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Author(s): Jacopo Giuntoli, Tom Oliver, Giorgos Kallis, Sabaheta¨Ramcilovic-Suominen & George Monbiot Title: Exploring new visions for a sustainable bioeconomy Year: 2023 Version: Published version Copyright: The Author(s) 2023 Rights: CC BY 4.0 Rights url: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Please cite the original version: Giuntoli, J., Oliver, T., Kallis, G., Ramcilovik-Suominen, S. and Monbiot, G., Exploring new visions for a sustainable bioeconomy, Giuntoli, J. and Mubareka, S. editor(s), Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2023, ISBN 978-92-68-00294-0, doi:10.2760/79421, JRC132650. Exploring new visions for a sustainable bioeconomy Edited by Giuntoli, J.; Mubareka, S. Chapter authors: Giuntoli, J., Oliver, T., Kallis, G., Ramcilovic- Suominen, S., Monbiot, G. 2023 ISSN XXXX-XXXX This publication is a report published on behalf of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s science and knowledge service. It aims to provide evidence-based scientific support to the European policymaking process. The contents of this publication do not necessarily reflect the position or opinion of the European Commission. Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use that might be made of this publication. For information on the methodology and q uality underlying the data used in this publication for which the source is neither Eurostat nor other Commission services, users should contact the referenced source. The designations employed and the presentation of material on the maps do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the European Union concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Contact information Name: Sarah Mubareka Email: sarah.mubareka@ec.europa.eu EU Science Hub https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu JRC132650 PDF ISBN 978-92-68-00294-0 doi:10.2760/79421 KJ-07-23-114-EN-N Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2023 © European Union, 2023 The reuse policy of the European Commission documents is implemented by the Commission Decision 2011/833/EU of 12 December 2011 on the reuse of Commission documents (OJ L 330, 14.12.2011, p. 39). Unless otherwise noted, the reuse of this document is aut horised under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This means that reuse is allowed provided appropriate credit is given and any changes are indicated. For any use or reproduction of photos or other material that is not owned by the European Union, permission must be sought directly from the copyright holders. The European Union does not own the copyright in relation to the following elements: - Cover page illustration, © Jacopo Giuntoli How to cite this report: Giuntoli J., Ramcilovic-Suominen, S., Kallis, G., Monbiot, G., Oliver, T., Exploring new visions for a sustainable bioeconomy, Giuntoli, J. & Mubareka, S. (eds.), Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2023, doi:10.2760/79421, JRC132650. https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/ https://doi.org/10.2760/79421 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ i Contents Abstract .....................................................................................................................................................1 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................................2 Executive summary .....................................................................................................................................3 1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................................7 2 Framing the report ................................................................................................................................9 2.1 Key concepts: “Bioeconomy” and “Sustainability” ............................................................................9 2.2 “Visions” as deep leverage points for transformation .................................................................... 10 2.3 Existing narratives and visions for the EU bioeconomy .................................................................. 10 2.4 The role of “Visions” within the EU Bioeconomy Monitoring System .............................................. 13 2.5 Goal of the report: Expanding the option space ............................................................................ 14 3 Changing human-nature relationships – implications for bioeconomy strategy. ...................................... 15 3.1 Incremental adaptation of the economy is insufficient .................................................................. 15 3.2 The need to work on deeper leverage points ................................................................................ 15 3.3 Our human-nature relationship – moving beyond anthropocentrism ............................................. 16 3.4 The science behind our interconnected bodies and minds ............................................................. 17 3.5 The evolution of self-identity and our relationship with nature ...................................................... 19 3.6 A new paradigm for human-nature relationship? .......................................................................... 20 4 Is green growth possible? The case for degrowth. ................................................................................. 23 4.1 Question #1: Is absolute decoupling of resource use from GDP happening? Is it even possible? ....... 23 4.2 Question #2: Is absolute decoupling of GDP from carbon emissions in line with the 1.5°C target possible? ........................................................................................................................................... 24 4.3 Question #3: How can we break out from the fairy tales of green growth? The case for Degrowth. .. 25 4.4 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................ 26 5 Global Environmental justice and why it matters in EU’s Bioeconomy .................................................... 27 5.1 Background: Global bioeconomy trends ....................................................................................... 27 5.2 Why Global Environmental Justice? ............................................................................................. 28 5.3 Environmental Justice and the need for Decolonial Environmental Justice ...................................... 29 5.4 Implications for EU bioeconomy and related policies..................................................................... 29 6 Feeding the world without devouring the planet: the need for radical changes in European agriculture. .. 31 7 Linking degrowth, justice and human-nature relations with a common thread of transformations ........... 35 7.1 Transitions and Transformations .................................................................................................. 35 7.2 Selective degrowth, multidimensional justice and relational ontology as tenants of transformations 35 7.3 Contemplating transformations ................................................................................................... 37 8 Conclusions and implications for bioeconomy research and governance ................................................ 39 ii 8.1 A new vision to explore: ‘green, just and sufficient bio-economy’? ................................................. 39 8.2 Implications for bioeconomy research .......................................................................................... 40 8.3 Implications for bioeconomy governance ..................................................................................... 42 References .............................................................................................................................................. 44 List of abbreviations and definitions .......................................................................................................... 54 List of boxes ............................................................................................................................................ 55 List of figures ........................................................................................................................................... 56 List of tables ............................................................................................................................................ 57 1 Abstract The Bioeconomy is both an enabler and an end for the European Green Deal transformation: achieving the EGD transformation entails transforming the very meaning of sustainable bioeconomy. Among the deepest and most effective leverage points to transform a system are the worldviews driving our behaviours: they yield an enormous power to influence the framings which determine the solution space we explore. Transforming the bioeconomy, thus, requires reflecting on the stories we tell about ourselves, our place in nature, and our relationship with others. Scholars have highlighted how narratives surrounding the EU Bioeconomy have predominantly embraced a “Green Growth” perspective, centred around economic growth, technological innovation, and anthropocentric values, largely ignoring the social and justice dimensions, as well as not questioning the role, relations, and responsibilities of humans in the web of life. These dominant framings are increasingly contested, though, because they have failed to produce the social and ecological outcomes desired. This report introduces perspectives which have been under-represented in the Bioeconomy discourse and integrates them into an alternative vision for a “green, just and sufficient bioeconomy”. This vision places environmental sustainability and social equity at its core, regardless of economic growth; has an inclusive and participatory perspective; care, respect, and reciprocity for and with other humans and non-humans are core values; technology is important to deliver on the green and just objectives, but ethical considerations for new technologies are openly debated. 