Contextualization of the Bioeconomy Concept through Its Links with Related Concepts and the Challenges Facing Humanity

The concept of bioeconomy is a topic of debate, confusion, skepticism, and criticism. Paradoxically, this is not necessarily a negative thing as it is encouraging a fruitful exchange of information, ideas, knowledge, and values, with concomitant beneficial effects on the definition and evolution of the bioeconomy paradigm. At the core of the debate, three points of view coexist: (i) those who support a broad interpretation of the term bioeconomy, through the incorporation of all economic activities based on the production and conversion of renewable biological resources (and organic wastes) into products, including agriculture, livestock, fishing, forestry and similar economic activities that have accompanied humankind for millennia; (ii) those who embrace a much narrower interpretation, reserving the use of the term bioeconomy for new, innovative, and technologically-advanced economic initiatives that result in the generation of high-added-value products and services from the conversion of biological resources; and (iii) those who stand between these two viewpoints. Here, to shed light on this debate, a contextualization of the bioeconomy concept through its links with related concepts (biotechnology, bio-based economy, circular economy, green economy, ecological economics, environmental economics, etc.) and challenges facing humanity today is presented

Euskal Autonomia Erkidegoko enpresa txiki eta ertainen ingurumen-erantzukizunaren analisia: "ghost contamination" argitara emanez

[eus] Euskal Autonomia Erkidegoan Enpresa Txiki eta Ertainek (ETE) enpresa guztien % 99,85a ordezkatzen dute ekonomiaren zati handia suposatuz. Gaur egun, enpresen iraunkortasunari gero eta garrantzia handiagoa ematen ari zaio, honen adibide da, Carrots & Sticks ekimenean parte hartzen duten herrialde kopurua 2006an 19 izatetik, 2020an 84 izatera pasatu dela (Carrots & sticks, 2020). Jasangarritasunari emandako garrantzia honen ondorioz informazio ez-finantzarioko txostenak sortu ziren, non finantza arlokoak diren datuak barneratu beharrean, ingurumen, langile eta gizarteari buruzko datuak barneratzen diren. Dokumentu hauei esker enpresak haien gardentasuna arlo guztietan islatzen hasi dira, baina momentuz informazio ez-finantzarioko txostenak soilik enpresa handientzat dira beharrezkoak. Eskakizun hau soilik enpresa gutxi batzuei eskatzea, beste hainbat enpresen datuak argitaratzen ez direla esan dahi du. Bereziki, aipatu den bezala, betebehar honetatik salbuetsita geratzen diren enpresak ETE-ak dira, hau da, lurraldearen ehuneko handiena osatzen dutenak (% 99,85). Arazo horren ondorioz, ondorioztatu zen ezkutuan geratzen ziren datu ez-finantzario anitz zeudela eta, beraz, datuek errealitatea ez islatzea eragiten zuela. Horregatik, lan honen bidez, “Ghost Contamination” kontzeptua aurkeztu nahi izan da, sortzen den baina argitaratzen ez den kutsadura argitara emateko. Kontzeptua aurkezteaz gain, Euskal Autonomia Erkidegoan “Ghost Contamination”-aren kudeaketarako proposamen bat aurkeztu da, non, NeurkETE deituriko entitatea sortu den. Lanean kudeaketa planaren alderdi guztiak azaltzen dira erakundearen funtzionamendua zehazteko eta gainera bi enpresetan aplikazio hipotetikoa burutu da.[eng] In the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) represent 99.85% of the total number of companies, thus, they account for a significant part of the economy. Nowadays, more and more importance is being given to corporate sustainability, an example of which is that the number of countries participating in the Carrots & Sticks inititive has increased from 19 in 2006 to 84 in 2020 (Carrots & Sticks, 2020). This focus on sustainability has led to non-financial reporting, in which instead of financial data, environmental, personnel and social data is included. Through these documents, companies have started to reflect their transparency in all areas, but for the time being, non-financial reporting is only required for large companies. The fact that this requirement only applies to a few companies, indicates that data is not published for many other companies and, in particular, as mentioned above, the companies that are exempted from this obligation are SMEs, that is, those that make up the largest percentage of the territory (99.85%). As a result of this problem, it was concluded that there were many non-financial data that were hidden and that, therefore, data was not reflecting reality. For that reason, through this work, the concept of “Ghost Contamination” has been presented in order to define and make public the pollution that is generated but not published. In addition to presenting the concept, a proposal for the management of “Ghost Contamination” in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country has been presented, where an entity called NeurkETE has been created. The paper explains all the aspects of the management plan to determine the functioning of the organisation and a hypothetical application has been carried out in two companies

Assessment of the Development of Forest-Based Bioeconomy in European Regions

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.In recent years, the potential of the forest-based bioeconomy to provide competitiveness, differentiation, and sustainability to the European economy has often been claimed. Interestingly, regions, as territorial units with their own political and socioeconomic strategies, have been highlighted as the most suitable targets for the development of the European forest-based bioeconomy. Here, using the case method, we evaluated the development of the forest-based bioeconomy in three European regions (i.e., North Karelia in Finland, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, the Basque Country in Spain), by appraising the status of 10 previously identified key drivers through primary (interviews with experts) and secondary (literature review) sources of information. In our analysis, North Karelia and the Basque Country obtained the highest and lowest score, respectively, with regard to forest-based bioeconomy development. In any case, for the successful development of the forest-based bioeconomy in a European region, it is essential to accept the unnegotiable, critically, of the long-term sustainability of forest bioresources and production processes, as well as the need to foster the required changes in consumption patterns.Peer reviewe