Do forest biorefineries fit with working principles of a circular bioeconomy? A case of Finnish and Swedish initiatives

Armi Temmes and Philip Peck

Forest Policy and Economics, 2020, vol. 110, issue C

Abstract: Pursuit of the Bioeconomy (BE) and the Circular Economy (CE) is high on the political agendas of many countries. Application of the concepts is intended to ameliorate a number of sustainability challenges, such as raw material constraint concerns and global warming. The concepts of BE and CE are increasingly combined to describe a ‘circular bioeconomy’ (CBE), which emphasises value retention for renewable resources and increased circularity in material cycles. Embedding these CE principes is anticipated to ameliorate sustainability weaknesses associated with the BE. Biorefineries, the focal point for this discussion, are perceived as essential infrastructure items within such concepts. The work focuses on the forest industries, a leading bioeconomy sector. This study draws upon a review of extant literature on the BE, CE and biorefinery concepts to summarise a set of working principles aligned with high levels of socio-economic and environmental performance. These are deemed to operationalize these concepts as parts of the concept of the circular bioeconomy. Analysis is then performed to compare a set of 22 forest biorefinery initiatives in Finland and Sweden to the working principles, and assess how the expectations are met in practice.

Keywords: Bioeconomy; Circular economy; Forest biorefinery; Circular bioeconomy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:forpol:v:110:y:2020:i:c:s1389934118303034

DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2019.03.013

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