2 Acknowledgements The Editors would like to thank all the authors who accepted to participate in the workshop, prepare exhaustive and captivating keynotes, and to further contribute to this report. The Editors would also like to thank all the Commission colleagues who attended the event and participated in the discussions. The Editors would like to thank Zsuzsa Turoczy for her help with the organization of the workshop, and Marika Olsson for her contributions. Jacopo Giuntoli is thankful to Ansel Renner, Paul Rougieux, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments and reflections on the report. Thanks to Prof. Hausknost for the permission to reproduce Figure 1. Jacopo is grateful to Elisa Fernandez Boixados for the inspiration and support in pursuing this report. Sabaheta Ramcilovic-Suominen gratefully acknowledges the support by the Academy of Finland (Grant number 332353). Authors Author Affiliation Contact Contribution Jacopo Giuntoli JRC Consultant jacopo.giuntoli@ext.ec.europa.eu Main author: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 8 Sarah Mubareka JRC sarah.mubareka@ec.europa.eu Editor Sabaheta Ramcilovic- Suominen Associate Research Professor and Academy of Finland Research Fellow, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) sabaheta.ramcilovik-suominen@luke.fi Main author: Chapter 5, Chapter 7 Contributor: Chapter 2, Chapter 8 Tom Oliver Professor of Applied Ecology, University of Reading t.oliver@reading.ac.uk Main author: Chapter 3 Giorgos Kallis ICREA Research Professor at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Social & Behavioural Sciences Georgios.Kallis@uab.cat Main author: Chapter 4 George Monbiot Author and environmental journalist, with current research focus on global food systems george@monbiot.info Main author: Chapter 6 mailto:jacopo.giuntoli@ext.ec.europa.eu mailto:sarah.mubareka@ec.europa.eu mailto:sabaheta.ramcilovik-suominen@luke.fi mailto:t.oliver@reading.ac.uk mailto:Georgios.Kallis@uab.cat mailto:george@monbiot.info 3 Executive summary The EU Bioeconomy Strategy aims to accelerate the deployment of a sustainable European bioeconomy and defines five objectives that a sustainable and circular EU bioeconomy should achieve. However, sustainability is a meta-discourse that can be interpreted, and consequently operationalized, in many different ways. From sustainability science perspective the key to achieving sustainability transformations requires building shared imaginaries about desirable and attainable futures, hence the need to address the question: “Transformations to what?”. Environmental social sciences further highlight the need to deliberate on “how, for whom and by whom” questions of transformations, emphasizing the importance of process, politics, and justice. Hence, in addition to the need to define and agree on the long-term visions and goals of transformations, there is also a need to deliberate on the process, triggers and praxis of transformations. Scholars have highlighted how narratives surrounding the EU Bioeconomy have predominantly focused on a techno-scientific and industry- and economy-oriented interpretations and concerns, centered around economic output, technological innovation, and the substitution of fossil carbon with biological. Recent studies have revealed how a broad concept such as the ‘bioeconomy’ can be associated to very different framings and that the dominant narratives are increasingly contested, especially by citizens and some NGOs, because they have so far failed to produce the social and ecological outcomes desired. Especially in ecological terms, they have shown to be not consistent with the biophysical limits of the planet. Given the climate and ecological breakdown as well as inequality crises, we urgently need to expand the solution space at our disposal. This report aims to initiate a constructive dialogue on the bioeconomy, by introducing perspectives which have been so far under-represented in the Bioeconomy discourse. This report stems from the keynote speeches delivered at the Community of Practice on the Bioeconomy workshop organized by the JRC titled “Visions for a sustainable EU bioeconomy - Exploring existing narratives and introducing novel perspectives” held on 9-10th November 2022. This report is an anthology of Chapters written by scholars external to the JRC, presenting a varied spectrum of views, expertise, and perspectives. The Chapters, thus, represent the views of each respective author and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by the other authors, nor by the JRC. The information and views set out in each chapter of this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the Commission. The Commission does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this report. Neither the Commission nor any person acting on the Commission’s behalf may be held responsible for the use that may be made of the information contained therein. Policy context The latest 2022 Bioeconomy Progress report (COM/2022/283) states that the Bioeconomy can be seen as both a means and an end for the European Green Deal (EGD) transformation: on the one hand transitioning to a bioeconomy (i.e. expanding the current size of the bio-economy) supports the EGD by providing renewable materials to eliminate fossil fuels from industrial processes, at the same time, transforming the bioeconomy itself to be green and just is one of the goals of the EGD (e.g. Farm to Fork, Biodiversity Strategy, Forest Strategy etc…). Thus, achieving the EGD transformation entails transforming the very meaning of sustainable bioeconomy. Among the deepest and most effective leverage points to transform a system are the mental models and mindsets which drive our actions and behaviours, and thus determine the systems we create, maintain, and reinforce. The stories we tell about ourselves, our place in nature, and our relationship with other humans and with other-than-humans, have an enormous power to influence the systems we create. These worldviews and the values they embed influence the framings through which we look at problems and determine the solution space we end up exploring. Transforming the bioeconomy, thus, will require reflecting on such deep leverage points and deep questions of our existence, our roles, relations and responsibilities in the web of life, the values that define us and that ultimately drive our actions and behaviour. Key conclusions The report presents a potential new vision for a “green, just, and sufficient bioeconomy”, located in the ‘unexplored’ areas of the option space, and then ventures into analysing what potential consequences 4 embracing this new vision could have for bioeconomy research and governance. The challenges we face in achieving the Green Deal transition are unprecedented, and our goal for these rather bold proposals is to stimulate a constructive discussion so that the bioeconomy can really be a pillar of a new sustainable society. Instead of focusing on promoting biomass extraction with the goal to decouple economic growth from fossil resources use and their climate impacts, this new vision places environmental sustainability and social equity at its core, regardless of economic growth. On the contrary, since absolute decoupling is highly unlikely or unlikely to take place at the speed required to avoid climate breakdown, this vision focuses on sufficiency and frugality rather than aiming for perpetual economic growth. The underlying goal of the bioeconomy in this vision is to support “a good life for all within planetary boundaries”. The vision has an inclusive perspective, whereby the moral community includes humans as well as other-than-humans, leading to a moral reckoning of the place of humans in the web of life. Care, respect and reciprocity for and with others are core values in this vision. Reliance on technology and technological solutions is not a core tenet in this vision, but the role and potential of technology to deliver on the green and just objectives is recognized. Thus, ethical considerations on new technologies are openly debated in the public. Accepting that a large unexplored option space exists, including this new vision but also many other variants, then we argue that this option space should be explored: this could be as simple as designing and including new scenarios in policy Impact Assessments, in modelling activities, in scenario analysis, etc. Or more radically, different knowledge framings and modelling approaches could be embraced within bioeconomy research: e.g. Quantitative Storytelling approaches, indigenous knowledges, methods from systems thinking, sociometabolic approaches etc.. Further, embracing a new vision for a sustainable bioeconomy has some clear implications for bioeconomy governance which can be summarized in the following ten points which are expanded in chapter 8.3: 1) Democratizing the bioeconomy; 2) Preventing neo-coloniality and exploitation in global bioeconomy; 3) Integrating a global decolonial environmental justice perspective; 4) Reflecting on the value of Nature and a hierarchy of Sustainability priorities; 5) Integrating explicitly ethics and values in deliberation process; 6) Guaranteeing public access to nature; 7) Promoting Commons; 8) Applying labour and economic policies from degrowth scholarship; 9) Taking a systemic perspective; 10) Promoting Reflexivity. Main findings The chapters in this report span a broad range of topics and academic disciplines, and some of the most prominent scholars in their fields contributed to writing chapters 3 to 7. We report here the key messages for each chapter and topic. Chapter 2 frames, broadly, bioeconomy governance as a process to deliberate on how to govern highly intertwined social-ecological systems towards the goal of a ‘sustainable bioeconomy’, where sustainability is defined as maintaining the integrity of the biosphere and promoting social equity and justice, regardless of the economic system and processes in place. Additionally, Chapter 2 introduces ‘visions’ as a key leverage point to achieve the European Green Deal transformation and shows how the current hegemonic visions expressed in EU documents are all largely aligned in a narrow quadrant of the possible option space, capturing visions characterized by green growth, decoupling objectives, and anthropocentric perspectives. Given the climate, ecological, and inequality crises, we argue that we urgently need to expand the option space explored well beyond the existing hegemonic narratives. To this goal, this report aims to introduce perspectives which have been under-represented in the Bioeconomy. Chapter 3 focuses on different understandings of our-human nature relationship and what that might mean for how we frame the bioeconomy. The key messages from Prof. Oliver’s chapter are the following: i) The dominant western worldview has been an anthropocentric one, and it has fundamentally shaped an economic system that is proving inefficient for environmental sustainability; ii) Perspectives from diverse indigenous cultures and state-of-the-art scientific findings both suggest that human exceptionalism and a sense of individual sovereignty is misplaced– a worldview of deep interconnection between all natural entities is more valid; iii) Developing our human-nature relationship away from an anthropocentric perspective is an essential leverage point to achieve genuine sustainability, a fact increasingly also recognized by major science-policy initiatives; iv) This presents a challenge requiring a deeper reframing of bioeconomy strategy based on a fundamental pivot in conceptions of human-nature relationships. 