 21, 47, 62). Peter A. Victor explains: “Commodification […] refers to the conversion of something outside the economy into a commodity for purchase and sale. […] The success of capitalism owes much to this process through which the market takes over aspects of society that were previously outside the economy” (Victor, 2019, 53).
39.
Cf. Pinsdorf (2016, 143 ff.) and Pinsdorf (2020).
40.
Victor (2019, p. 78). For further critique of the conceptual framework underlying the monetarization of ecosystem services or ecological damage, cf. Victor (2019, 77, 80 ff).
41.
Cf. Naturkapital Deutschland—TEEB DE (2012, 10 f). In TEEB DE, for instance, human well-being and usefulness for humans is emphasized throughout (cf. ibid., 9, 10, 15, 18, 23, 49, 80).
42.
Cf. for instance Singer (1977), Bradie (2011, 567 f.), Breitenbach (2009), Sturma (2013), Pinsdorf (2016), Thompson (2017, 85 ff.) and Kopnina et al. (2018).
43.
Cf. Naturkapital Deutschland —TEEB DE (2012, p. 64).
44.
Victor (2019, p. 91).
45.
Cf. Sukhdev (2009, p. xix) and Jackson (2009, p. 65).
46.
Victor (2019, p. 107).
47.
Jackson (2009, p. 67). Cf. also Hamm (2018, p. 138) and Victor (2019, p. xiii).
48.
Victor (2019, p. 108). Cf. also ibid., 38; Jackson (2009, pp. 67–76).
49.
Cf. Jackson (2009, p. 68).
50.
Cf. Herrmann (2015, p. 3), United Nations Environment Programme (2016, p. 16) and Hamm (2018, 138 ff). As Victor notes, “the twenty-first century has witnessed an unprecedented period of relative and absolute re-coupling of material extraction and global GDP” (Victor, 2019, p. 109).
51.
Jackson (2009, p. 95).
52.
Cf. Victor (2019, p. 108).
53.
Jackson (2009, p. 75).
54.
Cf. for instance World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) (2009, 5 ff). For a further exploration of possible futures of a wood-based circular bioeconomy in Germany, see, for instance, Hagemann et al. (2016).
55.
Global Bioeconomy Summit (2015, p. 5).
56.
Cf. Victor (2019, p. 46). Some, however, still believe a fully closed loop economic system producing no waste to be possible (cf. World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), 2009, 5, 15 f).
57.
Cf. Georgescu-Roegen (1971, p. 4–7, 17, 129, 197, 280).
58.
Victor (2019, p. 46).
59.
Ibid.
60.
Cf. ibid., 117.
61.
Herrmann, for instance, is convinced that due to purely economic reasons, this transition is either impossible or extremely difficult (cf. Herrmann, 2015, p. 3). In the second edition of his forward-thinking book Managing without Growth, Victor actually raises related fundamental questions: “How might an advanced economy function in the absence of growth? Would it collapse or is there a configuration of production, consumption, employment and other aspects of importance that is both feasible and attractive without relying on economic growth?” (Victor, 2019, p. 31). And, by the meaningful subtitle of his book, Slower by Design, not Disaster, Victor furthermore points to the most probable, if not certain vision that growth is coming to an end and the only freedom of choice left to us is either making it end (sooner) accompanied by well-informed decisions and knowledgeable measures or watching it end (later) disordered and tragically.
62.
Cf. for instance Gordon and Rosenthal (2003), Binswanger (2009b), Jackson (2009, 61 ff.), Smith (2010) and Dörre (2013).
63.
For the added dimension of alarm, see, for instance, the following statement in the Strategy Paper of the German Bioeconomy Council: “Originally, the concept of a bio-based economy was promoted in the light of expected rapidly depleting petrol, gas and coal reserves. However, the move into bioeconomy is no longer driven predominantly by expectations of rising prices of fossil fuels. In view of the exploitation of new fossil reserves and due to energy efficiency improvements, this argument has become less pressing but it nevertheless remains strategically essential. Without major adjustments, the continued emission of greenhouse gases and the related changes in climate conditions will irreversibly damage the global ecosystem and will involve incalculable economic risks” (German Bioeconomy Council, 2014, p. 1). Cf. also Victor (2019, 95 ff., 116, 135).
64.
Victor (2019, p. 100).
65.
Cf. World Commission on Environment and Development (1987).
66.
Ibid., 7.
67.
Victor (2019, 44 f). Victor ascertains further: “It is also difficult to find official definitions of economic growth even from organizations such as the OECD, the IMF and the World Bank that are dedicated to promoting it. We are simply told that economic growth is measured by changes in real GDP or real GDP per capita. What is being measured has become synonymous with its measurement” (Victor, 2019, 42 f.).
68.
