Development of Biorefineries in the Bioeconomy: A Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis among European Countries

Zhengqiu Ding and Philipp Grundmann
Additional contact information
Zhengqiu Ding: Technology Assessment and Substance Cycles, Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB), 14469 Potsdam, Germany
Philipp Grundmann: Technology Assessment and Substance Cycles, Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB), 14469 Potsdam, Germany

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: This study aims to identify the configurational conditions that characterize the establishment of biorefineries in 20 European countries. After determining the conditions which support a bioeconomy transition, secondary data from national sources are used to represent their existing conditions within respective countries. Then, a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis is employed to compare and contrast the effect of varying combinations of the selected conditions on the development of biorefineries. The conditions chosen include coherent bioeconomy strategies, network intensity of regional bioclusters, intellectual capital, and natural resource availability. Our results reveal that the configuration of a coherent bioeconomy strategy, sizable public spending on R&D, abundant biomass supply, and a high level of network intensity is sufficient to explain the pronounced biorefineries development among some European countries. We recommend that countries with fragmented approaches review and redesign the policy and regulatory framework to create a holistic and consistent bioeconomy strategy, taking into account the configurations of conditions as an important prerequisite. In particular, factors such as the lack of best practice examples, the low level of public spending on research and development, the economic capacities for a skilled workforce in addition to the sustainable supply of raw materials should be addressed as focal points.

Keywords: bioeconomy development; biorefineries; transition framework; configurations of conditions; fuzzy-set; qualitative comparative analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/1/90/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/1/90/ (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:jsusta:v:14:y:2021:i:1:p:90-:d:708858

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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