5 Chapter 4 fundamentally questions whether ‘Green Growth’ is possible. The key messages from Prof. Kallis’ chapter are the following: i) There is increasing evidence that genuine green growth is not happening and is unlikely to happen in the near future; ii) Alternatives to green growth, such as post-growth or degrowth, face considerable obstacles regarding their implementation and acceptability that call for new research; iii) Political acceptability is a central obstacle: only through a coevolutionary change of personal/everyday practices, social mobilization and institutional change can new transformative politics emerge; iv) Whether such political change can happen fast and far enough remains still uncertain. Prof. Kallis identifies four pragmatic measures to move in the direction of degrowth (see section 4.3 for details): 1) A Green New Deal without growth; 2) Universal Care Income; 3) A Four-day Workweek; 4) Wealth tax. Chapter 5 discusses how the Environmental Justice agenda can contribute to a more just bioeconomy. The key messages from Prof. Ramcilovic-Suominen are the following: i) Justice in environmental policies such as bioeconomy is a matter of moral responsibility, as well as a precondition for sustaining a policy over time; ii) Bioeconomy has global implications and therefore responsibility for global justice; iii) Global environmental justice requires a decolonial perspective that accommodates the marginalized actors’ (e.g. local and Indigenous communities) knowledge and legal systems, their right to self-determination and self-governing authority; iv) The responsibility of the EU to promote globally just bioeconomy relates to its colonial history and neocolonial tendencies that drive global inequalities, various forms of extraction and domination, biodiversity loss and climate change; v) Reducing EU’s overconsumption and epistemic domination are the key preconditions for globally just bioeconomy. Chapter 6 dives into more details into a crucial bioeconomy sector, the agri-food system, and explores potential ways forward that comply with biophysical and social sustainability. In this chapter, George Monbiot makes the case that farming has the biggest impact on the living planet, but that the impacts of this sector are not tackled with the same standards which are applied to other industries. Monbiot especially stresses how livestock farming generates agricultural sprawls, both for grazing and for growing the crops required as feed, and how low-yield agriculture might not be environmentally-friendly since it exacerbates the use of land from agriculture sectors. Monbiot argues instead that what we need is low-impact agriculture, especially low-land use technologies, such as precision fermentation. Monbiot concludes with an appeal to look in-depth at the potential perverse incentives in European agricultural policy which might perpetrate the expansion of agricultural area and thus hinder the possibility of restoring natural ecosystems and habitats. Chapter 7 connects the concepts and ideas of degrowth, justice and relationality (worldview that all living beings, plants and animals, are connected and that one’s personal wellbeing depends on that of the other) in the context of transformations, where they are seen as means and preconditions for transformations. The key messages from Prof. Ramcilovic-Suominen are the following: i) Existential socioecological crises are systemic (i.e. driven by the political and economic system dependent on perpetual economic growth) and relational (i.e. crises of a lack of connection and relation), and have common causes. ii) Addressing these causes requires: (a) dismantling power and economic relations that drive violence and exploitation; (b) ontological reflection, including reimagining human roles, relations and responsibilities in the web of life; and (c) reinventing structures and ontologies to rely on principles of care, respect, and reciprocity; iii) Degrowth, justice and transformations are not metaphors, silver bullets, or blueprints. They are embedded in the cultural and the political contexts. Related and future JRC work The EU Bioeconomy Monitoring System (BMS) is being developed by the JRC, pursuant to the Action 3.3.2 of the 2018 EU Bioeconomy Strategy (COM/2018/673), to track progress towards the five objectives defined in the Strategy. The BMS consists of an on-line dashboard of indicators and a first progress assessment report has been recently published (Mubareka et al., 2023). The BMS is part of a set of on-going research activities carried out at JRC focusing on: understanding the social- ecological outcomes of the Bioeconomy, and reflecting on the normative basis for the Bioeconomy. The ideas and perspectives explored in this report can support this process of deliberation on new visions and trajectories for the EU bioeconomy and the society it will support. The rather bold proposal for a “green, just, and sufficient bioeconomy” provides ideas for new research avenues, as well as reflections on different governance approaches. 6 Quick guide Chapter 2 frames the main concepts and the goals of the report. Chapters 3 to Chapter 7 present a broad overview of perspectives which have so far been under-represented in the bioeconomy discourse; these chapters contain edited transcriptions of the keynotes delivered at the workshop. In Chapter 3, Prof. Tom Oliver offers a perspective on human-nature interconnectedness and the need to incorporate self-identity as a key driver of system transformation. In Chapter 4, Prof. Giorgos Kallis expresses the need to face the impossibility of achieving ‘green growth’ and counters instead with measures from degrowth scholarship. In Chapter 5, Prof. Sabaheta Ramcilovic-Suominen discusses how the Environmental Justice agenda can contribute to a more just bioeconomy. In Chapter 6, George Monbiot dives into more details into a crucial bioeconomy sector, the agri- food system, and explores potential ways forward that comply with biophysical and social sustainability. In Chapter 7, Prof. Ramcilovic-Suominen weaves all these perspectives together as key elements of transformations in relation to bioeconomy. Chapter 8 finally proposes to integrate these perspectives into a new vision and explores its implications for bioeconomy research and governance in Europe. 7 1 Introduction Jacopo Giuntoli and Sabaheta Ramcilovic-Suominen The EU Bioeconomy Strategy (European Commission, 2018) aims to accelerate the deployment of a sustainable European bioeconomy and defines five objectives that a sustainable and circular EU bioeconomy should achieve (1). The JRC is developing the EU Bioeconomy Monitoring System (henceforth ‘BMS’) (2) to track progress towards these five objectives and current efforts are ongoing to populate it with functional indicators. Figure 1: Visualization of the conceptual framework developed for the EU Bioeconomy Monitoring System. At the centre of the BMS is the conceptual framework in Figure 1, which aims at operationalising the five political objectives into a vision for a sustainable EU bioeconomy. However, sustainability is a meta-discourse that can be interpreted, and consequently operationalized, in many different ways. From sustainability science perspective the key to achieving sustainability transformations requires building shared imaginaries about desirable and attainable futures, hence the need to address the question: “Transformations to what?” (Clark and Harley, 2020). Environmental social sciences further highlight the need to deliberate on “how, for whom and by whom” questions of transformations, emphasizing the importance of process, politics, and justice (Bennett et al., 2019; Mehta et al., 2021; Ramcilovic-Suominen, 2022). Hence, in addition to the need to define and agree on the long-term visions and goals of transformations, there is also a need to deliberate on the process, triggers and praxis of transformations. Scholars have highlighted how narratives surrounding the EU Bioeconomy have predominantly focused on a techno-scientific and industry- and economy-oriented interpretations and concerns, centered around economic output, technological innovation, and the substitution of fossil carbon with biological. Recent studies have revealed how a broad concept such as the ‘bioeconomy’ can be associated to very different framings and that the dominant narratives are increasingly contested, especially by citizens and some NGOs, because they have so far failed to produce the social and ecological outcomes desired. Especially in ecological terms, they are incompatible with the biophysical limits of the planet. (1) The five strategy objectives are: 1. Ensuring food and nutrition security; 2. Managing natural resources sustainably; 3. Reducing dependence on non-renewable, unsustainable resources, whether sourced domestically or from abroad; 4. Mitigating and adapting to climate change; 5. Strengthening European competitiveness and creating jobs. (2) https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/visualisation/eu-bioeconomy-monitoring-system-dashboards_en https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/visualisation/eu-bioeconomy-monitoring-system-dashboards_en 8 Given the climate and ecological breakdown as well as inequality crises, we urgently need to expand the solution space at our disposal. This report aims to initiate a constructive dialogue on the bioeconomy, by introducing perspectives which have been so far under-represented in the Bioeconomy discourse. These perspectives are actually applicable to the overall economy and European societal structure, but the issues and proposals presented in this report are tailored to address mainly sectors within the bioeconomy. This report stems from the keynote speeches delivered at the Community of Practice on the Bioeconomy workshop organized by the JRC titled “Visions for a sustainable EU bioeconomy - Exploring existing narratives and introducing novel perspectives” held on 9-10th November 2022. The Community of Practice on Bioeconomy was launched in December 2018 with the aim to bring together researchers, policymakers and other experts in the field, to foster collaborative and multidisciplinary activities and to contribute to a holistic perspective of the bioeconomy. The report is structured as follows: (a) In Chapter 2, Jacopo Giuntoli and Prof. Ramcilovic-Suominen provide the framing and main reasoning behind this report; (b) In Chapter 3, Prof. Tom Oliver