Bioeconomy
Last update: June 2024
Contact: Fabian Fischbach
Bioeconomy is a knowledge-based economic concept that aims to use new technologies to provide energy, as well as food, materials and other consumer goods based on renewable raw materials and renewable sources. Its ideal goal is a circular economy in which materials can be used again and again, less waste with a long half-life is produced, fewer emissions are generated and the earth's non-renewable reserves, such as petroleum and natural gas, are conserved.
The term bioeconomy is made up of two terms: The term "bio" (Greek bios: life) and the term "economy" (composed of Greek oikos: household and Greek nomos: law, right, norm or doctrine). Bioeconomy, fundamentally understood as "economic change", can be read in two directions: The relationship between the two terms that make up the term bioeconomy, i.e. the relationship between "bio" and "economy", is assessed differently in reception and interpretation. Sometimes the focus is placed on the word component "bio" and the concept is understood in the sense of an "ecologisation of the economy", which usually goes hand in hand with an attempt to preserve the integrity of nature and its protection. Sometimes, however, the emphasis is also placed on the "economy" component, which leads to an understanding in terms of an "economisation of nature", which is usually associated with the use of nature with a focus on economic growth as the goal.
The concept of bioeconomy, which in terms of terminology can initially be understood simply as a "bio-based economy", is associated with other normatively charged concepts and labelled as sustainable, responsible and future-oriented. It is used as a solution to numerous global problems, such as the climate crisis and its consequences for people and nature, as well as securing the supply of food and basic goods in the face of increasing population growth and a simultaneous shortage of raw materials. As a result, the concept of bioeconomy is highly normatively charged; at the same time, there is hardly any differentiation, concretisation or justification of what lies behind terms such as sustainability, responsibility and future viability. These terminological and conceptual ambiguities give rise to numerous possible interpretations of which technologies and practices fall under the term "bioeconomy" and how the so-called "green economy" should be implemented with regard to people, nature and a globalised society.
The more fundamental philosophical and ethical questions in connection with bioeconomy relate to the question of a desirable relationship between humans and nature, the connection with the concept of sustainability and the associated conceptual difficulties, the question of how to deal with technology (keyword 'technological fix'), the problem of competition for land and the potential risk of exploitation through greenwashing. Each of these aspects is analysed in the following chapters:
1. The relationship between humans and nature
2. Sustainability
3. Use of technology
4. Land use competition
5. Greenwashing and bioeconomy
In addition to the fundamental philosophical and ethical issues, the following technological areas can be identified for bioeconomy: Biotechnology, synthetic biology, precision farming, biomass utilisation for energy, bioplastics and nutrigenomics.
These specific dimensions of bioeconomy each have their own problems and specific ethical debates.
1. The relationship between humans and nature
The fundamentally different and sometimes contradictory understandings of the term bioeconomy lead to diverging expectations and different concepts. Which understanding of the term is taken as a basis here, on which component the focus is directed and what interpretation of bioeconomy is chosen depends fundamentally on the relationship between humans and nature that is assumed and what value is attributed to nature. In the context of bioeconomy, it is all about the (bioeconomic) utilisation of nature by humans, which raises central questions of natural ethics: How may, can and must humans behave towards non-human nature? How can this be normatively justified? What value is attached to nature? Can nature be understood as an (intrinsic) value in itself or is it merely a means of realising human values and therefore only of instrumental value, etc.? Bioeconomy as a form of human utilisation of nature necessitates a philosophical and ethical reflection on the underlying relationship between humans and nature. In the following, nature, as a contrasting concept to culture, can be understood as a working definition of everything that is both non-human and not purely artefactual.
The positions represented in the field of natural ethics can be categorised into two overarching approaches:
The first overarching current is moral anthropocentrism (Greek anthropos: human). Here, only the human being has intrinsic value; only the human being is to be protected for its own sake and is worthy of moral consideration. Following the Kantian tradition, this is often justified by the argument that humans are granted a special status compared to other animals due to their ability to reason, which in turn is linked to their intrinsic value. (Non-human) nature and its elements, on the other hand, have no intrinsic value, but only an instrumental value: they are only of value and should be protected insofar as they are valuable to humans. In the context of this position on natural ethics, there are various justifications that emphasise different ways of using nature - for example, the necessity of using nature as the basis of human life, the contribution of nature to a good human life, the value of the aesthetic use of nature or the educational value of nature are emphasised along with other justifications.