Cf. also the following statement of ecological economist Herman E. Daly: “Exactly what is growing? One thing is GDP, the annual marketed flow of final goods and services. But there is also the throughput— the metabolic flow of useful matter and energy from environmental sources, through the economic subsystem (production and consumption), and back to environmental sinks as waste. Economists have focused on GDP and, until recently, neglected throughput. But throughput is the relevant magnitude for answering the question about how big the economy is—namely how big is the economy’s metabolic flow relative to the natural cycles that regenerate the economy’s resource depletion and absorb its waste emissions, as well as providing countless other natural services? The answer is that the economic subsystem is now very large relative to the ecosystem that sustains it” (Daly, 2009, xi f.).
69.
Cf. Sukhdev (2009, p. xvii) and Jackson (2009, p. 179). Cf. also Jackson (2009), Chap. 4 which analyzes data concerning life expectancy, health and educational participation in relation to GDP collected by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) over several decades.
70.
Cf. Naturkapital Deutschland – TEEB DE (2012, 46 f.) and Victor (2019, 43 f).
71.
Robinson (2009, p. xvi). Also the OECD itself resumes that positive developments in environmental respect are still only at the margin and far from appropriate (cf. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015, p. 7).
72.
Cf. Daly (1996, 166 f). It is also interesting how Daly translates the meaning of consumption as destruction (cf. ibid., 62) and growth—at least in the global North—as some impediment to sustainable development (cf. ibid., 8, 13 ff.)
73.
Cf. for instance Jackson (2009, p. 52, 59).
74.
“Economic growth has made it possible for people to live longer, healthier lives at a level of comfort that even the wealthy in pre-industrial societies could scarcely imagine. […] But economic growth has its costs. These can be categorized as environmental costs and social costs. […] Social costs include the breakdown of communities, alienation, crowding and crime” (Victor, 2019, p. 241).
75.
Cf. Read and Alexander (2020, p. 52).
76.
Cf. Vogt (2018, p. 39).
77.
Victor (2019, p. 216). Cf. also Jackson (2009, 180 f.) and Grefe (2018, p. 29).
78.
Victor (2019, p. 209). For further arguments on why economic growth does not or is at least not necessary to promote happiness and well-being cf. Victor (2019), Chap. 9.
79.
Cf. Kasser (2002) and Read and Alexander (2020, p. 55).
80.
Cf. Binswanger (2006).
81.
Cf. Sen (1998) and Victor (2019, p. 209).
82.
Cf. Easterlin (1974, 113 ff.) and Victor (2019, 212 f).
83.
Cf. Easterlin (1974, 111 ff).
84.
Cf. for instance Gordon and Rosenthal (2003), Binswanger (2009b), Jackson (2009, 61 ff.), Smith (2010) and Dörre (2013).
85.
Cf. Herrmann (2015, p. 3).
86.
Cf. Binswanger (2009a). Cf. also Jackson (2009, p. 65), Binswanger (2009b), Herrmann (2015, p. 3) and Binswanger (2019).
87.
Jackson (2009, p. 88).
88.
Cf. Schumpeter (1994 [1942/43], 81 ff.), Jackson (2009, p. 97) and Victor (2019, 50 f).
89.
Cf. Daly (1996, 33 ff.), Herrmann (2015, p. 3), Read and Alexander (2020, p. 33). The according demand for degrowth is not new (cf. Meadows et al., 1972).
90.
Insofar ‘progress’ is understood as a normative term which is oriented towards an improved way of life (cf. Schleissing, 2018, p. 75).
91.
Jackson (2009, p. 86).
92.
Cf. e.g. Commission of the European Communities (2000), Sunstein (2005, p. 1), Consolidated Version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union 2016, Art. 191; European Commission Directorate-General for Environment (2018).
93.
Cf. e.g. Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, 1992).
94.
Cf. for instance Bogner and Torgersen (2018), Boldt (2018, p. 82) and Pies et al. (2018, p. 115).
95.
Cf. Jonas (2017). For an intensive discussion of Jonas’ ethics and its implications for the ethical evaluation of the concept of bioeconomy cf. Schoop (2022) in this volume.
96.
Cf. Jonas (2017, 7, 36, 63 ff., 70 ff., 81 ff).
97.
Cf. Sunstein (2005, p. 5).
98.
Cf. Renn (2002), Sunstein (2005, 2 ff.), Renn (2014, 246–285, 533 ff.), Bogner and Torgersen (2018), Pies et al. (2018, p. 115) and Vogt (2018, p. 46).
99.
Sunstein (2005, p. 2).
100.
Cf. Renn (2002, p. 44) and Rippe and Willemsen (2018).
101.
For an assessment of biosafety and biosecurity in the field of synthetic biology, cf. e.g. Boldt (2018, 79 f.) and Lanzerath et al. (2020).