offers a perspective on human-nature interconnectedness and the need to incorporate self-identity as a key driver of system transformation. (c) In Chapter 4, Prof. Giorgos Kallis expresses the need to face the impossibility of achieving ‘green growth’ and counters instead with measures from degrowth scholarship. (d) In Chapter 5, Prof. Sabaheta Ramcilovic-Suominen discusses how the Environmental Justice agenda can contribute to a more just bioeconomy. (e) In Chapter 6, George Monbiot dives into more details into a crucial bioeconomy sector, the agri-food system, and explores potential ways forward that comply with biophysical and social sustainability. (f) In Chapter 7, Prof. Ramcilovic-Suominen weaves all these perspectives together as key elements of transformations in relation to bioeconomy. (g) In Chapter 8 finally, Jacopo Giuntoli and Prof. Ramcilovic-Suominen propose to integrate these perspectives into a new vision and explore its implications for bioeconomy research and governance in Europe. This report is an anthology of Chapters written by scholars external to the JRC, presenting a varied spectrum of views, expertise, and perspectives. The Chapters, thus, represent the views of each respective author and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by the other authors, nor by the JRC. The information and views set out in each chapter of this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the Commission. The Commission does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this report. Neither the Commission nor any person acting on the Commission’s behalf may be held responsible for the use that may be made of the information contained therein. 9 2 Framing the report Jacopo Giuntoli and Sabaheta Ramcilovic-Suominen. 2.1 Key concepts: “Bioeconomy” and “Sustainability” The 2018 Bioeconomy Strategy provides a broad and comprehensive definition of the bioeconomy to include ‘all sectors and systems that rely on biological resources (animals, plants, micro-organisms and derived biomass, including organic waste), their functions and principles’ (European Commission, 2018). By including ecosystems with their services and their management in the definition, the subject of bioeconomy policy and research become a large set of social-ecological systems ‘in which social and ecological subsystems are coupled and interdependent, each a function of the other, expressed in a series of mutual feedback relationships’ (Berkes, 2017). Thus defined, the bioeconomy policy project moves beyond its original industrial/innovation focus, and rather becomes a part of a larger vision for a whole new system of production and consumption and consequently, a part of a vision for a new society. Seen through this lens, we can argue then that the bioeconomy policy project is really about answering a question as old as human societies: how do we want to co-exist with our natural surroundings and the biological resources they offer; for which goals, and to the advantage (and disadvantage) to whom? How we answer this question will have enormous consequences on the society that we strive to achieve and support. The goal to achieve a “sustainable bioeconomy” is largely undisputed (European Commission, 2018), however, sustainability is a meta-concept that can be interpreted, and consequently operationalized, in very different ways depending on any given set of beliefs and worldviews, as well as interests, concerns and political agendas. The elasticity of this concept has led to several negative consequences, from polarizing debates (e.g. the debate on sustainable bioenergy (Mubareka et al., 2022)), to outright greenwashing (Kurki and Ahola-Launonen, 2021; Vivien et al., 2019). Indeed, a meaningful body of scientific literature maintains that the fuzziness of the term ‘sustainable’ might be one of the reasons why the concept has failed to deliver concrete results in the 30 years of its existence (Blühdorn, 2022; Blühdorn, 2017; Foster, 2017): when the word “sustainable” becomes an empty buzzword, this can be used as a rhetorical device by interested actors to merely legitimize unsustainable business-as-usual through a socially accepted framing (Peltomaa, 2018; Ramcilovic-Suominen and Pülzl, 2018). A common framework for sustainability is the “3-pillars model”, whereby social, environmental, and economic goals are seen as equally important and desirable in moving towards a sustainable society. Studying the origins of this now widespread conceptualization, Purvis et al. (2019) come to the conclusion that “sustainability” as a concept in its modern interpretation has actually emerged from ecological and social critiques of the economic status quo, highlighting the importance of limits and boundaries in opposition to the search for perpetual economic growth (Meadows et al., 1972; Vivien et al., 2019; Weber and Cabras, 2019). However, the introduction of the third pillar focusing on economic efficiency, broadly operationalized as “economic growth” (and usually conflated with GDP growth), within the sustainability discourse largely neutralized the other two dimensions, weakening the original idea and the power of the concept itself. This by far and large transformed sustainability from a critical concept to a support tool for economic growth. As the current worsening social and socio-ecological crises show, the notion that economic growth correlates with decreasing inequality and improving ecological conditions has been seriously questioned (Hickel, 2019; Raworth, 2017). The 3-pillars model was also embedded in the development of the EU Bioeconomy Monitoring System (Robert et al., 2020). However, we argue in this chapter that this is one concept among others that should be reviewed. We take inspiration from the “Do no harm” ethics of Hans Jonas (Schoop, 2022) to define a hierarchy of priorities for what a sustainable bioeconomy should aspire to achieve. A similar hierarchy is presented and embraced across several disciplines and different schools of thought, such as: sustainability science (e.g. the ‘wedding cake for SDGs’ by Folke et al. (2016)), ecological economics (Vivien et al., 2019), economic and social (in)equity (Hickel, Sullivan, and Zoomkawala, 2021; Leach et al., 2018), and wellbeing economy (e.g. the ‘Embedded Economy’ framing by Raworth (2017)). The following three points establish a hierarchy of priorities: 1. The integrity of the biosphere and our life-support systems provides non-negotiable limits. 2. Economic and social inequity exacerbates and is further aggravated by ecological degradation, and thus even besides any further ethical considerations, it goes counter to the first principle. 3. Economic systems are means to an end (well-being) and as such they can be redesigned and reinvented. 10 In broad terms, in this report we frame bioeconomy governance as a process to deliberate on how to govern highly intertwined social-ecological systems towards the goal of a ‘sustainable bioeconomy’, where sustainability is defined as maintaining the integrity of the biosphere and promoting social equity and justice, regardless of the economic system and processes in place. 2.2 “Visions” as deep leverage points for transformation The latest 2022 Bioeconomy Progress report (European Commission, 2022) states that the Bioeconomy can be seen as both a means and an end for the European Green Deal (EGD) transformation: on the one hand transitioning to a bioeconomy (i.e. expanding the current size of the bio-economy) supports the EGD by providing renewable materials to eliminate fossil fuels from industrial processes, at the same time, transforming the bioeconomy itself to be green and just is one of the goals of the EGD (e.g. Farm to Fork, Biodiversity Strategy, Forest Strategy etc…). Thus, we argue that achieving the EGD transformation entails transforming the very meaning of sustainable bioeconomy. In systems analysis, leverage points are places to intervene in a complex system to exert change on the system itself. Meadows (1999) defined a hierarchy of twelve leverage points, ranked according to their effectiveness: ‘shallow’ leverage points are interventions expected to achieve only minor changes in the outcomes of the system, while ‘deep’ leverage points are interventions which are likely to have transformational effects. Sustainability Science literature has demonstrated that deep leverage points have a much stronger impact compared to ‘shallow’ leverage points, which, though, are often the main focus of policy interventions (e.g. taxes and subsidies) (Davelaar, 2021). Among the deepest and most effective leverage points are the mental models and mindsets which drive our actions and behaviours, and thus determine the systems we create, maintain, and reinforce (Abson et al., 2017). The stories we tell about ourselves, our place in nature, and our relationship with other humans and with other- than-humans, have an enormous power to influence the systems we create (Bentz, O’Brien, and Scoville- Simonds, 2022). These worldviews and the values they embed influence the framings through which we look at problems and determine the solution space we end up exploring (SAPEA, 2020). Transforming the bioeconomy, thus, will require reflecting on such deep leverage points and deep questions of our existence, our roles, relations, and responsibilities in the web of life, the values that define us and that ultimately drive our actions and behaviour. When talking about different visions, though, conflicts and debates are natural and even desirable. Nonetheless, in policy design and implementation, mediating the different positions, including goals, values and ideologies, is required and compromises are ideally negotiated in a transparent and open manner (Wolff, 2022). The JRC as a boundary organization at the interface between science and policy, is well positioned to act within the Post- Normal Sphere (PNS) as described by Giampietro and Bukkens (2022). The PNS-sphere sits between the scientific and the political spheres. In the scientific sphere scientists produce empirical evidence according to different representations, framings, and epistemic boxes, and experts then identify and elevate relevant knowledge claims. In the political sphere concerns are identified and prioritized within the policy process. The PNS-sphere has the crucial goal to fight hypocognition (3) and to challenge existing framings by introducing uncomfortable knowledge, i.e. knowledge which is largely outside the mainstream narratives and discourses (Rayner, 2012). The goal of this chapter is thus not to define which visions “should” be adopted, but to present knowledge claims which appear to be currently underrepresented in policy narratives about the bioeconomy, and to initiate an open and frank discussion on alternative visions for a sustainable bioeconomy which “could” be explored in the EU’s bioeconomy research and in governance. 