Farming and the food industry, which pledge to recycle, reuse and transform waste materials and by-products into new resources. The production sector, which wagers everything on energy savings, alternative forms of consumption and the use of clean energy. The development of business models that create new opportunities while remaining geared to sustainability. These are the various sides to bioeconomics, a theory whose key elements are the strategies and raw materials made available by nature and whose results have the least possible impact from an environmental and social perspective.
Why bioeconomics
On one hand the global population continues to expand relentlessly: from 7.6 billion today to an estimated 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 by 2050 and over 11 billion by 2100 (UN data). On the other hand, fossil fuels (like oil) are increasingly scarce, pollutant gases (the so-called greenhouse gases) continue to represent a threat to the environment and climate change proceeds inexorably, with the consequent desertification of the soil and loss of the most fragile habitats, like that of the sea.
Bioeconomics seeks to provide an active answer to these major global challenges with an approach that is both completely integrated, comprising various production sectors, and interdisciplinary in terms of the search for solutions.
How it works
Can we really generate the same amount of energy as an entire nuclear power plant using the biogas of a farming cooperative as our starting point? Or produce all of our food packaging from materials made using only waste plant matrices, like apple peel, also using the same to obtain textile fibres or synthetic leather to make clothes, footwear and so on?
To turn these theories into reality we have to make 360° use of biotechnologies. This term is used to define all disciplines that seek to create processes using the biodegradable fraction of waste products and organic residues (both plant and animal) from farming and linked industries, including fishing and aquaculture, as well as the biodegradable component of urban waste: so-called biomass, as defined by the European reference directive: 2009/28/EC.
Europe today and new objectives
At a political level it has taken some time to develop a genuine action plan for identifying the main priority goals: smart growth, to be achieved through an economy founded on new scientific knowledge and constant innovation; sustainable growth, more green and efficient from an energy perspective; more inclusive growth, based on an employment system that promote synergies and cohesion at both territorial and social level.
The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) has recently systematically gathered together all available information to enable governments to develop new policies that make it possible to meet the 2030 goals and this year has integrated them with new technical materials regarding the use of biomass, biorefineries, the use of synthetic biology and genetic editing.
So far, over 50 countries have adopted these goals and developed specific bioeconomics strategies and policies. But it is increasingly clear that for the global plan to be successful the adoption of the guidelines by each country isn’t enough. Cooperation and joint action are required: only in this way will it really be possible to rethink the consumption of natural resources and, more importantly, avoid entering into conflict with people’s interests and needs.