In the context of anthropocentrism, protecting nature is not an end in itself. Impairments are only relevant in an anthropocentric world if they affect human interests. This leads to the demand that the bioeconomic use of nature must be designed in such a way that people are not negatively affected by bioeconomy, for example by preserving the natural basis of life or nature as a place of recreation for people.
The second, overarching approach to moral anthropocentrism is physiocentrism (Greek physis: nature), which ascribes intrinsic value not only to humans, but also to (various) other entities in nature. The largest currents within the physiocentric spectrum are pathocentrism, biocentrism and holism.
Pathocentrism (Greek pathos: suffering), also known as sentientism (Latin sentire: to feel, to sense), links the intrinsic value of a living being to its sentience, or more specifically to its capacity for pain or suffering. According to this position, all sentient beings have morally relevant interests and therefore have an intrinsic value, which means that they are worthy of protection for their own sake. The concept of interest is of central importance here - sentient beings or beings capable of suffering have an interest in things that are beneficial to them or in avoiding suffering, which does not differ in morally relevant respects from human interests of this kind and must therefore be equally included in moral decision-making.
In the context of pathocentrism, nature protection is partly an end in itself. In pathocentric thinking, impairments are also relevant if they influence the feelings of non-human animals and their associated interests. This means that the bioeconomic utilisation of nature must be designed in such a way that it causes as little suffering as possible, be it to humans or other sentient beings. In practice, care must therefore be taken to ensure that intact habitats are preserved and that no direct forms of causing suffering are included in the bioeconomic material cycle.
Biocentrism (Greek bios: life) argues that all living beings have an intrinsic value, which, similar to pathocentrism, is based on the fact that all living beings have a morally relevant form of interest, sometimes also referred to as teleological strivings or the will to live. The situation of living individuals can therefore always be related to species-specific ways of life from which it can be deduced what is good and what is bad for the respective living being, even if most of the interests to be mentioned here may differ greatly from human interests. Plants, for example, may not have any interests according to this view, but there are notable things that are in the (obvious) interest of a plant and can be recognised through scientific observation and recorded in objective lists. According to biocentric approaches, the interests of all living beings must therefore be morally taken into account, but it is controversial to what extent gradations are permissible in the case of conflicting interests.
Biocentrism recognises the intrinsic value of nature and the associated demand for its protection in a comprehensive sense that serves the well-being of individual organisms. Against this background, bioeconomy is only morally justifiable if the interventions in nature associated with it are carried out in such a way that no living beings, whether sentient or not, are harmed in the process, for example by avoiding the clearing of additional land.
In contrast to the other approaches presented so far, the moral focus of holism (Greek hólos: whole) is not on individuals, but on the preservation and protection of systemic components of nature, such as species, ecosystems or the biosphere as a whole. One of the arguments put forward for this is that such entities, similar to individual living beings, have their own good in a teleological sense and therefore have interests that differ from the cumulative sum of the individual interests of individual organisms and should generally be given greater weight. Accordingly, it would be morally permissible, for example, to significantly decimate a population in order to preserve the long-term integrity of an ecosystem - a consequence that both biocentrism and pathocentrism would reject in most versions.
It is important for holism that natural entities and therefore nature itself are not harmed. Nature protection can therefore be understood as a direct and central goal of this view. For bioeconomy, this would mean that it is only permissible if it integrates as smoothly as possible into existing ecosystems and leaves local biodiversity characteristics unchanged.
Depending on the ethical position on nature and how people are located in the sphere of nature, this results in different obligations to protect or conserve, i.e. protection requirements and prohibitions of use for the bioeconomic treatment of nature and thus completely different understandings of how bioeconomic nature utilisation concepts can or should be designed.
