IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boh/wpaper/01_2022.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

From environmental thinking in economics to bioplastics: promising material for a sustainable (bio)economy

Author

Listed:
  • Nikola Sagapová

    (Department of Regional Management and Law, Faculty of Economics, University of South Bohemia In České Budějovice)

Abstract

The demand and concerns for sustainable production, environmentally friendly products, as well as conscious consumption are increasing, although environmental thinking in economics is nothing new. Bioeconomy is presented as a potential solution to overcome various challenges modern society faces. The power of the bioeconomy lies in replacing fossil resources with renewables to produce various goods. Even plastics, the essential materials of our time, might be made from renewable biological resources. However, bioplastics are often discussed when it comes to the sustainability of their production, but also concerning the proper waste management or even their circularity. The task is very complex, and it is needed to take both environmental and socio-economic impacts into consideration. Currently, we might perceive various prerequisites and barriers, that are typically of a socio-economic, technological, but also political character, which must be addressed to meet the full potential of viable bioplastics production and their introduction to the market. The purpose of this paper is to provide the theoretical basis for bioeconomy production, in particular, the bioplastics, based on a narrative literature review of topics ranging from environmental thinking in economics, through biotechnology to plastics, to be able to set research questions and determine gaps in the research for the upcoming dissertation thesis. Although I used mainly Web of Science, Science Direct, and Google Scholar, I also searched for books and reports to gather valuable information and achieve the complexity of this review. I found several gaps ranging from the financial perspective to a wider assessment of the potential of bioplastics and their production not only from the business perspective, but also environmental impact and sustainability, or even adequate policy support and regulatory framework that might help their production and market introduction.

