Bioeconomy

Biobased economy, bioeconomy or biotechonomy is an economic activity involving the use of biotechnology and biomass in the production of goods, services, or energy. The terms are widely used by regional development agencies, national and international organizations, and biotechnology companies. They are closely linked to the evolution of the biotechnology industry and the capacity to study, understand, and manipulate genetic material that has been possible due to scientific research and technological development. This includes the application of scientific and technological developments to agriculture, health, chemical, and energy industries.File:Lab Grown Meat explained by New Harvest.webm|thumb|thumbtime=0:39|350px|A video by New Harvest and Xprize explaining the development of cultured meat and a "post-animal bio-economy" driven by lab-grown protein

Definitions

Bioeconomy has several definitions. The bioeconomy comprises those parts of the economy that use renewable biological resources from land and sea – such as crops, forests, fish, animals and micro-organisms – to produce food, health, materials, products, textiles and energy. The definitions and usage does however vary between different areas of the world.
An important aspect of the bioeconomy is understanding mechanisms and processes at the genetic, molecular, and genomic levels, and applying this understanding to creating or improving industrial processes, developing new products and services, and producing new energy. Bioeconomy aims to reduce our dependence on fossil natural resources, to prevent biodiversity loss and to create new economic growth and jobs that are in line with the principles of sustainable development.

Earlier definitions

The term 'biotechonomy' was used by Juan Enríquez and Rodrigo Martinez at the Genomics Seminar in the 1997 AAAS meeting. An excerpt of this paper was published in Science."
In 2010, it was defined in the report "The Knowledge Based Bio-Economy in Europe: Achievements and Challenges" by Albrecht & al. as follows: The bio-economy is the sustainable production and conversion of biomass, for a range of food, health, fibre and industrial products and energy, where renewable biomass encompasses any biological material to be used as raw material."
According to a 2013 study, "the bioeconomy can be defined as an economy where the basic building blocks for materials, chemicals and energy are derived from renewable biological resources".
The in Berlin in November 2015 defines bioeconomy as "knowledge-based production and utilization of biological resources, biological processes and principles to sustainably provide goods and services across all economic sectors". According to the summit, bioeconomy involves three elements: renewable biomass, enabling and converging technologies, and integration across applications concerning primary production, health, and industry.

History

Enríquez and Martinez' 2002 Harvard Business School working paper, "Biotechonomy 1.0: A Rough Map of Biodata Flow", showed the global flow of genetic material into and out of the three largest public genetic databases: GenBank, EMBL and DDBJ. The authors then hypothesized about the economic impact that such data flows might have on patent creation, evolution of biotech startups and licensing fees. An adaptation of this paper was published in Wired magazine in 2003.
The term 'bioeconomy' became popular from the mid-2000s with its adoption by the European Union and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development as a policy agenda and framework to promote the use of biotechnology to develop new products, markets, and uses of biomass. Since then, both the EU and OECD have created dedicated bioeconomy strategies, as have an increasing number of countries around the world. Often these strategies conflate the bioeconomy with the term 'bio-based economy'. For example, since 2005 the Netherlands has sought to promote the creation of a biobased economy. Pilot plants have been started i.e. in Lelystad, and a centralised organisation exists, with supporting research being conducted. Other European countries have also developed and implemented bioeconomy or bio-based economy policy strategies and frameworks.
In 2012, president Barack Obama of the USA announced intentions to encourage biological manufacturing methods, with a National Bioeconomy Blueprint.

Aims

Global population growth and over consumption of many resources are causing increasing environmental pressure and climate change. Bioeconomy tackles with these challenges. It aims to ensure food security and to promote more sustainable natural resource use as well as to reduce the dependence on non-renewable resources, e.g. fossil natural resources and minerals. In some extent bioeconomy also helps economy to reduces greenhouse gas emissions and assists in mitigating and adapting to climate change.

Genetic modification

Organisms, ranging from bacteria over yeasts up to plants are used for production of enzymatic catalysis. Genetically modified bacteria have been used to produce insulin, artemisinic acid was made in engineered yeast. Some bioplastics are produced from sugar using genetically modified microbes.
Genetically modified organisms are also used for the production of biofuels. Biofuels are a type of carbon-neutral fuel.
Research is also being done towards CO₂ fixation using a synthetic metabolic pathway. By genetically modifying E. coli bacteria so as to allow them to consume CO₂, the bacterium may provide the infrastructure for the future renewable production of food and green fuels.
One of the organisms that is able to break down PET into other substances has been genetically modified to break down PET even faster and also break down PEF. Once plastics are broken down and recycled into other substances it can be used as an input for other animals.
Genetically modified crops are also used. Genetically modified energy crops for instance may provide some additional advantages such as reduced associated costs and less water use. One example are trees have been genetically modified to either have less lignin, or to express lignin with chemically labile bonds.
With genetically modified crops however, there are still some challenges involved.

Fields

According to European Union Bioeconomy Strategy updated in 2018 the bioeconomy covers all sectors and systems that rely on biological resources, their functions and principles. It covers all primary production and economic and industrial sectors that base on use, production or processing biological resources from agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture. The product of bioeconomy are typically food, feed and other biobased products, bioenergy and services based on biological resources. The bioeconomy aims to drive towards sustainability, circularity as well as the protection of the environment and will enhance biodiversity.
In some definitions, bioeconomy comprises also ecosystem services that are services offered by the environment, including binding carbon dioxide and opportunities for recreation. Another key aspect of the bioeconomy is not wasting natural resources but using and recycling them efficiently.
According to EU Bioeconomy Report 2016, the bioeconomy brings together various sectors of the economy that produce, process and reuse renewable biological resources.

Agriculture

However, not all synthetic nutrition products are animal food products such as meat and dairy – for instance, as of 2021 there are also products of synthetic coffee that are reported to be close to commercialization. Similar fields of research and production based on bioeconomy agriculture are:

Microbial food cultures and genetically engineered microbial production
Controlled self-assembly of plant proteins
Cell-free artificial synthesis
Bioproduced imitation foods

Many of the foods produced with tools and methods of the bioeconomy may not be intended for human consumption but for non-human animals such as for livestock feed, insect-based pet food or sustainable aquacultural feed. There are various startups and research teams around the world who use synthetic biology to create animal feed.
Moreover, crops could be genetically engineered in ways that e.g. safely increase yields, reduce the need for pesticides or ease indoor production.
One example of a product highly specific to the bioeconomy that is widely available is algae oil which is a dietary supplement that could substitute possibly less sustainable, larger-market-share fish oil supplements.

Vertical farming

Fungiculture

For example, there is ongoing research and development for indoor high-yield mechanisms.

Mycoprotein

Algaculture

Waste management, recycling and biomining

Biobased applications, research and development of waste management may form a part of the bioeconomy. Bio-based recycling is linked to waste management and relevant standards and requirements of production and products. Some of the recycling of waste may be biomining and some biomining could be applied beyond recycling.
For example, in 2020, biotechnologists reported the genetically engineered refinement and mechanical description of synergistic enzymes – PETase, first discovered in 2016, and MHETase of Ideonella sakaiensis – for faster depolymerization of PET and also of PEF, which may be useful for depollution, recycling and upcycling of mixed plastics along with other approaches. Such approaches may be more environmentally-friendly as well as cost-effective than mechanical and chemical PET-recycling, enabling circular plastic bio-economy solutions via systems based on engineered strains. Moreover, microorganisms could be employed to mine useful elements from basalt rocks via bioleaching.