2. Sustainability
In the current debate, the concept of bioeconomy is closely linked to the term sustainability. For example, politicians have stated that bioeconomy can make a significant contribution to achieving some of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined by the United Nations (UN) in the 2030 Agenda in 2015. Some of these SDGs are also particularly emphasised in the German government's National Bioeconomy Strategy of 2020. With this strategy, the German Federal Government defines guidelines and objectives for its bioeconomy policy and specifies measures and efforts for their realisation.
The term sustainability is vague in many respects, terminologically and conceptually underdetermined and is often used strategically to characterise developments, technologies and products as positive without taking into account complex conceptual problems and ways of interpretation. To ensure that the term sustainability (in general, but also in the context of bioeconomy) does not become meaningless through inflationary use, it must be specifically defined and concretised in each case what sustainability means, how it is normatively justified and which obligations to protect and obligations to act or restrictions on action result from it. This is the only way to clarify how a 'bio-based economy' must be organised so that it can justifiably be labelled as sustainable.
The origin of the concept of sustainability lies in 18th century forestry: in 1713, Hans Carl von Carlowitz demanded that no more trees should be chopped down than can naturally grow back and regenerate in the near future - the utilisation of the resource 'forest' should not affect the possibility of a permanent yield. According to this forestry origin, sustainability is to be understood as a resource-economic principle which, by ensuring the natural regenerative capacity of ecosystems or living organisms, should enable the continuous utilisation of a resource and thus the maintenance of a permanent economic yield. This conceptual version is particularly evident in the English form "sustainability", which is made up of the words "sustain" and "ability", i.e. an ability to sustain. However, the concept of sustainability has changed and expanded considerably since the 18th century: the definition of sustainability that is most widely used and recognised today comes from the United Nations' Brundlandt Report of 1987, whose official title is the "Our Common Future" report: „Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs“. The clear reference of sustainability to the dimension of the future is recognisable in this definition. Due to the normative basis of the aspects of responsibility for the future and intergenerational justice associated with the reference to the future, sustainability in the sense of today's understanding of the term is no longer to be regarded as a mere resource-economic principle, but also as an ethical principle.
2.1 Normative justifications, differentiations and guiding strategies of sustainability
Sustainability can be justified on the basis of various philosophical approaches. Each of these specific normative justifications then results in different understandings of the term or concept of sustainability within the framework of various differentiations, and thus also different duties to protect or obligations and prohibitions to act. For example, sustainability can be normatively justified by the following philosophical positions:
- Ethics of responsibility
- Approaches based on theories of justice
- Theories of the good life
- Theological approaches
- Perspective on human rights
Various differentiations must be taken into account so that the term sustainability does not become an empty phrase, but can be defined and concretised in terms of content:
Firstly, sustainability as an interdisciplinary concept must always be understood in its multidimensionality. Sustainability in the sense of the Brundtland definition, which calls for ensuring the possibility of satisfying the needs of future generations in favour of the possibility of the long-term existence of humanity, is only possible if sustainability is pursued in these three interlinked dimensions: The ecological, economic and social dimensions. The term 'sustainability' can therefore serve as a bundle of goals from these different dimensions.
Secondly, in the context of this three-dimensionality, a distinction must be made between three types of goods or capital, each of which is assigned to the corresponding dimension. Ecological capital is associated with the ecological dimension - this includes goods such as fertile soils, renewable and non-renewable resources, the climate system, biodiversity and food cycles. Economic capital is assigned to the economic dimension. This includes, for example, state assets, production facilities and means of transport, technical knowledge, shares and patents. Social capital, which includes values such as freedom, tolerance, religions, cultures, social commitment or a focus on the common good, is assigned to the social dimension. The aim of each dimension is to maintain or increase one's own form of capital.
Thirdly, depending on how sustainability is normatively justified, these three dimensions are weighted differently: Either all dimensions are given equal weight or they are weighted unequally so that, for example, one dimension is considered to take precedence over the other two in order to achieve sustainability according to the above definition.
