An output-based measurement of EU bioeconomy services: Marrying statistics with policy insight.

In its revised bioeconomy strategy, the European Union (EU) has extended the scope of activities to include services. Employing an output-based approach, this study quantifies the contribution of bioeconomy services to gross domestic product and employment in the EU Member States over 2008-2017. Moreover, it also identifies the main sectoral sources of employment and growth within bioeconomy services. The choice of Eurostat statistics ensures data harmonisation across countries and continuity for future updates, although important data needs are identified to enhance the representation of bioeconomy services within European statistical frameworks. In 2015-2017, economic growth was stronger in bioeconomy services than in the total EU economy. Bioeconomy services accounted for between 5.0-8.6% and 10.2-16.9% of EU gross domestic product and the EU labour force, respectively, whilst three service sectors account for more than 60% of bioeconomy services employment and value added. Interestingly, in the decade up to 2017, labour productivity in bioeconomy services improved.

Snakes and ladders: World development pathways' synergies and trade-offs through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals.

This paper takes three global visions of world development to 2050 and quantifies their implications for sustainable progress employing the metrics of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDG outcomes are structured through the interconnectivities of the three 'wedding cake' layers of 'economy', 'society' and 'biosphere', as posited by the Stockholm Resilience Centre. The key policy contribution is to quantify the resulting SDG synergies and trade-offs, whilst also decomposing and calculating the part-worth of the market drivers which contribute to these outcomes. The paper employs a global economic simulation model that combines rational market behaviour with environmental constraints (MAGNET) and is further extended with an SDG metrics module. A 'non-sustainable' world reveals trade-offs between economy and biosphere SDGs, with population growth of particular concern to a safe planetary operating space in the world's poorest regions. Sustainable visions could reduce natural resource pressures and emissions and meet energy requirements at potentially limited economic cost. Notwithstanding, these futures do not address income inequalities and potentially increase food security concerns for the most vulnerable members of society. Consequently, developed region led international cooperation and in-kind income transfers to developing countries, constitutes a necessary prerequisite to help remedy the SDG trade-offs exhibited within the more sustainable global pathways.

Development of a bioeconomy monitoring framework for the European Union: An integrative and collaborative approach.

The EU Bioeconomy Strategy, updated in 2018, in its Action Plan pledges an EU-wide, internationally coherent monitoring system to track economic, environmental and social progress towards a sustainable bioeconomy. This paper presents the approach taken by the European Commission's (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC) to develop such a system. To accomplish this, we capitalise on (1) the experiences of existing indicator frameworks; (2) stakeholder knowledge and expectations; and (3) national experiences and expertise. This approach is taken to ensure coherence with other bioeconomy-related European monitoring frameworks, the usefulness for decision-making and consistency with national and international initiatives to monitor the bioeconomy. We develop a conceptual framework, based on the definition of a sustainable bioeconomy as stated in the Strategy, for a holistic analysis of the trends in the bioeconomy sectors, following the three pillars of sustainability (economy, society and environment). From this conceptual framework, we derive an implementation framework that aims to highlight the synergies and trade-offs across the five objectives of the Bioeconomy Strategy in a coherent way. The EU Bioeconomy Monitoring System will be publicly available on the web platform of the EC Knowledge Centre for Bioeconomy.

Friends or foes? A compatibility assessment of bioeconomy-related Sustainable Development Goals for European policy coherence.

In October 2018, the European Union (EU) launched an updated bioeconomy strategy with the aim of encouraging the substitution of fossil carbon with biomass feedstock in the industry and in energy production while preserving ecosystem services. The objective of the paper is to analyse the links between the EU bioeconomy strategy and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and to assess what could be the main points of synergies and tensions between bioeconomy-related SDG targets. By semantically mapping the action plan of the 2018 EU bioeconomy strategy with the SDG targets, the paper finds that the bioeconomy strategy is aligned with 53 targets distributed in 12 of the 17 SDGs. Ex-post correlation analysis on bioeconomy-related SDGs indicators for 28 EU Member States (1990-2018) shows a predominance of synergies over trade-offs. More intense synergetic past developments (positive correlations) are found among clean energies (SDG 7), recycling (SDG 11), ecosystem preservation (SDG 15) and most of all other bioeconomy-related SDGs. Negative correlations are observed between agro-biodiversity (SDG 2), domestic material consumption of biomass (SDG 8 and 12), agriculture and industrial developments (SDG 2 and SDG 9) and a wide array of bioeconomy-related SDG indicators. The hotspots of strong correlations identified might be useful in further enrichment of ex-ante simulation models. From a policy coherence perspective, a wide range of policy instruments are already in place in the EU to foster synergies and may bring co-benefits. Policies oriented at preventing trade-offs are already in place but they have not overcome the antagonisms observed in this study yet. Change in practices, technical and technological innovations and the application of circular and 'cascading principles' are the most common fields of action.