Explaining low salience of environmental resilience challenges in bioeconomy strategies: A cross-regional comparative analysis

Abstract

Bioeconomy policies aim at fostering economic growth while solving the sustainability challenges of the fossil-based economy. However, these policies do little to discuss the resilience challenges of bioeconomies and the bio-based production systems on which they rest. Specifically, the environmental stresses that are likely to threaten the delivery of the bioeconomy's desired functions are barely addressed. This paper aims to understand why the salience of environmental resilience challenges is low in bioeconomy strategies. We conduct an exploratory comparative analysis of the policy design processes of six countries - Malaysia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy and Germany - building on expert interviews and a conceptual approach that emphasizes the importance of the policy design space. Our findings suggest that key factors in explaining the low salience of environmental resilience challenges are the predominantly economic motivation among leading authorities and the under-representation of environmental actors across policy design spaces.