Fourthly, the weighting of the dimensions is also expressed in the respective strength of sustainability: a distinction must therefore be made between a weak, a strong and a balanced concept of sustainability. These positions differ in their views on the question of whether or not substitution, i.e. the replacement of different types of capital with one another, is permitted. While proponents of the weak concept of sustainability consider substitution to be permissible, as they only demand the preservation of the total amount of existing capital, the position of strong sustainability strictly rejects the substitution of goods of different forms of capital with one another, as according to this position the preservation or increase of each individual type of capital should be guaranteed, in particular that of ecological capital. The middle position of balanced sustainability, on the other hand, considers substitution between different types of capital to be permissible if this does not jeopardise any individual type of capital by keeping it below critical (planetary impact) limits.
The fifth and final differentiation concerns the way in which the respective sustainability concept is implemented: The substantive understanding of sustainability increasingly calls for a political-institutional implementation 'from above', including defined action strategies, rules and sanctions to achieve sustainability goals. The procedural understanding, on the other hand, emphasises the relevance of individual participation and civil society involvement and calls for the implementation of sustainability strategies 'from below' at the individual and collective level. Different guiding strategies can be applied at both levels in order to promote better implementation of sustainability. Bioeconomy could play an important role here if it is developed appropriately.
2.2 Sustainability and bioeconomy
In the context of bioeconomy, the differentiations above therefore raise the question of which goods must be preserved and which may be substituted, i.e. which dimension is given priority over the other two or whether they are all equally important, and also whether the bioeconomic transition to a more sustainable economy should take place politically and institutionally or procedurally. Depending on which specific concept of sustainability is advocated against the background of the different differentiation options, this results in different imperatives, guidelines, goals and prohibitions for sustainable bioeconomic utilisation of nature.
If bioeconomy is understood as the complete economisation of nature and the already strained planetary boundaries and the integrity of ecosystem functions are further exhausted as a result, this endangers the integrity of nature as a necessary basis for human existence and thus the basis for future human life and future generations. In accordance with the precautionary principle, the biological foundations of life must be protected so as not to jeopardise the possibility of future existence. However, as the economic growth that bioeconomy strives for, including increased efficiency and competitiveness, is based on the consistent use of all biological resources to generate economic profit and this use of nature jeopardises future existence, economic growth, even if it is supposedly "green", should not be seen as the primary paradigm of a bioeconomy that wants to see itself as sustainable and ethically responsible.
If a concept of strong sustainability is advocated, this would also require the ecological dimension of sustainability to be prioritised over the economic and social dimension in order to safeguard future generations and the conditions necessary for this. This would prohibit the substitution of ecological goods with economic goods, as this substitution would affect the integrity of nature and thus the possibility of future existence to a certain extent. Overexploitation of nature and overloading the earth's carrying capacity in favour of economic profit maximisation and economic growth in accordance with the concept of bioeconomy, which focuses on the word 'economy', would therefore not be sustainable. If bioeconomy is to be sustainable and ethically responsible in a strong sense, the ecological dimension of sustainability would have to be prioritised over the economic dimension and care would have to be taken primarily to preserve or increase ecological capital, not economic capital.
If one advocates a concept of weak sustainability, in which none of the three dimensions is given more weight than another, a substitution of the goods of the different types of capital would in principle be legitimate. In the context of bioeconomy, prioritising the paradigm of economic growth over prioritising the integrity of the planetary ecosystem, i.e. substituting the goods of ecological capital for those of economic capital through bioeconomic use, would be permissible according to this weak understanding.
Following a balanced concept of sustainability, substitution between the different types of capital would not be fundamentally illegitimate. However, substitution could only take place if the quantity of goods or capital of each individual dimension of sustainability did not fall below a critical limit. According to this balanced understanding, economic growth through the bioeconomic utilisation of nature, i.e. an increase in economic capital, would therefore not be an objective to be rejected in principle and thus not per se incompatible with sustainability, but this should only be pursued against the background that the ecological capital does not fall below a critical threshold value.
3. Use of technology
Bioeconomy, understood as a knowledge-based economic concept, is essentially founded on an interweaving of biological knowledge and technical innovations, which are intended to function as solutions to current problems such as the climate crisis or the global food situation. The change towards a more sustainable form of economy that bioeconomy is striving for is to be significantly advanced by the development and application of modern technologies, meaning that technology plays an important role in the bioeconomy concept.
