Science-policy relationships for the Circular Bioeconomy

In a bid to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels, regenerate natural resources and address climate change, the concept of the ‘circular bioeconomy’ has become increasingly popular amongst governments, scientists and policy-makers around the world.

Standing at the cross-section of the circular economy, agriculture, food systems and biotechnology, scientists have been struggling to come to a singular definition and the field remains largely contested (Befort, 2020; Giampietro, 2019; Vivien et al., 2019). What can be said is that the circular bioeconomy aims to utilise biomass in a resource-efficient way, primarily by having multi-output supply chains and by utilising residues and wastes, extending the use of biomass as much as possible through cascading (Stegmann et al., 2020). Primarily, its goals are to move from a linear to a circular (or cascading) use of biomass and where possible, replacing fossil-based parts of the economy with biomass (Bos and Broeze, 2020). Key elements of the circular bioeconomy can include circular food systems that reduce food waste and use resources effectively and circular forestry systems yield energy, materials, and ecosystem services.

However, a circular bioeconomy is beset with many challenges. Part of the reason a circular bioeconomy is so hard to define is that it’s inherently complex, connecting multiple bio-based systems (e.g. food systems, forestry) and sub-systems at different geographic and temporal scales. This complexity often leads to conflicting scientific viewpoints. This makes it particularly difficult to govern and create policy, despite strong desires to do so (European Environmental Agency (EEA), 2018). The circular bioeconomy, therefore, presents a struggle for the relationship between science and policy. In my research I look at this complexity and analyse the challenges this presents to policy.

Moving towards a circular bioeconomy: what are the main challenges?

Shifting our current economy to one where it is more bio-based is an immense task, as it remains largely fossil-based (Bos and Broeze, 2020) and linear (Haas et al., 2015).  In the context of the growing populations and increased demand for energy and animal-source food, it will be difficult to balance biomass demands for human needs while respecting planetary boundaries.  Competition for biomass across different uses; food, animal feed, fuels and materials will be an important issue for the future of the circular bioeconomy. Currently, research indicates that there are still considerable trade-offs across these uses (Muscat et al., 2020).  This means that not only will we need to utilise biomass more effectively, but we should also question current production and consumption patterns in an increasingly ‘full’ world.

The circular bioeconomy is also characterised by complexity. What does this mean? Complexity is a feature of a system and often entails specific features or behaviours. Complex systems are often open-ended, which means that the system interacts with the wider environment. As much as we would like to draw lines around the circular bioeconomy, through better definitions and better models, it is likely that there will be interactions that fall outside these system boundaries. This means that policy must work with increasingly networked, multi-scaled and interconnected problems. However, these interconnections mean less predictability. Other characteristics of complex systems include self-organisation, meaning non-linear causal relationships. In this context, the traditional relationship between science and policy as one where science ‘speaks truth to power’ and where science can reduce reality to actionable facts, may need revisiting (Kovacic and Di Felice, 2019).

This means that science may not necessarily come up with clear solutions and may come with multiple, sometimes conflicting messages. Policy-makers have to make decisions under uncertainty.  In my research, I found that the recommended solutions for biomass competition were highly diverse. This of course is not inherently problematic, as complex problems require multi-faceted solutions. But this was also the case for singular solutions. For example, marginal lands are often recommended as a way to avoid competition for land between food production and growing bioenergy i.e. the so-called food vs fuel issue. The idea is that by avoiding the production of bioenergy on arable land, many of the negative environmental and economic impacts, such as increased greenhouse gas emissions and higher food prices, can be avoided. However, I found that marginal lands are more particularly difficult to define. This partially has to do with the inherent complexity; for example, should we define marginal lands depending on soil characteristics, slope, distance from key markets, level of pollution or simply abandoned land? Furthermore, proponents who pushed marginal lands as ‘the solution’ often disagreed on which problem marginal lands is a solution to. Others believed that marginal lands should be rewilding to increase biodiversity and bring much-needed eco-tourism to abandoned rural areas.

The circular bioeconomy aims to achieve a wide diversity of goals, from resource efficiency to climate mitigation and will require cooperation across many institutions and stakeholders. It links multiple economic sectors; from primary ones such as agriculture, forestry and fisheries to the industrial and processing sectors such as the chemical, energy and biotechnology sectors. Within policy, the circular bioeconomy will also require cooperation between different institutions and policy domains, such as climate and environmental policy. Under these conditions, it can be particularly difficult to maintain coherence between different policies. There are institutional issues to worry about, such as how to coordinate and govern wide-ranging concepts such as the circular economy and the bioeconomy but there are also issues of how to balance policy goals that may negatively affect or cancel each other out. Some policy incoherency has to do with unintended rebound effects: valorising food wastes may lead to increasing wastes. In the European Union, non-food biomass may be directed towards energy first when it would be more sustainable to direct it towards material uses. Current inconsistencies between renewable energy and waste legislation mean that only biomass classified as waste follows proper recycling/cascading rules.

