This manuscript addresses the existing governance tools and monitoring systems for implementing a sustainable and regenerative Bioeconomy in the OECD member states and G20. It takes inspiration from ...the outcomes of an international workshop entitled “Bioeconomy in the G20 and OECD countries: sharing and comparing the existing national strategies and policies for co-designing more effective bioeconomy governance mechanisms and monitoring systems” co-organized by the Italian Presidency of G20 environment 2021, the National Bioeconomy Coordination Board of the National Committee of Biosafety, Biotechnology and Life Sciences of the Italian Presidency of Council of Ministers and the OECD Working Party on Bio-, Nano- and Converging Technologies. The workshop aimed to share virtuous experiences, identify challenges and co-design more robust governance tools and more comprehensive monitoring systems. The manuscript outlines the current situation regarding governance and monitoring, so as to identify relevant issues and areas for further research and policy action.
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•Recent research on remediation of toxic pollutants by biochar has been summarized.•The production techniques of the biochar have been narrated.•Biochar properties, stability and its ...environmental issues have been analysed.•Applications of biochar in soil fertility and removing pollutants have been reported.•The major stumbling block in biochar production is cost of production.
There is an upsurge enthusiasm for utilizing biochar produced from waste-biomass in different fields, to address the most important ecological issues. This review is focused on an overview of remediating harmful contaminants utilizing biochar. Production of biochar utilizing various systems has been discussed. Biochar has received the consideration of numerous analysts in building up their proficiency to remediate contaminants. Process parameters are fundamentally answerable for deciding the yield of biomass. Biochar derived from biomass is an exceptionally rich wellspring of carbon produced from biomass utilizing thermal combustion. Activating biochar is another particular region for the growing utilization of biochar for expelling specific contaminations. Closed-loop systems to produce biochar creates more opportunities. Decentralized biochar production techniques serve as an effective way of providing employment opportunities, managing wastes, increasing resource proficiency in circular bioeconomy. This paper also covers knowledge gaps and perspectives in the field of remediation of toxic pollutants using biochar.
Synthetic biology landscape in the UK Wachter, Georg K.A.; Gallup, Olivia; Bayne, James ...
Biotechnology Notes,
2022, 2022-00-00, Volume:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The UK is home to a vibrant and diverse synthetic biology community. Many of its successes in research innovation and technological commercialisation can be attributed to a strong base of dedicated ...academics, investors, industrial leadership, and policymakers. Here, we give an overview of the organisations making up the network that have been key to these successes and the roles that they play within the different levels of the community. We start with a brief history of synthetic biology in the UK and continue by describing the progression of the societies and institutions that were set up, with particular focus on the UK's active student and entrepreneurship scene, as well as centres of research. We then contextualise the UK's growing bioeconomy, detailing government trajectories of planned innovation and how these coincide with research translation. The path to commercialisation for researchers is put into comparison to that of the US, the world leader in synthetic biology and its translation, highlighting aspects that differentiate the UK globally. Finally, we conclude with a bright outlook on the current velocity of progress and the state of the community.
Purpose
This study aims to diagnose the perception, knowledge, awareness and position of the bioeconomy in university education and research.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on a ...questionnaire survey conducted at universities in Poland, the Czech Republic, Spain and Portugal (
n
= 464). The questionnaire consisted of open-ended, dichotomous and Likert-type questions. Variable frequency distribution methods and the non-parametric chi-square test were used to test the independence of the characteristics. The Cramer’s V contingency coefficient was used to determine the degree of dependence between the variables.
Findings
The researched academic community is dominated by a traditional approach to the bioeconomy, which relates to agriculture and ecological aspects. Respondents believe in the positive environmental impacts of the bioeconomy, while less often being aware of its importance from a socio-economic perspective. Insufficient teaching and research in the field of the bioeconomy can be widely observed. The presumed link between the existence of a bioeconomy strategy at national level and awareness of the bioeconomy was not confirmed.
Research limitations/implications
The limited sample, the narrow geographical scope of the study does not allow for a comprehensive analysis of the topic. Another limitation is the lack of representativeness of the results in relation to all university representatives in the countries studied and the uneven composition of the samples.