As modern technologies have certain characteristics such as rapid development, a momentum of their own and a potentially strong and far-reaching impact into the future and have an increasing effect on society and nature, technoethics have become increasingly important in recent decades. They relate to the moral questions that arise in the context of the development and use of technologies and techniques; their task is to provide a comprehensive ethical reflection on the parameters associated with technological development, such as the prerequisites, objectives and means.
As the concept of bioeconomy is based to such a large extent on the development and application of new technologies (such as biotechnology, synthetic biology, precision farming, energetic biomass utilisation, bioplastics and nutrigenomics), technical-ethical reflection and support is indispensable.
3.1 Technology assessment and maxims for action
Modern technologies are characterised, among other things, by the fact that we can never succeed in fully grasping their consequences due to the potential of their extensive, time-delayed remote effects. Based on this problem, David Collingridge, for example, points out a methodological dilemma, which is referred to as the Collingridge dilemma: On the one hand, there is an information problem, as the full extent of the effects of the development or application of modern technologies can hardly be foreseen. This is particularly the case as long as the technology in question is not yet sufficiently developed, widespread or established. At the same time, there is the problem that the more widespread the technology and the more firmly it is rooted in its application and social and technical embedding, the more difficult it is to control or modify it.
Technology assessment therefore has a special role to play within the field of bioeconomy: in order to be able to decide how to deal with technology-related risks associated with the use of innovative technological methods, an ethical framework is needed to provide guidance. Such a framework is often formulated in the form of principles or maxims for action.
There are often two extreme positions at this juncture: On the one hand, there is a very strict precautionary principle, sometimes also referred to as the precautionary principle, which demands that the focus in the assessment and evaluation of the consequences of technology must be on the harms and that a technology should not be used if it harbours even the slightest potential to pose a threat to the integrity of nature or the (good) survival of humankind. Advocates of the innovation principle (Responsible Research Innovation), on the other hand, criticise the precautionary principle as being too restrictive and disregarding the opportunities of technology, as it only takes into account the risks of action, but not those of inaction, and thus has a paralysing effect.
The innovation principle states that when drafting laws or regulations, it should be examined whether they have a negative impact on the ability to innovate: it is argued that when assessing and evaluating the impact of modern technologies, the focus should primarily be on examining possible innovations and opportunities that a technology could offer economically and/or for solving existing challenges that would be lost if it were not applied. Both of these positions are subject to various criticisms within the professional debate, which characterise the respective principle as too cautious or too reckless and which show each of these two approaches and decision-making maxims to be unfruitful in their own right in their strict form.
3.2 Technological fix vs. structural fix
The second strand that needs to be taken into account in the ethical reflection and assessment of bioeconomy is the question of the appropriate and necessary way to tackle the current global ethical challenges. In contrast to the first set of issues, this is not about assessing the permissibility of individual technologies, but rather about fundamentally and generally scrutinising the use of technology to solve serious global problems.
Bioeconomy is presented as a solution to complex existing challenges of ecological, economic and social nature and can be understood primarily as a technology-based approach. The term technological fix refers to a position that considers even complex problems to be technically describable and solvable and consequently ascribes the central role in solving current problems to the development and application of new technologies. Even though technological development has become indispensable in today's high-tech age, this does not automatically mean that technological progress alone is capable of solving all global problems:
The criticism of a pure technological fix primarily relates to two aspects: Firstly, it can be asked whether a purely technology-based solution to problems that have often only arisen through technological applications does not harbour the risk of ultimately creating a vicious circle, particularly against the background of the Collingridge dilemma, in which technical innovations in turn give rise to global ethical challenges, which then again require a technical solution as an approach. In this context, it is also argued that a technological fix or even (techno-)solutionism often leads to a confusion between problems and solutions: a new technical invention is propagated as a solution to a problem, even though it does not solve the actual problem or possibly creates further, new problems. Furthermore, it is criticised that the technological fix approach is merely a (superficial) fight against the symptoms, but not the causes. In order to be able to counteract the current global ethical challenges more adequately, a combination of the technological fix and structural fix approaches could be considered more fruitful than focussing solely on a technological fix:
Many of the existing challenges (such as climate change and the resulting global problems) do not originate solely in physical, material conditions, meaning that they cannot be solved by changes to these physical conditions alone (e.g. through technology applications). Current global problems often result from an interweaving of natural phenomena, technology-based exacerbations and widespread attitudes and value systems. In order to counteract climate-related health problems, for example, as one of the many global problems, or to focus on ethical issues of justice in general, it is not only research in the field of technological innovations that is required, but first and foremost ethical reflection and the resulting individual, social and political consequences. This type of change is described by the position of a structural fix, from whose point of view a change in values, behaviour, structures and systems is necessary both at an individual level and at the level of society as a whole. The need for ethical reflection and evaluation is then joined by the inclusion of aspects from other disciplines, such as moral and social psychology.