What science-policy relationships do we need to meet these challenges?

I have talked a lot about the challenges surrounding a circular bioeconomy, such as biomass competition and high demands, complexity and policy incoherence. In many ways, some of these challenges mimic the challenges of other so-called ‘wicked problems’ due to complexity, a large diversity of opinions and incomplete or contradictory knowledge.  So how can science and policy deal with this?

The science-policy interface will have to deal with uncertainty, but uncertainty is not homogenous. There can be different types of uncertainty, some of which can be reduced, while others can be dealt with. In my research, I identified both kinds of uncertainty playing out in science-policy attempts to balance biomass between food, feed and fuel uses. Some kinds of uncertainty could be reduced with better models, better data or with technological breakthroughs. However, others cannot be reduced. One such uncertainty I worked with in my research is ambiguity. Ambiguity, which is different from a vague concept, is a type of uncertainty that emerges out of different, incongruent ways of framing the same problem.

This was the case with the concept of marginal lands. No one definition or one map of marginal lands could be produced because the framing of the problem determined how marginal lands would be defined and what the recommended solution would be. Bioenergy modellers said that it can be used to plant bioenergy crops, animal scientists said it can be used for grazing of animals while ecologists said it ought to be used for rewilding. Without a singular answer, the task of science in these cases is not to seek to provide one answer but to make the framings or narratives that underly these analyses explicit. Furthermore, the analyses, particularly when they affect other stakeholders, should be open to democratic scrutiny and deliberative processes.  This is particularly important as studies of different policy options can have a ‘performative power’, in other words, by studying different technologies, pathways or solutions, policy-relevant science can bring these policy options into being.

So what sort of science-policy relationships do we need? Firstly, it will require science that is humble and accepts when singular answers cannot be given to policy-makers (even when specifically asked to do so). On a more practical level, it can mean adopting approaches and methodologies that are reflexive about numbers as well as the underlying frames in scientific analysis. It means presenting policy-makers and stakeholders, with a multitude of conflicting stories for deliberative debate and it means not just ‘including stakeholders’ in scientific analysis but treating them as scientific partners.

Leaving things ambiguous may seem counter-intuitive to clear policy-making but research shows that ambiguous ideas, particularly large inspiring ones such as the circular bioeconomy, can create coalitions across politically opposed stakeholders (Hannah, 2020) and keep them energised (Termeer and Metze, 2019). And that is certainly something we will need going into the future.

November 2022

Abigail Muscat

Dr Abigail Muscat works at Wageningen University and Research as a policy officer working on pan-European research collaborations (e.g. ERA-NETs and Joint Programming Initiatives) on topics related to agriculture, food systems and climate change. Before this she worked as a researcher at Animal Production Systems at Wageningen where obtained her PhD working on how to improve the science-policy interface to solve the controversial issue of biomass competition between food, bioenergy, biomaterials and livestock feed.

References

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Bos, H.L., Broeze, J., 2020. Circular bio‐based production systems in the context of current biomass and fossil demand. Biofuels, Bioprod. Biorefining bbb.2080. https://doi.org/10.1002/bbb.2080

European Environmental Agency (EEA), 2018. The circular economy and the bioeconomy Partners in sustainability.

Giampietro, M., 2019. On the Circular Bioeconomy and Decoupling: Implications for Sustainable Growth. Ecol. Econ. 162, 143–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.05.001

Haas, W., Krausmann, F., Wiedenhofer, D., Heinz, M., 2015. How circular is the global economy?: An assessment of material flows, waste production, and recycling in the European union and the world in 2005. J. Ind. Ecol. 19, 765–777. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12244

Hannah, A., 2020. The promises and pitfalls of polysemic ideas : ‘ One Health ’ and antimicrobial resistance policy in Australia and the UK. Policy Sci. 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-020-09390-3

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Muscat, A., de Olde, E.M., de Boer, I.J.M., Ripoll-Bosch, R., 2020. The battle for biomass: A systematic review of food-feed-fuel competition. Glob. Food Sec. 25, 100330. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2019.100330

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Vivien, F.D., Nieddu, M., Befort, N., Debref, R., Giampietro, M., 2019. The Hijacking of the Bioeconomy. Ecol. Econ. 159, 189–197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.01.027