Originality/value
This study fills the knowledge gap about the status of the bioeconomy in European academic communities by analysing its perception among both teachers and students of social, natural and applied sciences.
The bioeconomy is generally understood as an economy in which sustainably-sourced renewable bio-based resources are used for the production of food, energy and other products and services. ...Expectations are high for its potential to support the transition away from a fossil fuel-based economy and help to address complex issues such as climate change and biodiversity depletion. However, given its cross-sectoral nature and key focus on innovation, tensions can emerge between bioeconomy goals and the need for regulation of bioeconomy activities. In particular, there is a recognition of the need for regulation to (a) support sustainability and resource efficiency, (b) manage competing interests and (c) provide coherence and innovation support. To identify how regulation may be acting as a barrier and / or driver of the bioeconomy in Ireland, interviews were conducted with a range of key stakeholder organisations. Analysis revealed four key barriers, relating to the need for financial support tools such as feedin tariffs, more flexible approaches to regulating the use of waste materials, closing the gap between regulation and innovation activity and addressing planning issues. The two drivers identified highlight a positive role for regulation in supporting and enabling bioeconomy development, especially in terms of using more flexible and innovative approaches. Associated challenges include the need to support genuine public participation and the provision of resources to support policy-makers in the design and implementation of an effective bioeconomy regulatory framework.
Educating the managers of the bioeconomy Ciriminna, Rosaria; Albanese, Lorenzo; Meneguzzo, Francesco ...
Journal of cleaner production,
09/2022, Volume:
366
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The educational gap for which science is not taught to managers, and management is not taught to scientists, is a significant obstacle to a company's success also in the bioeconomy field. The ...characteristic aspects of innovation in the bioeconomy contribute to explaining why it is difficult to find managers for bioeconomy companies. In addition, many different sectors in the bioeconomy pose different managerial challenges. Shaping the managers of successful bioeconomy companies requires to transfer a closer understanding of the nature of bioeconomy companies and their competitive landscape, as well as identifying the main guiding principles for managing these organizations. Following the analysis of the first thirty years of bioeconomy company attempts to replace chemical productions based on oil-derived feedstocks, including innovation dynamics, in this research we aim to identify the main guiding principles of successful bioeconomy companies engaged in the production of bioproducts.
Shaping the managers of successful bioeconomy companies, we argue in this study, requires to transfer a closer understanding of the nature of bioeconomy companies and their competitive landscape, as well as identifying the main guiding principles for managing these organizations. Display omitted
•The educational gap for which science is not taught to managers, and management is not taught to scientists, is a significant obstacle to a company's success also in the bioeconomy field.•The characteristic aspects of innovation in the bioeconomy contribute to explaining why it is difficult to find managers for bioeconomy companies.•Shaping the managers of successful bioeconomy companies requires to transfer a closer understanding of the nature of bioeconomy companies.•Identified guidelines include the need to focus on high-margin bioproducts made in flexible plants, evolving from suppliers of biobased ingredients to producers of valued formulations.
Peri-urban environments are significant reservoirs of wastewater, and releasing this untreated wastewater from these resources poses severe environmental and ecological threats. Wastewater mitigation ...through sustainable approaches is an emerging area of interest. Algae offers a promising strategy for carbon-neutral valorization and recycling of urban wastewater. Aiming to provide a proof-of-concept for complete valorization and recycling of urban wastewater in a peri-urban environment in a closed loop system, a newly isolated biocrust-forming cyanobacterium Desertifilum tharense BERC-3 was evaluated. Here, the highest growth and lipids productivity were achieved in urban wastewater compared to BG11 and synthetic wastewater. D. tharense BERC-3 showed 60–95% resource recovery efficiency and decreased total dissolved solids, chemical oxygen demand, biological oxygen demand, nitrate nitrogen, ammonia nitrogen and total phosphorus contents of the water by 60.37%, 81.11%, 82.75%, 87.91%, 85.13%, 85.41%, 95.87%, respectively, making it fit for agriculture as per WHO's safety limits. Soil supplementation with 2% wastewater-cultivated algae as a soil amender, along with its irrigation with post-treated wastewater, improved the nitrogen content and microbial activity of the soil by 0.3–2.0-fold and 0.5-fold, respectively. Besides, the availability of phosphorus was also improved by 1.66-fold. The complete bioprocessing pipeline offered a complete biomass utilization. This study demonstrated the first proof-of-concept of integrating resource recovery and resource recycling using cyanobacteria to develop a peri-urban algae farming system. This can lead to establishing wastewater-driven algae cultivation systems as novel enterprises for rural migrants moving to urban areas.