4. Land use competition
Bioeconomic applications, such as the generation of energy from biomass or the production of bioplastics, are in many cases dependent on large quantities of biomass and thus contribute to an intensification of the competition for arable land. Competition for land in general can be defined as the endeavour to control the use of an area based on conflicting interests, whereby the losing party is in many cases indirectly negatively affected by a lack of access to the resource. As the majority of the earth's surface suitable for this purpose is already considered to be utilised, the size of the remaining, productively usable land is strictly limited, resulting in competing claims for use, which have been accelerated by various developments in recent years. These include
- the growth of the world's population: the increase in the number of inhabitants has led to a rise in demand for basic foodstuffs, energy and living space. While until the 1970s, the increase in productivity due to the intensification of agriculture on the available land was still steep enough to meet the rising demand, this now requires a reassessment of established utilisation methods.
- rising demand for meat: While global prosperity is increasing at the same time, the demand for meat is also rising globally. It is estimated that half of all land is currently used for the production of animal feed.
- impending energy shortage: For some time now, experts have feared that the existing reserves of fossil fuels will no longer be sufficient to cover global energy requirements in the medium term. In order to avoid a collapse of the economy due to exploding energy prices or shortages, a switch to plant-based fuels seems unavoidable.
- increased demand for natural compensation areas: With an increasing awareness of mass extinction and the climate crisis in the Global North, the demand for natural compensation areas to protect biodiversity and as CO2 sinks is growing.
- land loss due to the climate crisis and overuse: Prolonged periods of drought and overuse also lead to numerous previously usable areas losing their utilisation potential due to soil erosion.
The developments described above interact closely with each other, which makes the land use competition a complex empirical and ethical problem in which a multitude of interests must be taken into account, resulting primarily from the wide range of different uses. Bioeconomy can represent an additional burden here.
4.1 Distribution of power and weighting of interests
In the competition for control over what is cultivated on a given area of land, actors in different positions of power and with different objectives often clash. Lines of conflict here run between local populations and corporations as well as between individual landowners and local communities. The main areas of competition are the cultivation of staple foods for local consumption, marketable export products (such as animal feed or cotton) and raw materials for bioeconomic utilisation. There are also competing interests with regard to the preservation of culturally significant landscapes and ecosystem services provided by intact habitats. The interests to be safeguarded in the competitive situations described are correspondingly diverse and range from satisfying the basic needs of individuals (such as the availability of sufficient food) to the more complex interests of larger organisations such as economic groups (and the interest in obtaining cheap raw materials) or social groups (and the interest in economic progress or the preservation of cultural landscapes, for example). An assessment of how the available land in an area should be distributed (or how economic distribution dynamics should be politically regulated) must therefore always be based on certain values that provide a basis for balancing competing interests. For instance, it is important to ensure that certain distributions are not accompanied by a comprehensive destruction of human (and non-human) livelihoods (food or fuel discussion).
