Bioeconomy governance and (sustainable) development

DECIANCIO, MELISA; KAREN SIEGEL; DANIEL KEFELI; GUILHERME DE QUEIROZ STEIN; THOMAS DIETZ

Handbook on the Politics of International Development

Edward Elgar

Año: 2022;

This chapter addresses the relationship between the bioeconomy and sustainable development in South America. In the early 21st century, the concept of the bioeconomy emerged in the Global North as a new strategy for increasing the use of bio-based resources and production processes and, thereby, fostering the transition away from the use of fossil fuels. This paradigm change has been related to several different pathways to more sustainable means of production, consumption and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the bioeconomy is not inherently sustainable. While there are academic debates about the bioeconomy and its sustainability in Europe and the US, discussions of its implementation and implications for sustainability in countries in South America have been covered in much less detail and have mainly focused on sectorial approaches. We examine the link between the bioeconomy and the SDGs in a broad sense in order to analyse the implications and challenges of the bioeconomy for sustainable development in South American countries, focusing on the case of agriculture, one of the largest bioeconomic sectors in the region. We determine that while bioeconomy has the potential to be a driver for sustainable development, its efficacy in South American countries is not yet assured as bioeconomy strategies and proponents of bioeconomy do not currently pay sufficient attention to socio-environmental concerns raised by citizens and civil society.