2.3 Existing narratives and visions for the EU bioeconomy In the past decade a large body of literature has analyzed the main narratives and visions either as embedded in EU and national bioeconomy policy documents as well as expressed by multiple actors involved in the bioeconomy. The visions were identified as ranging from biotechnology or science-based, bio-resource, or (3) Quoting Giampietro (2019b): ‘Lakoff (2010) suggested this term to flag that any selection of a given framing of an issue implies hypocognition in relation to the aspects neglected by the framing. Similar formulations of this concept, but with a more positive take are: “all models are wrong, but some are useful” (Box, 1979) and “Models are ‘blinders’ which ‘leaving out certain things’, [...]provide a frame through which we see the world” (Stiglitz, 2011)’. 11 biomass based, and bio-ecology, or biosphere limits visions (Bugge, Hansen, and Klitkou, 2016; Vivien et al., 2019). Figure 2: Techno-political option space for visions of a bioeconomy. Source: Reproduced with permission from Hausknost et al. (2017) In order to provide a common classification for the various visions and mentalities found in the literature, we use the techno-political option space first defined by Hausknost et al. (2017) and afterwards adopted in several other studies (Figure 2). This bi-dimensional space positions the ‘political-economic’ dimension on the bottom axis and the ‘technological-dimension’ on the vertical axis. The space can thus be divided into four quadrants: with the top right corner representing largely ‘Green Growth’ perspectives, where the main vision is for a bioeconomy as an engine for economic growth, driven mainly by technological development. On the bottom left is an alternative, if not opposite, vision in which ‘sufficiency’ is preferred to economic growth and the focus of the bioeconomy is on environmentally conscious practices (e.g. agro-ecology). Hausknost et al. (2017) themselves have analysed and placed in their techno-political option space several EU, national and international bioeconomy policy documents as well as the views of different Austrian stakeholders. They found that largely the positions of policy documents and stakeholders can be positioned on a diagonal line, with the large majority resulting to be aligned on the top-right quadrant. They also place the 2012 EU Bioeconomy strategy (European Commission, 2012) in the top right quadrant, which is in line with the findings of other studies (Eversberg and Holz, 2020; Ramcilovic-Suominen and Pülzl, 2018). While the paper from Hausknost et al. (2017) predates the 2018 Bioeconomy Strategy, other studies also highlight that while the updated strategy reflects a moderation of certain aspects from the 2012 strategy, it is still a growth strategy, embedded in human-nature dichotomy and the idea of ‘Green Growth’ (Eversberg, Holz, and Pungas, 2022; Ramcilovic-Suominen, 2022). Peltomaa (2018) used the same option space to classify the narratives emerging from media reporting on the bioeconomy in Finland and found that the majority of narratives could be classified in the top-right quadrant. It is important to highlight that the bioeconomy policy project has been defined as an ‘elite master narrative’ (Birch, Levidow, and Papaioannou, 2010), which has been shaped by and discussed within a limited group of actors, often including industry and techno-scientific research, while the views of citizens and civil society organizations have often been marginalized (Riemann, Giurca, and Kleinschmit, 2022). Eversberg and Fritz (2022) distilled the responses of the survey on Environmental Consciousness in Germany 2018 into various ‘mentalities’ which they position on a socio-ecological space of possibilities similar to the space in Figure 2. While they found mentalities that could be placed in all four quadrants, the largest clusters appeared in the top-right and bottom- left quadrants. This is further reinforced by the work of Dieken et al. (2021), who looked at the bioeconomy visions supported by different stakeholders through a literature review, and found that the only actors envisioning a potential “bio-ecology vision” (i.e. placed in the bottom-left of the option space) were citizens. 12 Partly in response to these and similar findings, the European Commission has acted to strengthen the role of youth in the bioeconomy policy process by setting up the EU bioeconomy youth ambassador programme (4). An extensive literature review is outside the scope of this chapter, however the reader can find an updated and revisited categorization of bioeconomy visions in Ramcilovic-Suominen et al. (2022). Nonetheless, from the existing literature, we broadly conclude that: ● ‘Traditional’ bioeconomy stakeholders are firmly in the top-right quadrant, i.e. “Green Growth” or “Sustainable Capital”. This vision is also largely embraced and promoted within the EU’s and MS’s bioeconomy strategies. ● However, there appears to be a sufficient interest among citizens, youth and some NGOs for visions associated with sufficiency and ecological practices (i.e. the bottom-left quadrant of Figure 2), resonating with ideas of “Eco-Retreat”, “Less is More” and “Bio-ecology”. ● Finally, while the option space analysed in a large share of the literature is bi-dimensional, focusing mainly on technological and political-economic alignments, it is evident that a third dimension focusing on socioecological justice and equity is largely still missing from the bioeconomy debates (Ramcilovic-Suominen, 2022; Ramcilovic-Suominen, Kröger, and Dressler, 2022). Based on these findings, Figure 3 tries to capture the evolution of Bioeconomy visions embedded in various EU bioeconomy strategies and their main characteristics. The visions are placed along a temporal scale because the EU bioeconomy policy discourse has clearly changed in time, even though in other international or national bio- economy strategies some of these visions might still co-exist (e.g. the US bioeconomy discourse is mostly aligned with a “Bio-technology” vision, but also in part with a “Bio-resource” one (Frisvold et al., 2021)). We argue that before the 2012 Strategy, the main focus of the EU bioeconomy was indeed on the promotion and support for bio-technologies; however, already with the 2012 Strategy the narrative shifted towards a more “Bio-resource Bioeconomy” (Bugge, Hansen, and Klitkou, 2016). Summarizing broadly, this vision focused mainly on the bioeconomy as a means of substituting fossil resources with renewable biomass. However, environmental aspects were largely ignored, with an implicit assumption that renewable resources would be automatically better than fossil ones. The paradigm of economic growth was not questioned, and bioeconomy was seen as a means to achieve decoupling of economic growth from environmental impacts, but the bioeconomy sectors themselves were effectively considered opportunities for economic growth. Finally, this vision exhibited an anthropocentric and utilitarian view of nature, with extractive mentality and a focus on market-based tools. With the 2018 Strategy a new “Sustainable Bioeconomy” vision was embraced, moderating several aspects from the previous iterations. The focus is still largely on substitution of fossil resources with renewable biomass, but the use of biomass is expected to be limited by the boundaries of healthy ecosystems. Environmental sustainability of biomass supply and consumption is not taken for granted anymore, but rather required, often through mandatory criteria (e.g. the criteria for sustainable bioenergy in Directive 2018/2001). Other characteristics remain unchanged, such as a Green Growth perspective and anthropocentric and extractive approaches to nature. The 2022 Progress report reflects on the Bioeconomy strategy in light of the European Green Deal and appears to depart on some aspects from the 2018 strategy, but no studies have yet analysed this document in depth. (4) https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/news/all-research-and-innovation-news/meet-our-bioeconomy-youth-ambassadors- 2022-08-04_en https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/news/all-research-and-innovation-news/meet-our-bioeconomy-youth-ambassadors-2022-08-04_en https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/news/all-research-and-innovation-news/meet-our-bioeconomy-youth-ambassadors-2022-08-04_en 13 Figure 3: Illustration of different bioeconomy visions as expressed in subsequent EU bioeconomy strategies and their characteristics. 2.4 The role of “Visions” within the EU Bioeconomy Monitoring System While visions and narratives are key drivers in the evolution of social-ecological systems, the role of the JRC Bioeconomy Monitoring System is to monitor the state of the Bioeconomy at various time stages and to assess whether the current trajectory is in line with the desired vision. This vision is operationalized into the conceptual framework illustrated in Figure 1 and described in Giuntoli et al. (2020) and Robert et al. (2020). The current framework focuses on the five objectives defined in the 2012 EU bioeconomy strategy and confirmed in the 2018 strategy: given what we have described in section 2.3, these objectives represent a clear political will and reflect a specific vision and specific values (see Figure 3). In practice, this conceptual framework acts as a “compass” in which the North is constituted by the normative and deliberated vision of a sustainable bioeconomy. We argue that this compass can only be effective if: 1) the ‘North’ is well-defined, and 2) if the compass is well calibrated. Figure 4 illustrates this concept. Starting from an initial bioeconomy state at time t0, the Deliberated and Desirable Vision captured in the framework works as a constraint telling us which pathways are considered desirable (green dashed line) and which ones are not (red dashed line). This vision might change in time (t2) as priorities, concerns and imaginaries are context-dependent and are likely to change (Oliver et al., 2021). The second argument is that the compass must be well-calibrated, that is there should be no significant blind spots. Epistemic boxing and framing of the issues at hand is unavoidable when dealing with complex systems, and thus some concerns or knowledge claims will be unavoidably left out of the deliberated vision (the ‘North’). However, if this ‘uncomfortable knowledge’, once included, were to restrict our desirable pathway (the grey dashed circles), then we would be suffering from hypocognition, i.e. following the orange pathway. In order to tackle both issues described above, frequent and inclusive discussions and deliberations about a desirable bioeconomy are essential to make sure that this vision is suited to each context and time period (point 1) as well as to fight hypocognition (point 2). 