Abstract
The bioeconomy, understood as the production of renewable biological resources and their conversion into food, feed, bio-based products and bioenergy via innovative and efficient technologies, has the potential to tackle current grand challenges like natural resource scarcity, climate change, food supply and energy. Improved and systematic foresight investigations with a focus on regulations, policies and technologies are needed for better decision-making in the future and for enabling the bio-based economy to timely tackle those challenges. A common understanding of the challenges and of the capacities available is a basis for conducting foresight. This chapter, after providing an overview of the drivers and challenges of the bioeconomy and of the European policy framework governing it, explains the concept of foresight thinking and its potential contribution to the achievement of the targets of the bio-based strategy. It explains the potential role that regulatory foresight can play in establishing a sustainable circular bio-based economy and provides an overview of existing foresight studies directed to improve understanding of the future in the following dimensions:
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Biomass availability and trends
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Technology development and horizon scanning of emerging technology
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Market acceptance of bio-based products
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Regulatory and policy-framework.
A goal without a plan is just a wish
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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Notes
- 1.
The term bio-based product refers to products wholly or partly derived from biomass, such as plants, trees or animals (the biomass can have undergone physical, chemical or biological treatment). CEN—Report on Mandate M/249. A standard defining general terms to be used in the field of bio-based products, EN 16575, was published by CEN in August 2014.
- 2.
European Committee for Standardization.
- 3.
Food Waste: The EU defines ‘food waste’ as food lost from the food supply chain, not including food diverted to material uses such as bio-based products, animal feed, or sent for redistribution.
- 4.
Industrial biotechnology (IB)—the use of biological substances (e.g. plants, algae, marine life, fungi, micro-organism), systems and processes to produce materials, chemicals and energy. IB uses biotechnological knowledge to develop new processes for making products, such as industrial enzymes or chemical building blocks. These are used, in turn, in the production of chemicals, detergents, textiles, paper, and much more.
- 5.
Initiatives like the EU Bioeconomy Strategy, the National Research Strategy BioEconomy 2030 in Germany or the National Bioeconomy Blueprint of the US White House in 2012 emphasize the development towards a bioeconomy in the near future.
- 6.
(COM (2012)60), adopted on February and 13th 2012.
- 7.
(1) ensuring food security, (2) managing natural resource sustainability, (3) reducing dependency on non-renewable resources, (4) mitigating and adapting to climate change and (5) creating jobs and maintaining European competitiveness.
- 8.
Data sources include among others: standards, twitter, patents, scientific publications, newspapers, blogs, Rss-feeds.
- 9.
- 10.
Regulatory foresight: strategic activities carried out by policy makers to identify future requirements for regulation or reregulation (including formal standards) in existing and emerging technologies in order to shape pro-active innovation-promoting regulatory framework conditions crucial to the competitiveness of innovation systems (Blind 2008).
- 11.
Standard—Voluntary documents that define technical or quality requirements with which current or future products, production processes, services or method may comply. Standards results from voluntary cooperation between industry, public authorities and other interested parties collaborating within a system founded on openness, transparency and consensus (A strategic Vision for European Standards, EU 2011).
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Ladu, L., Quitzow, R. (2017). Bio-Based Economy: Policy Framework and Foresight Thinking. In: Morone, P., Papendiek, F., Tartiu, V. (eds) Food Waste Reduction and Valorisation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50088-1_9
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