Tackling Uncertainty in the Bio-Based Economy

2. Transitioning Towards A Circular Bio-Based Economy

A sustainable transition from a long-established regime based on rooted production and consumption models, requires tackling a wide array of challenges. As stated by Priefer et al. (2017), despite the bio-based economy being viewed as a “comprehensive societal transition,” a number of issues have not yet been fully addressed. In particular, besides rather well-known concerns surrounding the debate on the sustainability of the bioeconomy, including food security, land grabbing, direct and indirect land use changes (LUC and iLUC) and loss of biodiversity, additional issues highlighted by the literature must be taken into account. These include no level playing field with fossil based products, but also within the bio-based economy itself due to the incentives created by the EU’s Renewable Energy Directives (RED I and II) and several member countries energy policies, intended for the use of biomass for energy production rather than for material purposes (Carus et al., 2016; Meyer, 2017). Moreover, there are only few product categories, such as bio-based lubricants, to have already benefited from regulatory measures at EU or Member State level (Spekreijse, Lammens, Parisi, Ronzon, & Vis, 2019).