Applications and goals of bioeconomy: a synthesis of the scientific literature

Abstract

We are living in a time of expanding awareness that natural resources are finite and tend to become increasingly scarce if their uses continue to be made in a disorderly and inconsequential manner. In this sense, this study aimed to make a brief and consistent survey of the literature on the bioeconomy, focusing on its applications and objectives of these applications. To this end, it applied the four stages of the scientific-technological method: formulating guiding research questions, collecting data in scientific databases, organizing it following semantic principles, and generating responses. The results showed that a) bioeconomy is seen in seven different and integrated ways, b) ten distinct forms are well cataloged by science, and c) the objectives of these applications vary by the bioeconomic purpose. The conclusion shows that the bioeconomy is a system that converts natural resources into products by the principles of sustainability, which can be seen in all applications in the literature.