Societal Evaluation of Bioeconomy Scenarios for Germany

Katrin Zander, Sabine Will, Jan Göpel, Christopher Jung and Rüdiger Schaldach
Additional contact information
Katrin Zander: Agricultural and Food Marketing, University of Kassel, 34127 Witzenhausen, Germany
Sabine Will: Agriculture, Nutritional Sciences and Landscape Development, Anhalt University of Applied Sciences, 06406 Bernburg, Germany
Jan Göpel: Institute for Environmental Sciences, University Koblenz-Landau, 76829 Landau, Germany
Christopher Jung: Centre for Environment and Systems Research, University of Kassel, 34109 Kassel, Germany
Rüdiger Schaldach: Centre for Environment and Systems Research, University of Kassel, 34109 Kassel, Germany

Resources, 2022, vol. 11, issue 5, 1-19

Abstract: Transitioning to a bio-based economy is widely perceived as a necessary way to tackle climate change and other key environmental challenges. Given the major socio-economic consequences that such a transition entails for people’s everyday lives, it is crucial to take account of citizens’ perceptions and levels of acceptance of these changes. This study applies a holistic approach to gain an understanding of how citizens in Germany assess possible developments associated with transitioning to a bioeconomy. We developed three future scenarios modelling the impacts on people’s day-to-day lives of adopting different elements of a bioeconomy and of replacing fossil resources with biogenic resources to a lesser or greater extent by 2050. German citizens were asked to evaluate the different scenarios through a quantitative online survey. Although the respondents largely preferred the scenario of “Bioeconomy Change” entailing the most substantial changes in resource use, many also expressed concerns about the possible negative socio-economic effects of this scenario, including fears of increased product prices, declining living standards, and greater social injustice. The results show that younger people and women are more in favour of changes towards a bioeconomy than men and older people. Since the acceptance of bio-technical innovations increases with greater knowledge about such innovations and their usefulness, the transformation process must make use of sound communication strategies that involve all societal groups by engaging them in constructive dialogue.

Keywords: bio-based economy; citizens; consumer behaviour; online survey; society; transformation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/11/5/44/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/11/5/44/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jresou:v:11:y:2022:i:5:p:44-:d:809017

Access Statistics for this article

Resources is currently edited by Ms. Donchian Ma

More articles in Resources from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().