The Determinants of the Growth of the European Bioplastics Sector—A Fuzzy Cognitive Maps Approach

Aikaterini Konti, Diomi Mamma, Nicolae Scarlat and Dimitris Damigos
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Aikaterini Konti: Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission, 21027 Ispra, Italy
Diomi Mamma: Biotechnology Lab, School of Chemical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), 15780 Athens, Greece
Nicolae Scarlat: Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission, 21027 Ispra, Italy
Dimitris Damigos: Mining Engineering and Environmental Mining Lab, School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), 15780 Athens, Greece

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 10, 1-17

Abstract: The extensive use of plastics and the environmental burden associated with their disposal have attracted the attention of scientists, politicians and citizens in Europe. In this frame, the EU has adopted a European Strategy for Plastics aiming, on the one hand, at reducing the use of plastic and, on the other hand, promoting their reuse in the context of a circular economy directly linked with the recently adopted Bioeconomy Strategy. Bioplastics could be an alternative to the conventional plastics, but they still have a limited share in the market. In this paper, Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs), a soft computing technique for analysing complex decision-making problems, is applied to identify the factors acting as drivers or barriers towards a bio-based plastics industry, their relative importance and the interactions between them. Experts with diverse backgrounds (technical experts, policy makers, industry executives) were interviewed in order to capture their perceptions and create a collective FCM capturing the strong and the weak points of the system. The collective FCM has a total number of 38 factors, which reflect the different approaches and knowledge of the experts. Overall, the “bio-based plastics” system is influenced mainly by the following factors: “EU Legislation”, “Monomers purity”, “Properties of the product”, “Recycling potential”, “Research & Development”, “National Legislation” and “Production cost”. The effect of the most significant political, social and techno-economic factors on the potential growth of the bioplastics sector has also been examined via simulations. The analysis demonstrated that the model is affected more (is more sensitive) to shifts in technoeconomic factors.

Keywords: bio-based plastics; plastics industry; FCMs; expert elicitation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (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)

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