In addition to the question of whether there are interests that should be given greater weight than others in the context of land use competition, the institutional distribution of power also provides an opportunity for critical reflection. In many cases, the resulting land distribution ratios are not the result of well-considered and consensual decisions by landowners or those who are dependent on the availability of certain areas of land. Instead, the distribution is often characterized by colonial continuities and asymmetrical power relations, which are expressed in the phenomenon of land grabbing, among other things. The latter primarily refers to the seizure of land based on human rights violations or a lack of consent from land users. This usually involves international trade between powerful parties, such as corporations or states, with local elites to the exclusion of the majority of those affected. In this context, substantial and customary land use rights are sometimes illegally ceded, resulting in a loss of local food security and biodiversity as smaller farms die off. People who were previously self-employed in agriculture are often forced to sell their labor to the new landowners for low wages. The weighting of interests when breaking up the competitive situation is therefore not based on a sufficiently ethical consideration, but is primarily determined by global market and power relations.
4.2 Ecological impacts
The industrial cultivation of the earth's surface is usually associated with high environmental costs and agriculture is considered one of the largest CO2 emitters, as large quantities of carbon dioxide are released during intensive land use. On the one hand, the intensification of land use competition is leading to the development of additional land for industrial use. Biodiverse and ecologically valuable areas are coming under increasing pressure in this context and it can be assumed that any additional development of arable land will further exacerbate the climate crisis. On the other hand, an intensification of agriculture can be expected on the areas that have already been developed, which will prevent further binding of CO2 in the soil in the long term and may also have a negative impact on adjacent natural habitats due to the heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers.
From a holistic perspective in environmental ethics it is imperative to protect the integrity of intact ecosystems for their own sake while the expansion of industrial agriculture poses an existential threat to them. It is already controversial whether there is still such a thing as "wilderness" as areas of the world unaffected by humans in the 21st century. Intensified competition for land use could exacerbate this problem. In any case, the intensification of agriculture goes hand in hand with harm to numerous living creatures: In German nature reserves, for example, it has been proven that the mass of flying insects decreased by 76-82 % between 1989 and 2016. A follow-up study was able to identify this decline primarily as a result of neighboring industrial agriculture and the associated use of pesticides. Damage of this kind runs through the entire ecological system and can ultimately also have harmful effects on human health - firstly, indirectly, due to the dependence of human physical and mental health on an intact environment and, secondly, also directly through pesticide residues on consumed food. Apart from such an anthropocentric perspective, however, from a biocentric and pathocentric perspective, the violation of interests and the suffering of the affected non-human living beings must also be taken into account.
Against the backdrop of species extinction and climate crisis, it is therefore obvious that certain areas should be placed under protection - on the one hand, to ensure the permanent sequestration of CO2 from the atmosphere and, on the other, to preserve biodiversity. However, global nature protection efforts should not always be viewed uncritically. In many cases, there is also the aspect of inequitable distribution between the Global South and North, as the conservation of natural habitats is predominantly the responsibility of the Global South, where the larger areas of "uninfluenced" nature and powerful CO2 sinks are currently located. At the same time, however, corporations and lifestyles in the Global North are the biggest contributors to the climate crisis and species loss. Compensation for these practices cannot be uncritically outsourced to other parts of the world, as this often prevents habitual and ecologically harmless land use, which in turn has a serious impact on the way of life of local communities. The resulting burdens are unevenly distributed and disproportionate to the historical distribution of responsibilities that make conservation efforts necessary in the first place. It is a question of distributive justice as to which party must take which type of compensatory measure at which point.
4.3 Global dimensions
The difficulties resulting from land use competition are further exacerbated by the global problem dimensions of regulations and market interrelationships. State market interventions must be enforced in the international legal area, which complicates uniform regulations, as different interests also come together here. Where legal measures can be taken, the problems described above often shift geographically without actually being solved. While it is possible, for example, to reserve certain areas for a specific type of use in order to safeguard food safety or protect biodiversity, other economic interests are often subsequently realized abroad and drive the intensification and expansion of agricultural land use there, which is also referred to as indirect land use change. Due to global economic interrelationships, it can also be assumed that decisions on certain land uses in one place can have an impact on global price trends and therefore affect an indeterminable number of people. For example, a shortage of land due to the cultivation of energy crops can result in increased food prices and cause local shortages if the demand for food does not abate. This global dimension must be taken into account when comprehensively assessing the social and ecological impact of technologies that require more land, as well as in the context of bioeconomy.