Suggested Citation

  • Nikola Sagapová, 2022. "From environmental thinking in economics to bioplastics: promising material for a sustainable (bio)economy," Economics Working Papers 2022-01, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice, Faculty of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:boh:wpaper:01_2022
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.ef.jcu.cz/RePEc/boh/wpaper/01_2022.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. D’Amato, Alessio & Dijkstra, Bouwe R., 2015. "Technology choice and environmental regulation under asymmetric information," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 224-247.
    2. Diana Barrowclough & Carolyn Deere Birkbeck, 2022. "Transforming the Global Plastics Economy: The Role of Economic Policies in the Global Governance of Plastic Pollution," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-26, January.
    3. Kes McCormick & Niina Kautto, 2013. "The Bioeconomy in Europe: An Overview," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(6), pages 1-20, June.
    4. Yi-Ling Cheng & Juin-Jen Chang, 2017. "The Quality of Intermediate Goods: Growth and Welfare Implications," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(302), pages 434-447, September.
    5. Ioana Gabriela Cosma, 2018. "Bio-plastic - between current practices and the challenges of a sustainable future," Manager Journal, Faculty of Business and Administration, University of Bucharest, vol. 27(1), pages 51-63, December.
    6. Meredith L. Fowlie, 2009. "Incomplete Environmental Regulation, Imperfect Competition, and Emissions Leakage," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 72-112, August.
    7. Christine Alewell & Bruno Ringeval & Cristiano Ballabio & David A. Robinson & Panos Panagos & Pasquale Borrelli, 2020. "Global phosphorus shortage will be aggravated by soil erosion," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    8. Harold Hotelling, 1931. "The Economics of Exhaustible Resources," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 137-137.
    9. Robert J. Barro & Silvana Tenreyro, 2006. "Closed and Open Economy Models of Business Cycles with Marked Up and Sticky Prices," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(511), pages 434-456, April.
    10. Stewart Barr, 2004. "What we buy, what we throw away and how we use our voice. Sustainable household waste management in the UK," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 32-44.
    11. H. Scott Gordon, 1954. "The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The Fishery," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Chennat Gopalakrishnan (ed.), Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics, chapter 9, pages 178-203, Palgrave Macmillan.
    12. Sinn, Hans-Werner, 2012. "The Green Paradox: A Supply-Side Approach to Global Warming," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262016680, December.
    13. Ruxandra Bejinaru & Cristian Valentin Hapenciuc & Iulian Condratov & Pavel Stanciu, 2018. "The University Role in Developing the Human Capital for a Sustainable Bioeconomy," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 20(49), pages 583-583, August.
    14. repec:aud:audfin:v:20:y:2018:i:49:p:583 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Senem Onen Cinar & Zhi Kai Chong & Mehmet Ali Kucuker & Nils Wieczorek & Ugur Cengiz & Kerstin Kuchta, 2020. "Bioplastic Production from Microalgae: A Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(11), pages 1-21, May.
    16. Antony Trewavas, 2002. "Malthus foiled again and again," Nature, Nature, vol. 418(6898), pages 668-670, August.
    17. Louise Staffas & Mathias Gustavsson & Kes McCormick, 2013. "Strategies and Policies for the Bioeconomy and Bio-Based Economy: An Analysis of Official National Approaches," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(6), pages 1-19, June.
    18. Schmid, Otto & Padel, Susanne & Levidow, Les, 2012. "The Bio-Economy Concept and Knowledge Base in a Public Goods and Farmer Perspective," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 1(01), pages 1-18, April.
    19. Maciejczak, Mariusz, 2015. "How to Analyze Bioeconomy?," Roczniki (Annals), Polish Association of Agricultural Economists and Agribusiness - Stowarzyszenie Ekonomistow Rolnictwa e Agrobiznesu (SERiA), vol. 2015(6), December.
    20. H. Scott Gordon, 1954. "The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The Fishery," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(2), pages 124-124.
    21. Martinez-Alier, Joan & Munda, Giuseppe & O'Neill, John, 1998. "Weak comparability of values as a foundation for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 277-286, September.
    22. Laurent Lebreton & Anthony Andrady, 2019. "Future scenarios of global plastic waste generation and disposal," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-11, December.
    23. Forest Reinhardt, 1999. "Market Failure and the Environmental Policies of Firms: Economic Rationales for “Beyond Compliance” Behavior," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 3(1), pages 9-21, January.
    24. Haji Esmaeili, Seyed Ali & Szmerekovsky, Joseph & Sobhani, Ahmad & Dybing, Alan & Peterson, Tim O., 2020. "Sustainable biomass supply chain network design with biomass switching incentives for first-generation bioethanol producers," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    25. David N. Weil & Oded Galor, 2000. "Population, Technology, and Growth: From Malthusian Stagnation to the Demographic Transition and Beyond," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 806-828, September.
    26. Eyraud, Luc & Clements, Benedict & Wane, Abdoul, 2013. "Green investment: Trends and determinants," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 852-865.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giampietro, Mario, 2019. "On the Circular Bioeconomy and Decoupling: Implications for Sustainable Growth," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 143-156.
    2. Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 2017. "Environmental and resource economics: A Canadian retrospective," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(5), pages 1381-1413, December.
    3. Vivien, F.-D. & Nieddu, M. & Befort, N. & Debref, R. & Giampietro, M., 2019. "The Hijacking of the Bioeconomy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 189-197.
    4. Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 2017. "Environmental and resource economics: A Canadian retrospective," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1381-1413, December.
    5. Behringer, Stefan & Upmann, Thorsten, 2014. "Optimal harvesting of a spatial renewable resource," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 105-120.
    6. Charles Morcom & Michael Kremer, 2000. "Elephants," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 212-234, March.
      • Michael Kremer & Charles Morcom, 1996. "Elephants," NBER Working Papers 5674, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Kremer, M. & Morcom, C., 1996. "Elephants," Working papers 96-17, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    7. Befort, N., 2020. "Going beyond definitions to understand tensions within the bioeconomy: The contribution of sociotechnical regimes to contested fields," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    8. Benoit Mougenot & Jean-Pierre Doussoulin, 2022. "Conceptual evolution of the bioeconomy: a bibliometric analysis," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 1031-1047, January.
    9. Clay, Karen & Wright, Gavin, 2005. "Order without law? Property rights during the California gold rush," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 155-183, April.
    10. Walther Zeug & Alberto Bezama & Urs Moesenfechtel & Anne Jähkel & Daniela Thrän, 2019. "Stakeholders’ Interests and Perceptions of Bioeconomy Monitoring Using a Sustainable Development Goal Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-24, March.
    11. Farhad Mukhtarov & Andrea Gerlak & Robin Pierce, 2017. "Away from fossil-fuels and toward a bioeconomy: Knowledge versatility for public policy?," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(6), pages 1010-1028, September.
    12. Lovrić, Marko & Lovrić, Nataša & Mavsar, Robert, 2020. "Mapping forest-based bioeconomy research in Europe," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    13. Suphaphiphat, Nujin & Peretto, Pietro F. & Valente, Simone, 2015. "Endogenous growth and property rights over renewable resources," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 125-151.
    14. Lovrić, Nataša & Lovrić, Marko & Mavsar, Robert, 2020. "Factors behind development of innovations in European forest-based bioeconomy," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    15. Croutzet, Alexandre & Lasserre, Pierre, 2017. "Optimal completeness of property rights on renewable resources in the presence of market power," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 16-32.
    16. John R. Boyce, 2013. "Prediction and Inference in the Hubbert-Deffeyes Peak Oil Model," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    17. Amitrajeet A. Batabyal & Henk Folmer, 2019. "Space and the environment: an introduction to the topical collection," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-7, April.
    18. Smith, Martin D. & Sanchirico, James N. & Wilen, James E., 2009. "The economics of spatial-dynamic processes: Applications to renewable resources," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 104-121, January.
    19. Ben White, 2000. "A Review of the Economics of Biological Natural Resources," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 419-462, September.
    20. Gérard Gaudet, 2007. "Natural resource economics under the rule of Hotelling," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1033-1059, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    bioeconomy; biotechnology; plastics; sustainability; environment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q20 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - General
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:boh:wpaper:01_2022. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Markéta Matějíčková (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/efjcucz.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.