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•Wastewater-grown algal biomass has been questioned for biotech use.•Resource recovery from urban wastewater and use of algal biomass as soil amender.•Soil incubation with wastewater-grown biomass and recycling of treated water.•Desertifilum tharense BERC-3 improved soil fertility and soil microbial activities.•Resource recovery and recycling in peri-urban environments for biomass production.
Perception and awareness can affect behaviour and decision-making, for example, how companies implement Circular Economy (CE) practices. However, there is limited empirical research about this topic. ...Thus, we investigated the perception and awareness of representatives from water-intensive and bio-based sectors regarding the CE concept based on interviews and a survey with 10 companies in Sweden. Our results indicate that CE is understood mainly as zero waste and its key principles are resource efficiency and ecodesign. Missing (or partially addressed) important elements of CE are consumption, social aspects, regenerative role of CE, collaboration, and Industrial Symbiosis. The main benefit from implementing circular strategies is economic, and the main barrier is the lack of financial resources. The bio-based companies have a broader understanding of CE and its benefits than the water-intensive companies. Overall, more clarification and standardisation of the CE concept is necessary to avoid misunderstanding with other concepts such as sustainability.
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•The study explored the perception of water-intensive and bio-based sectors in Sweden.•CE is mainly linked with the environmental dimension (e.g., zero waste and reuse).•The main key principles or targets of CE are resources efficiency and ecodesign.•Complexity, financial resources, and lack of government support are the main barriers.•Measures to overcome the barriers are proposed for practitioners and policymakers.
This review article examines how social science literature co-produces various imaginaries of forest-based bioeconomy transformations and pathways for reaching desired ends. Based on an analysis of ...59 research articles, we find that despite a growing number of social sciences studies on the forest-based bioeconomy, much of the research tends to replicate a bioeconomy imaginary articulated in EU and national bioeconomy policies and strategies. Accordingly, the research primarily reproduces a weak approach to sustainability, which prioritize economic growth and competitiveness. Expectations are largely directed at national and regional corporate interests and forest industrial renewal, while the state has a supportive rather than restricting role. We discuss the findings against the role of social sciences, and conclude that social science scholars may adopt various strategies if interested in opening up forest-based policy debates and offer alternative imaginaries of sustainable bioeconomy transformations.
Biochar is an ample source of organic carbon prepared by the thermal breakdown of biomass. Lignocellulosic biomass is a promising precursor for biochar production, and has several applications in ...various industries. In addition, biochar can be applied for environmental revitalization by reducing the negative impacts through intrinsic mechanisms. In addition to its environmentally friendly nature, biochar has several recyclable and inexpensive benefits. Nourishing and detoxification of the environment can be undertaken using biochar by different investigators on account of its excellent contaminant removal capacity. Studies have shown that biochar can be improved by activation to remove toxic pollutants. In general, biochar is produced by closed-loop systems; however, decentralized methods have been proven to be more efficient for increasing resource efficiency in view of circular bio-economy and lignocellulosic waste management. In the last decade, several studies have been conducted to reveal the unexplored potential and to understand the knowledge gaps in different biochar-based applications. However, there is still a crucial need for research to acquire sufficient data regarding biochar modification and management, the utilization of lignocellulosic biomass, and achieving a sustainable paradigm. The present review has been articulated to provide a summary of information on different aspects of biochar, such as production, characterization, modification for improvisation, issues, and remediation have been addressed.
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•Emerging researches on toxic pollutants removal using biochar has been addressed.•Advanced techniques on biochar production have been articulated.•Obligated properties of biochar for environmental applications have been discussed.•Biochar amendments on ameliorating the soil fertility have been analyzed.•Crucial stumbling block for production and application of biochar were reported.
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