4.4 Possible solutions
The increased demand for biomass as a result of the growing economic importance of bioeconomic applications generally increases the pressure on available land, but not necessarily. How the new technologies are to be assessed depends to a large extent on specific designs along the entire production process. For example, energy generation and food production are not always in competition with each other, but newer applications make it possible to generate energy from the waste products of food production (so-called cascade use), so that the pressure on land can be partially reduced. In addition, integrated cultivation systems make it possible to cultivate food and energy crops in equal measure; however, these are more expensive and therefore less lucrative. The greatest pressure on land currently results from the cultivation of animal feed for the production of meat and other animal products, so that the pressure on land can also be reduced by promoting vegetarian and vegan diets in addition to converting agricultural systems and increasing efficiency in processing.
5. Greenwashing and bioeconomy
For a critical ethical consideration of the concept of bioeconomy, the challenge and problem of greenwashing, with which bioeconomic concepts are sometimes confronted by critics, must be taken into account in addition to questions about the general handling of new technologies, questions about the various forms of land use or fundamental questions about the value of nature.
Greenwashing is a strategy of public relations work by various actors that aims to give certain people, products, services or institutions a "green", i.e. sustainable, environmentally friendly and more responsible image, without there actually being a sufficient factual basis for such an image. The underlying objective is in no way linked to actual sustainability efforts. Instead, such efforts are feigned using a variety of methods in order to achieve different, primarily economically motivated, self-serving goals, such as a better corporate image or higher profit margins, if it can be assumed that environmentally conscious behavior will meet with a positive response from society.
In the context of bioeconomy, greenwashing is mostly, but not exclusively, practiced by companies and economically oriented political parties. The broad spectrum of connotations of the concept is deliberately exploited and stretched in order to pass off excessive forms of nature use as environmentally friendly and sustainable economic activity. This applies above all to the use of biofuels and bioplastics, the production of which plays a major role in the bioeconomic context.
Greenwashing is ethically problematic from at least two perspectives:
Firstly, greenwashing is a form of consumer deception: the various methods of greenwashing not only have a stimulating effect on purchasing power, but also on the moral awareness of consumers. The ecological interests of consumers are exploited through a targeted and manipulative selection of the information presented in order to achieve higher profits. This is a case of morally unacceptable instrumentalization of environmentally conscious consumers, from which only the operators of greenwashing profit. In addition, greenwashing can create a false sense of trust in companies, parties or products among consumers, which undermines critical and reflective consumer behavior. Becoming aware of such deception can also result in a general loss of trust in sustainability promises (for example in the form of seals and labels), which in turn has a negative impact on those companies or other actors that do not pretend to be sustainable but actually strive for or implement it. This dimension of the problem has not gone unnoticed at a legal level either, with the result that there are now guidelines at EU level for dealing with misleading advertising strategies.
Secondly, a comprehensive assessment of greenwashing should also take into account the protection of nature and its integrity in the present and future. Greenwashing practices suggest solutions to existing ecological challenges and thus superficial progress, although the complex ecological problems remain or are even exacerbated. It may therefore appear as if major steps are being taken towards sustainability, whereas in reality this is not the case. The resulting distraction from the continued existence of the challenges can give rise to the view that sufficient measures have already been taken and thus obscure the view of comprehensive and systemic approaches to solutions that not only use sustainability as a buzzword, but actually try to achieve it.
The latter is particularly true of bioeconomy. While one common understanding of the term suggests a resource-conserving, sustainable and nature-friendly economy on the largest possible scale, another, which understands bioeconomy as a complete economization of the economy, goes in exactly the opposite direction. Thus, the term can easily be stylized as a promising buzzword for a more sustainable economy, although the measures taken in this context are not in fact ecological interests. For an ethical assessment, it is therefore always necessary, when the term bioeconomy is used, to critically reflect on what understanding of bioeconomy is represented in the relevant context and what practical consequences can be derived from this.