2012 EU Bioeconomy strategy 2018 EU Bioeconomy strategy 2019 EU Green Deal 2022 EU Bioeconomy strategy Progress Report “Bio-technology Bioeconomy” “Bio-resource Bioeconomy” “Sustainable Bioeconomy” Timeline • Focus on substitution of fossil resources with renewable biomass. • Industrial, Innovation Focus. • Sustainability ‘implied’ / Weak sustainability alignment / Renewable = Sustainable • Green Growth perspective / Focus on resource efficiency, Decoupling / Techno-fix • Anthropocentric and utilitarian view of nature / Extractive position / Market-based • Focus on substitution of fossil resources with renewable biomass, compatible with healthy ecosystems. • Ecosystems management + Industrial focus • Sustainability ‘required’ / sustainability criteria • Green Growth perspective / Focus on resource efficiency, Decoupling / Techno-fix • Anthropocentric and utilitarian view of nature / Extractive / Market-based 14 Figure 4: Illustration of possible trajectories of the EU Bioeconomy State across time and how visions can act as compass to evaluate the Bioeconomy sustainability and desirability. 2.5 Goal of the report: Expanding the option space Summarizing the main argument laid oud in this chapter: 1. Literature shows that the current dominant imaginaries for the bioeconomy are mainly in the “sustainable capital” quadrant: characterized by green growth, decoupling objectives, and anthropocentric perspectives. 2. These visions are increasingly contested, especially by citizens and some NGOs, as well as by a part of academia, all actors which have been often absent from the bioeconomy literature, dominated instead by technological and engineering disciplines. Unsurprisingly, thus, the social and justice dimensions are greatly underrepresented in the dominant narratives. 3. These dominant framings have so far failed to produce the outcomes desired: especially in ecological terms, they are incompatible with the biophysical limits of the planet (our hard-coded limits based on the sustainability framing presented earlier). 4. Given the climate and ecological breakdown as well as inequality crisis, we argue that we urgently need to expand the option space explored well beyond the existing hegemonic narratives. 5. This report aims to introduce perspectives which have been under-represented in the Bioeconomy discourse and to propose ways to integrate them into an alternative vision which could be explored in bioeconomy research and governance. Bioeconomy State (t0) time Deliberated, Desirable Bioeconomy Vision (t1) Deliberated, Desirable Bioeconomy Vision (t2) 15 3 Changing human-nature relationships – implications for bioeconomy strategy. Tom Oliver Key messages – Chapter 3 — The dominant western worldview has been an anthropocentric one, and it has fundamentally shaped an economic system that is proving inefficient for environmental sustainability. — Perspectives from diverse indigenous cultures and state-of-the-art scientific findings both suggest that human exceptionalism and a sense of individual sovereignty is misplaced– a worldview of deep interconnection between all natural entities is more valid. — Developing our human-nature relationship away from an anthropocentric perspective is an essential leverage point to achieve genuine sustainability, a fact increasingly also recognized by major science- policy initiatives. — This presents a challenge requiring a deeper reframing of bioeconomy strategy based on a fundamental pivot in conceptions of human-nature relationships. This chapter focuses on different understandings of our-human nature relationship and what that might mean for how we frame the bioeconomy. 3.1 Incremental adaptation of the economy is insufficient The economic system currently in place has evolved over centuries and there is now extensive evidence that it is damaging the environment, with negative impacts on water quality, air quality, and biodiversity etc. There have been many attempts to try to reduce those impacts by adapting the economic system. One such example has focused on broadening the lens of what is considered ‘efficient’: rather than focusing on efficiency in a very economic sense of balancing supply and demand and making sure we can buy things for the cheapest possible price, it means actually broadening the lens to focus on other desirable outcomes, like reducing greenhouse gas emissions. International biofuels policies attempted to do that by producing energy in a way which is less damaging in terms of CO2 emissions. Yet, even that broadening of the ‘efficiency lens’ was still too narrow; just focusing on carbon has led to burden shifting with impacts on food security and biodiversity from the rapid expansion of land-use devoted to bioenergy cropping (e.g. soy in Brazil supplying the global biodiesel market (5)). So, we need to broaden the efficiency lens a little bit further to think about more of the things we care about (some refer to this as “systemic efficiency” e.g. (Benton and Bailey, 2019)) Another example of “greening” of economic process concerns farming systems with the attempts to introduce incentive schemes for land-owners to farm in a way which is less damaging to water, nature, and air. It is possible to pay farmers to do that, but the problem is it is expensive because of the high opportunity cost of the foregone yield in areas reserved for nature protection. The levels of incentive that would be realistically needed to actually stop and reverse biodiversity loss in farmed landscapes is substantial (especially when crop prices are high). Many implementations deemed “affordable” by regulators are well below these levels and, therefore, agri- environment incentive schemes have not been very effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and impacts on ecosystems (European Court of Auditors, 2021) (6). This holds true for many countries across the world, not just the EU. 3.2 The need to work on deeper leverage points These examples challenge the idea that adapting, or tweaking, the economic system is sufficient to achieve sustainability. Instead, we likely need a more systemic approach where we think about the multiple outcomes that we want, and also entertain the notion of working on “deeper” leverage points (Abson et al., 2017), for (5) E.g. https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/biodiversity/bioenergy_en (6) E.g. on pag. 3, Executive Summary point IV states: “Overall, we found that the €100 billion of CAP funds attributed during 2014-2020 to climate action had little impact on agricultural emissions, which have not changed significantly since 2010.” https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/biodiversity/bioenergy_en 16 example involving transformation of mindsets and culture (i.e. our “worldviews”, in particular how we frame our human relationship to nature and the function of the bioeconomy). Figure 5: Key elements of a systems approach for achieving multiple desirable outcomes for society (Source: Oliver et al. (2021)) For example, considering the UN Sustainable Development Goals, just focusing on carbon alone (i.e. for SDG 13) is obviously not sufficient, as this leads to the important trade-offs mentioned above. Figure 5 outlines key factors in broadening that lens through systems thinking (Oliver et al., 2021). Policy interventions for sustainability indeed need to think about the economic system, but also how it interacts with the social system, environmental system, legal systems, to try ideally to deliver those multiple outcomes that we want to achieve concurrently. And, as shown on the right side of Figure 5, systems thinking requires thinking at large spatial scales, so including those feedbacks that happen at the international level affecting what's going on in any focal country, and over long time scales, not just thinking about the here and now, but considering future generations. Crucially, at the top right of Figure 5, is indicated the need to reflect on how different people perceive systems in different ways, and about the different worldviews that we need to accommodate. In particular, we may need to think about deeper change in these worldviews, rather than just focusing on economic interventions, or even technological interventions (e.g. precision farming, geoengineering, genetic modification, etc.). These all have a role but are insufficient without deeper transformations of our mindsets and culture. One crucial aspect of this is our human relationship with nature, which underpins our values and actions, and ultimately the structure of our social institutions (including our economy). 3.3 Our human-nature relationship – moving beyond anthropocentrism Our dominant worldview in the West has been very anthropocentric, based on a sense of separation and (instrumental) objectification of nature, and our economic system is firmly based on these perspectives. Since the Enlightenment period, a rationalist worldview prompted by philosophers such as René Descartes increasingly saw the world from a mechanical perspective. Rather than any kind of divine spirit inhabiting the natural world, there was a split between Mind and physical Matter. Anything non-human (and ultimately even the human body) fell into the latter category and was likened to clockwork machines. This segregation of human minds with the natural world went hand-in-hand with seeing individual people as sovereign and isolated from one another. We developed an economics framed around increasing utility for individual humans, alongside treating the natural world as a new type of capital (‘natural capital’) providing quantifiable services to us. 17 However, beyond anthropocentrism, there are alternative types of human-nature relationships, as shown in Box 1. Box 1: Alternative human- nature relationships (Elaborated from Anderson et al. (2022)) — Anthropocentrism: Nature is valuable only in respect to human needs. Nature has instrumental values. — Biocentrism: Emphasises nature’s intrinsic or inherent value, defined by the moral sense of each living organism’s right to life — Ecocentrism: Collectives like ecosystems and biomes also have an intrinsic values in the moral sense of the right to exist. Non-living entities (e.g. waterfalls, stones) may also be deemed to have intrinsic value. — Pluricentrism: An emerging conception that aligns with relational values. The focus is on relationships between humans and other-than-human beings, as well as nature’s elements and systemic