Monitoring and Measuring Bioeconomy

Abstract

Many actors have a stake in and different definitions of bioeconomy. Even though sustainability is very prominent in many definitions, bioeconomy is not inherently sustainable. However, bioeconomy can contribute to the three pillars of sustainability: economic development, social development, and environmental protection. To assess bioeconomy’s contribution to sustainable development, the first step is to measure its size and most important impacts. The economic literature on sustainable development has established sustaining human wellbeing as the target value, whereby one strand analyses the current generations’ well-being and another strand the intergenerational well-being. Kenneth J. Arrow et al.‘s contribution of the year 2012 considers the welfare of all future generations in the calculation of the current generations’ well-being. They define intergenerational well-being as the discounted flow of current and future generations’ well-being, and use a discount rate and the term felicity, which both have been criticized. Furthermore, it may be criticized that, here, felicity is based on the consumption of capital assets. Any felicity that is not based on consumption, for example, the value of “doing nothing, " is not included. This leads us to the question of whether we should quantify such aspects for a measure, which tries to capture comprehensive wealth. The question for the bioeconomy must be whether nowadays’ definition of bioeconomy is useful in promoting sustainable development. If sustainability is the main target, progress toward it should be measured to allow policymakers a fair assessment. This is not an easy task and comes with new issues and decisions that must be made, including ethical ones.