102.
Cf. Boldt (2018, p. 82).
103.
Cf. Kuttruff and Then (2018, 88 f., 97).
104.
Sunstein (2005, 5 f).
105.
Cf. Kuttruff and Then (2018, p. 98) and Read and Alexander (2020, p. 19).
106.
Cf. Read and Alexander (2020, 24 f).
107.
Cf. for instance Rippe and Willemsen (2018), Kuttruff and Then (2018, p. 98) and Read and Alexander (2020).
108.
Cf. for instance Sunstein (2005, p. 5) and Bogner and Torgersen (2018).
109.
Cf. European Commission (2014) and European Commission (2020).
110.
Von Schomberg (2013, p. 63).
111.
Cf. Vogt (2018, p. 45).
112.
Bogner and Torgersen (2018, p. 4).
113.
In the realm of agricultural bioeconomy, it is, for instance applications such as smart farming or precision agriculture that represent the predominant practices of digitalization. In general, the significance of AI for bioeconomic applications and the sustainability context is increasing rapidly. For a general conception of AI for sustainability and the sustainability of AI see van Wynsberghe (2021).
114.
Cf. Vogt (2018, p. 46).
115.
Cf. Bogner and Torgersen (2018, p. 1).
116.
Bogner and Torgersen (2018, p. 2).
117.
Cf. for instance Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2011), Aguilar et al. (2018), von Braun (2018), European Economic and Social Committee (2018). Cf. also bioökonomie.de (2018), an initiative of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
118.
Cf. also Beck (2022) in this volume.
119.
Cf. Boldt (2018, p. 83) and Read and Alexander (2020, p. 17, 21).
120.
Cf. World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) (2009, 2 ff.); Gottwald (2018, 100 f).
121.
Streeck (2016, p. 62).
122.
Cf. Jackson (2009, p. 83).
123.
Cf. Hagemann et al. (2016, p. 18) and Read and Alexander (2020, p. 9).
124.
Cf. Gottwald (2018, p. 103). I do neither subscribe to Gottwald’s further conception of creatures having dignity and a right to freedom, nor to his theological viewpoint that creatures are intended by the Creator as they are. Instead, I argue for asymmetrical relations of recognition within which the morally relevant intrinsic good of all non-human lifeforms may be considered adequately (cf. Pinsdorf, 2016, 233 ff.).
125.
Cf. Victor (2019, p. 237).
126.
Cf. Sen (1998), Jackson (2009, p. 161) and Victor (2019, p. 235).
127.
Cf. Schumpeter (1994 [1942/43], pp. 81–86, 104) and Victor (2019, 50 f).
128.
Jackson (2009, p. 97). On obsolescence cf. also Daly (1996, p. 102).
129.
Cf. Jackson (2009, p. 154) and Victor (2019, p. 236).
130.
Cf. Kasser (2002), Jackson (2009, 153 ff., 180 ff). For the differentiation between status goods, useful goods and public goods cf. Victor (2019, 220 ff).
131.
Cf. Herrmann (2015, p. 3), Vogt (2018, p. 36) and Read and Alexander (2020, p. 19). On the huge impact of changed consumption patterns such as a less meat-based diet see, for instance, the pilot report on the monitoring of German bioeconomy by the Center for Environmental Systems Research (2020).
132.
Cf. Read and Alexander (2020, 87 f).
133.
There are, for instance, diverse trends countering self-indulgence, such as downshifting, minimalism, vegetarianism and veganism, etc. Besides, there are more and more consumers who want to buy fewer and fewer products from companies “that do not pay attention to ecological and social aspects in their business policy” (Naturkapital Deutschland – TEEB DE, 2012, p. 66).
134.
Here I am borrowing and at the same time sharply distancing from The Great Transformation described by Karl Polanyi in 1944 (cf. Polanyi, 1973 [1944]).
135.
Cf. for instance the model of Contraction and Convergence (C&C) promoted by the Global Commons Institute (http://www.gci.org.uk/ [17.03.2021]).
136.
Cf. Jackson (2009, 157 f.); German Advisory Council on Global Change (2011, p. 1).
137.
Sukhdev (2009, p. xix).

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Christina Pinsdorf

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DRZE, University of Bonn, Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Dirk Lanzerath
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Ulrich Schurr
Institute of Science and Ethics (IWE), University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
Christina Pinsdorf
INM-8, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Mandy Stake

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Pinsdorf, C. (2022). Bioeconomy Beneath and Beyond: Persisting Challenges from a Philosophical and Ethical Perspective. In: Lanzerath, D., Schurr, U., Pinsdorf, C., Stake, M. (eds) Bioeconomy and Sustainability. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87402-5_20

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