processes, conceived as reciprocal, interdependent, intertwined and embedded. When the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem services (IPBES) was tasked with producing the first global assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem services, it initially adopted what they saw at the time as a “common sense” kind of anthropocentric framing of nature, employing terms such as “ecosystem services” and “natural capital”, reflective of an instrumental perspective on nature’s value, contingent upon the benefits it provides for us. Much academic research and many science-policy reports have implicitly taken this perspective. They develop frameworks and methodologies to quantify those benefits, with an ultimate aim to feed the values of nature into the economic system. Some projects, such as one funded by EU Life+ called NatureTrade (7) have advocated helping landowners monetise the value of nature on their land and write up contracts so they can sell them in a marketplace, creating an ‘Ebay for ecosystem services’. The underlying assumption is that when nature is given a price, externalities can be incorporated into the market, and the market will assess the level of “damage” and environmental impacts which are optimal. However, the IPBES is an international assessment involving over 120 UN countries that have to agree on the final assessment, and many countries in the Global South really didn't feel that the instrumental relationship with nature, as framed in initial IPBES reports, captured the way they see nature, which was much more based on a sense of kinship and reciprocal obligations (Masood, 2018). It has been argued that pressing on with the anthropocentric worldview would have equated to a form of epistemic colonialism (Vermeylen, 2019). So, the IPBES conducted a whole new assessment where they considered the plurality of different values and types of human relationship with nature (IPBES, 2022). And of course, the views that emerged are very varied. A whole range of indigenous cultures present diverse ways to see and interpret their relationships with nature and each other. But actually, a thread that runs through the worldviews of so many indigenous cultures, in diverse countries from within South America, to North America, New Zealand, to Africa, is that they see nature very much as a kind of ancestor, they feel a sense of kinship with it rather than something to simply use as an “asset”. This is, for instance, captured in the philosophy of “Buen Vivir”, an indigenous Andean philosophy that emphasizes community well-being, reciprocity, solidarity, and harmony with Pachamama (Mother Earth). And the concept of Buen Vivir actually features as a key right in the constitution of several countries, like Ecuador. 3.4 The science behind our interconnected bodies and minds Along parallel lines to these ancient indigenous cultures, modern science has started to question the evidence behind our relationships with nature. Whether from neuroscience or molecular biology, evolutionary biology or social network theory, there is a large amount of evidence to show that our separation from each other and from nature is actually an (evolved) illusion (Oliver, 2020). Starting from our own human body as a first example, before the advent of modern medicine, we used to think that our bodies were composed of four “humours” (likely guided by the fact that when blood settles, it separates into different coloured layers): “yellow bile”, “black bile”, blood and “phlegm”. The balance of these humours was thought to affect our temperament, (e.g. choleric, melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic). This belief held until the chemical analysis of our bodies revealed that we are made of the same chemicals that make up everything else on this planet: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and a few other trace elements. This might seem quite dull, but actually it is quite fantastic when we think about where these elements came from and go to. When we die, the molecules and elements which make (7) https://zoo-naturetrade.zoo.ox.ac.uk/ https://zoo-naturetrade.zoo.ox.ac.uk/ 18 up our bodies will be released into environment. Imagine them dispersing evenly across the Earth’s atmosphere; ultimately, those molecules (just over 40 kilogrammes of oxygen for a 62 kg person) would spread to over just 0.3 mm apart. So, you could take a cubic metre of air from anywhere above the globe and there would be 29 million molecules of oxygen that were once in your body. So, almost a dense fog that is mingling with a dense fog of molecules that were in other plants and animals. When you take a breath, you are breathing in a zoological legacy. Our bodies are composed of the bodies of countless other organisms. And the cells in our body are not with us our whole life, in many cases such as for our gut cells and our skin cells, they are with us for just a few weeks, there is a kind of continual turnover of matter and energy. And of course, we are comprised not of just human cells, we have an equal number of bacterial cells to match our roughly 37 trillion human cells. Bacteria colonise the whole of our bodies: about 450 species in our elbow joints, 125 behind our ears, 1000 bacterial species in our mouths, for example. And each one of our individual cells has mitochondria, the powerhouses that provide energy to our cells, and these were originally formed from free living bacteria that were incorporated into a eukaryotic cell. So, we humans are kind of a chimaera of human and bacterial cells (as well as fungi, protozoa and viruses). What’s more, the microorganisms living in our gut and brain can affect our mood, our emotions, and our personality and, as such, further detracting from our supposed autonomy. So, if you stand in front of the mirror and think “this is me”, actually, that is just a transient collection of matter that has been brought together for a brief moment in time. One may argue that we look the same as we did yesterday and the day before. What is it that keeps that coherency of us? Well, maybe it is our DNA, the genetic code that scavenges these materials and builds a body with them and has the instructions to continue to build and repair that body. But that DNA is borrowed from our ancestors, and we are going to pass it on to our ancestors to come. And lots of DNA is ferried across the tree of life horizontally by viruses. For example, the genes for building our human placenta actually come from a rabbit gene that was transferred into humans. So, rather than a tree of life with tips representing distinct species, it is much more of a kind of tangled web with genes flowing horizontally as well as vertically. So, even our DNA is borrowed and, when you look in the mirror, there is nothing that is really yours alone. So, where then is the independent “me” that is separate from everything else? We might argue that our minds are what make us uniquely us. However, every word that we hear from each other, every touch, changes the neural networks in our brains. We have about 170 billion neurons in our head and millions of connections are changing every minute. And those connections are influenced by everything that we hear and everything that we touch. So, in reality, we are changing each other's brains all the time! And whoever you've interacted with today has changed your mind, and you are not the same person you were just this morning, let alone one year ago. Even smells exert influence on our brains. For example, Mujica-Parodi et al. (2009) collected the T-shirts from novice skydivers and people simply running on a treadmill. They found that under a brain scanner the odour from the skydiver group, but not the treadmill group, elicited heightened responses in the amygdala brain region of participants, a neural region associated with fear responses. Singh et al. (2018) then found that when a mannequin of the kind that dentists use to practise their dental surgery was wearing a t-shirt worn previously by students in stress-inducing situations, the dentists made more mistakes than when the mannequin was wearing a t-shirt that someone had sweated in, but not in an anxiety inducing situation. So, anxiety is contagious and it can be transmitted through pheromones in the air below the conscious radar. Other research shows that happiness and wellbeing are also contagious and can be transmitted through pheromones as well (Chen and Haviland-Jones, 2000). At the level of social networks, theory shows that we influence people that we have never even met through our web of inter-human connections (Fowler and Christakis, 2011). Our voting preferences, our taste in music, our risk of obesity can all be influenced by people we have never even met, up to three links away in these networks. One last example in breaking down this idea that we are somehow separate from each other is that, in our Western cultures, we have a common myth of an “inventor” as being a lone genius, like a lone wolf. But, actually, most of the revolutionary inventions, such as the incandescent light bulb, the thermometer, the telephone, were all invented independently in different locations, in some cases, like the telephone, patents were filed on exactly the same week in different countries. So, inventors are not lone geniuses, they are actually working with a body of knowledge that is ready to birth these innovations. Creativity is part of a great linked human endeavour. 