|
Grassland for meat production (million hectares)
|
755
|
815
|
473
|
710
|
235
|
|
Area harvested (million hectares)
|
Grain
|
705
|
725
|
434
|
682
|
242
|
|
Other crops (like sugarcane for bioplastics)
|
303
|
406
|
747
|
453
|
1040
|
|
Additional cross-laminated timber harvest (additional harvest from 2023 in million hectares)
|
Forest plantation
|
0
|
0.15
|
0.72
|
2.26
|
10.1
|
|
Pastureland
|
0
|
1.33
|
6.25
|
2.11
|
9.42
|
|
Agricultural land
|
0
|
1.4
|
6.6
|
2.53
|
11.3
|
Source: Results from authors analysis.
Notes: The scenarios are not associated with any probabilistic roll-out of these bioeconomy innovations. These are not predicted results but are used to show the interplay between the innovations. For example, the changes to grassland for meat production and area harvested for grain relate to the land-use changes from moving from meat to alternative protein diets. The increase in area harvested for other crops relates mostly to sugarcane for bioplastics and some other crops for alternative proteins. New cross-laminated timber plantations are shown as additional to ones already established in 2023.
The two scenarios are not predictions for future bioeconomies but instead show a range of potential impacts on global land footprint associated with rolling out the innovations together at scale. Results for land footprint change are shown in Table 3.
The analysis provided three important insights for these innovations in the context of global trends, like technology adoption and future demand, when adopted simultaneously.
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Dynamic: Innovations have various impacts on the land footprint. Alternative proteins can free up grassland used for livestock, which allows for innovations like CLT plantations to be located on released lands.
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Implication: New demand for bio-based products – and the added land footprint needed to supply them – is only possible at really large scales when in combination with innovations that can spare land, like alternative proteins.
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Alternative proteins were the only innovation in the analysis with a clear capacity to reduce land use. In the Limited Transition scenario, this technology reduced the requirement for grasslands by 37 per cent between 2023 and 2100, while the Far-reaching Transition scenario repurposed 69 per cent of grasslands in the same timeframe.
The significant land-sparing potential of alternative proteins is due to the fact that the technology disrupts the livestock industry, which is currently responsible for the largest use of productive lands.
Successful land-sparing innovations such as alternative proteins are essential for diverse bioeconomy transitions. For example, the land-change requirement for CLT is much lower than the pastureland freed up by alternative proteins. Therefore CLT’s limited use of land allows other landscape functions to be pursued.
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Dynamic: Despite the analysis including productivity and efficiency increases per unit of land, based on previous trends, extra demand for bio-based products like bioplastics still result in large increases of the land footprint.
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Implication: There is an innovation gap. Efficiency improvements that go beyond current trends in the productivity of lands or new technologies are required to limit the overall land footprint of bioplastics.
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The current suite of innovations is not sufficient to deliver a sustainable global bioeconomy across multiple sectors. It is imperative that the innovation gap is addressed in the coming decades.
The current generation of bioplastic solutions consumes significant resources. To meet future demand for non-grain crops – like sugarcane for bioplastics – the land footprint would need to expand by 444 million hectares or 737 million hectares between 2023 and 2100 (for the Limited and Far-reaching cases, respectively). The sector could take up a significant share of the land made available through other innovations, such as alternative proteins.
However, the analysis ignores many of the more revolutionary innovations and approaches that could play a role in this timeframe. Some of which have the potential to substantially disrupt existing supply chains. Instead, the analysis includes incremental technology changes that follow trends on yield and productivity of agricultural landscapes.
But more breakthrough technologies are possible. ‘Landless’ food production methods that use a mixture of microbial growth and captured carbon for protein growth, eliminating a reliance on land-extensive crops (those that require large amounts of land to produce in high quantity) as feedstocks, are already beginning to be sold in markets in Singapore. Alternatively, there are new innovations that seek to produce plastics from different feedstocks, including seaweed.
Recognition that the pool of innovations will change can be useful in defining strategies to support needed innovations that can relieve land use. However, technocratic solutions focused on land-management should not solely be relied upon. This is because unintended consequences for emissions or job creation may emerge from adoption of new innovations. Additionally, fledgling technologies do not always prove technologically feasible at scale nor cheap enough to penetrate markets.
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Dynamic: Some spared land can be used for new purposes – including through the restoration of degraded land – but there is limited research into how best to distribute land among competing sectors.
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Implication: Multipurpose landscapes and demand-side policies are a priority to reduce the land footprint of bio-based products.
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In both case studies, demand for construction materials and plastics increased, driven by population and GDP growth. The model apportioned parcels of crop, pasture or forest land to meet this demand for all innovations. Pursuing the current generation of bioplastic technology would be highly land extensive, with the potential for land requirements to exceed availability, whereas land required for CLT can be accommodated by that freed up by alternative proteins. At the same time, there is also a need for the restoration of natural ecosystems – for example repairing degraded lands and soils – on appropriate freed-up land, which would be split between plantation and natural forest restoration.
Policymakers and landowners must navigate trade-offs in order to best manage land to meet society’s needs.
Policymakers and landowners must navigate trade-offs in order to best manage land to meet society’s needs. For example, little else is possible from a sustainable land-use perspective if bioplastics, in their current form, are pursued. However, it is possible to do more with limited land.
Firstly, one limitation of the analysis is that it assumes landscapes have a single purpose. Landscapes can be designed to serve many functions. In practice, more multipurpose and integrated land management, including with agroforestry and agrivoltaics, can help supply multiple demands for goods and services on the same parcels of land.
Secondly, the analysis underappreciates – and reaffirms – the need for effective innovations, policies and behaviours that reduce consumer demand for products that use virgin raw materials.
Demand-side measures to reduce consumption remain limited, and in some cases, targets are not being met. In the plastics sector, recycled plastic only makes up about 6 per cent of plastic feedstock. Only 15 per cent of waste wood is recycled. In some key markets, circular economy policy targets are also not being met – for example, in the EU, a target to recycle up to 50 per cent of plastic in 2025 will likely not be met by 19 member states.
Government measures to reduce demand for certain products can be politically controversial, because of the potential for industry and societal backlash. But there are established policy routes that can be used. These include mandates and targets, as well as procurement of, and investment in, innovations that enable a more circular infrastructure.
Some of the most promising opportunities lay in redesigning the purpose and function of current assets. For example, within the built environment, there are opportunities to design buildings for their eventual deconstruction so that materials such as wood can be repurposed when the building reaches the end of its life. In the bioplastics sector, there are opportunities to incorporate agricultural waste streams as well as recycled plastics into recycling facilities.
The power of behaviour change – based on cultural customs, costs and consumer preferences – is underrepresented in the analysis, and such change could be a major disrupter of future demand to 2100.
Ensuring environmental and social benefits
The analysis identified some of the land-use resource constraints, trade-offs and synergies of rolling out multiple innovations in the bioeconomy. But making choices over innovation deployment will be based on a much wider range of environmental and societal goals.
The scale of the challenge is large. To limit global warming to 1.5°C by 2050, greenhouse gas emission levels will have to decrease by 84 per cent compared to 2019 levels. The bioeconomy has an important role to play in this objective. However, over a billion people work in the global agricultural sector, which is likely to be most impacted by bioeconomy innovations. These workers must be part of the consideration behind these new technologies – whether that be in protecting certain jobs or creating new roles.
Geographical and political realities will determine where exactly bioeconomy solutions are most suitable both at the local, national and regional levels. Identifying where, how and when elements of the bioeconomy are appropriate requires significant collaboration between the private, public and third sectors.
