ASSESSING THE ROLE OF BIOECONOMY IN ADVANCING EU’S SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS – A LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

As the European Union (EU) countries strive to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a stronger focus needs to be placed on the effectiveness of current bioeconomy strategies and their corresponding initiatives. Drawing upon a systematic review of existing literature and official reports that have studied the alignment of bioeconomy with SDGs, this article pursues two main objectives: firstly, it analyses the main contributions that bioeconomy offers in advancing specific goals, notably SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 13 (Climate Action), and secondly, it explores how countries have integrated bioeconomy principles into their sustainable development policies, determining different stages of transition to a bioeconomy-driven model of sustainability across all members of the EU. This paper highlights potential gaps, such as the lack of relevant indicators that can accurately measure the relationship between bioeconomy strategy implementation to compare the progress across all member countries towards EU’s sustainable development goals. Among these gaps are requirements for more reliable indicators that can fully represent the variety of bioeconomy activities, as well as their sectoral and regional variations, and their connection to larger socioeconomic environments. Moreover, there is an urgent need for integrated assessment models that can take into consideration dynamics and trade-offs within the economy. By summarizing and identifying the disparities in implementation, this review expands the existing knowledge of the role of the bioeconomy in pursuing the SDGs in the European Union, and present a current snapshot of progress made so far.