Introduction: Bioeconomy and Sustainability

Abstract

The concept of “bioeconomy” encompasses a broad interdisciplinary field. It includes a variety of biotechnical and economic applications for more sustainable production of goods and mapping production processes more closely to nature. From an ethical point of view, bioeconomy is on the one hand promoted and embraced as a new sustainable concept for economic activity, but on the other hand, it is criticized as an ongoing form of domination and exploitation of nature. When discussing beyond-natural science aspects of “bioeconomy”, one must consider that there are many definitions of bioeconomy and that the concept is by far not static. In debates on “bioeconomy”, the concept’s dynamic and multifaceted definition often leads to heated discussions. Therefore, it is useful to look at the development of bioeconomy concepts and how they are embedded in wider developments. Considering the recent scientific and public debates, bioeconomy must also put up with critical views. How sustainable are the new biotechnological uses of natural resources? How high are the risks of labeling fraud and consumer deception? Recent years have seen this dilemma at the example of energy crops: based on the good basic idea of using plants as regenerative energy providers, this practice quickly reaches its ecological limits because energy crops are immensely space-consuming, create new monocultures, and displace biodiversity to a large extent.