19 3.5 The evolution of self-identity and our relationship with nature So, the idea that we are separate from each other or from nature is arguably an illusion when you really consider the science. And this is aligned with what the indigenous cultures mentioned above feel as well. We should look at why we might have that illusion. To have a discrete sense of self is useful, we need it to have a coherent place for our memories so that we can know how to gather food, to manage our complex social interactions, and, essentially, to survive. And because of its usefulness, even if we have a transitory revelation of our inter- connectedness, our mind quickly snaps back to thinking that we are separate entities. We might speculate that, in pre-historic human groups and tribes the sense of individuality would have been balanced with a sense of group identity. If someone were too selfish, they would be punished by the group. There was a series of checks in the social system, balancing the level of individuality versus collective identity. But in our modern (digitally connected) societies, our group size is potentially 8 billion people. And we now have a globalised economy where we can, for example, buy a product that has impacts on rainforests on the other side of the world; or we can buy an SUV and literally poison the air of people around us, and there is no legal mechanism or moral system stopping us or challenging these behaviours. While our economic system has become globalised, our moral and legal system has not kept pace. The checks and balances to our individuality have weakened in the modern world. Actually, these individualistic attitudes and behaviours have been exacerbated by modern western culture which has taught us to celebrate a distinct self, with education systems encouraging self-esteem, even to the extent of creating one’s own “personal brand”. Various governments have repeatedly told us that there is no such thing as society (Margaret Thatcher) or that ‘greed is good’ (Boris Johnson). Our minds are like sponges and we soak up this culture, and this has led to trends in individualism increasing over the last 50 years. Several papers have shown an increase in individualistic practices or values in the years, especially in western societies (Santos, Varnum, and Grossmann, 2017). Narcissism, which is an extreme form of individualism has also been shown to be increasing (Twenge and Foster, 2010; Twenge and Foster, 2008). When searching Google Ngrams for trends in individualistic phrases or words used in songs, books, and literature (e.g. the sentence “all about me”) we see that they have been increasing over time. By analogy, our craving for fatty or sugary foods is another trait which evolved because it was useful, it was adaptive, but has become maladaptive in our modern world. When those foods were sparse in the environment, it was useful to seek them out, but in the modern world these food types are abundant, and our culture encourages excess consumption. We have advertising nudging us to consume fast foods, and food deserts where it is difficult to buy healthy food, leading to the on-going obesity crisis where 2 billion people, a quarter of the world's population, are overweight or obese, whilst 2 billion people are underweight or malnourished. So, a trait which was an adaptive strategy during our evolution, has become maladaptive in the modern world. In a similar way, I would argue our sense of self as being independent is becoming maladaptive. For a start, it is in part responsible for the ongoing mental health crisis. Some of the figures of this crisis are quite startling (and the statistics below are from before the COVID-19 pandemic): ● 1 in 10 UK children have a diagnosable mental health problem, but only a quarter of these are accessing treatment services; ● One in five older people living in the community and 40% of older people living in care homes are affected by depression; ● 40% of primary care appointments are about mental health; ● 17% of UK adults are on antidepressants. A large body of literature now points out how if we feel separated from others, we tend to be lonelier and that leads to anxiety and depression (Loades et al., 2020; Mushtaq et al., 2014; Saltzman, Hansel, and Bordnick, 2020). But this links to the planetary health crisis as well, because if we feel separate from the natural world, we inevitably care less about our impacts on that world. Evidence shows that when people feel less connected to nature they show fewer pro-environmental behaviours (e.g. Mackay and Schmitt (2019) and Udall et al. (2021)). So, for example, people may be less sustainable in the products they choose to buy, in reducing their carbon footprint, or the environmental credentials of the political party they vote for. There are several different mechanisms underpinning how our sense of identity links to the planetary health crisis, which we review in a recent paper (Oliver et al., 2022). 20 Figure 6: Dynamic feedback cycles between self-identity and environmental quality (Source: Oliver et al. (2022)) Figure 6 summarizes various feedback loops involving the degradation of nature and decline of pro- environmental/pro-social behaviours that are linked to self-identity. If we destroy nature, there is less nature around in our towns and cities, we encounter it less, and that means people will likely feel less connected to nature because they experience it less on a daily basis. When people feel less connected to nature then they are less likely to look after it and consciously buy products that are more sustainable. And that then leads to further environmental degradation; it is a vicious cycle. This also reverberates upwards to the institutional level: for instance, environmental shocks like climate change and extreme weather events can facilitate the election of more right-wing political leaders, endorsing a nationalistic and xenophobic worldview. But many environmental problems are transboundary, be it biodiversity loss, air pollution, zoonotic diseases, climate change, all these crises need enhanced international cooperation at a time when environmental shocks are instead driving reduced international cooperation. So, there is a whole set of mechanisms tied up into these potential vicious cycles. The positive aspect is that the mechanisms can be reversed, and the vicious cycles can turn into virtuous circles, for instance by restoring the environment and with programmes to enhance nature and social connectedness. 3.6 A new paradigm for human-nature relationship? On a more positive note, this need for a changing paradigm around our human-nature relationships has started to be recognised in many science and policy institutions. For instance, in 2020 the UN Secretary-General emphasised the need for paradigm shift from a ‘human-centric society to an Earth-centred global ecosystem’ (8), and the need for learning from ancient cultures and indigenous paradigms that have a deep connection with nature (9). The latest IPBES values assessment (2022), mentioned earlier, concluded that: ‘goals linked primarily to values of individualism and materialism – defining societal progress as wealth, profit, competition and growth – are not aligned with future sustainability or social justice’. And yet, this sounds very familiar to the way we structure our economies nowadays. Instead, the IPBES report talks about moving away from values that are barriers to conservation, including inter-human values such as individualism and human-nature values based solely on instrumentalism, and instead moving towards “sustainability-aligned” values: inter-human values rooted in care, (8) See United Nations (2022) pag. 2: ‘Mother Earth would only be preserved through a paradigm shift from a human-centric society to an Earth-centred global ecosystem’ (9) See United Nations (2022) pag. 2: ‘Education is critical to safeguarding Mother Earth: training courses on harmony with nature and earth jurisprudence approaches will be essential in creating a resilient world for everyone, everywhere. I commend Member States who promote teachings from ancient cultures who have a deep connection with nature.’ 21 unity and justice, and more balanced human-nature values combining care (relational, instrumental) and respect (intrinsic). So how do we change and shift our dominant paradigm? A starting point is to try and understand our connection to nature better. Many scales have been proposed to measure our nature connectedness, and several meta- analyses have now shown that people who feel their identity to be enmeshed with others and the natural world have a greater sense of care and responsibility for the environment (Mackay and Schmitt, 2019; Richardson et al., 2020; Whitburn, Linklater, and Abrahamse, 2020; Zylstra et al., 2014). The next question then is how to promote greater nature connectedness. Luckily, there is growing evidence showing the effectiveness of several types of interventions. Nature engagement, through facilitation of activities such as bird watching and painting, out in the natural environment promotes nature connection (Richardson et al., 2020). For instance, nature conservation charities like the UK Wildlife Trusts organize a “30 days Wild” activity, where they get kids out in nature for 30 days and then measure how this intervention improves their connection to nature. Similar evidence-based interventions are carried out by charities such as the RSPB and supported by the statutory body Natural England. Meditation is another effective intervention. Neurobiology has shown that the pathways in our brain are changed through meditation approaches and mindfulness (Goleman and Davidson, 2018). Through meditation the “default mode network”, which is the part of our brain responsible for self-rumination and highly linked to anxiety and depression, gets downregulated allowing us to feel more connected to each other and the natural world, and enhancing the sense of compassion and empathy. We might wonder whether reading and learning facts about nature might be also an effective intervention. Within my book presenting the science of our connection to nature and each other (Oliver, 2020), there is a link to an online survey to assess the reader’s nature connectedness, before and after reading the book. The results of that survey do show that reading the book improves our sense of nature connectedness. So, knowledge-based interventions can work too, potentially because they promote awareness and understanding of the importance of our connection to nature and that can motivate then to pick up practices of direct, experiential nature engagement that effectively improve our nature connectedness. These changes in values and mindsets can and should also be scaled up to institutional and government level. Luckily there are examples of this happening already: in the UK there are initiatives to promote skills and competencies in systems thinking (10) as well as to promote mindfulness among policymakers to accelerate action on climate change (Bristow, Bell, and Wamsler, 2022). The UN Development Programme has launched the initiative “Conscious Food System Alliance” (CoFSA) (Legrand et al., 2022) which tries to transform the food systems by going beyond economic interventions or techno-fixes and recognizing instead the need to also promote transformative practices focused on reconnecting with ourselves, each other and with nature. Oliver et al. (2018) highlighted how there are many diverse mechanisms that “lock-in” the global food system into its current undesirable state, which is damaging to nature. While many policy interventions have focused so far on changing economic and regulatory constraints (e.g. subsidies), there is a whole range of other mechanisms which are often ignored and neglected, especially sociocultural constraints, which include the deep leverage points discussed earlier, like mindsets and beliefs. Programmes like the UNDP CoFSA initiative are trying to address this deficit. This Chapter started by showing the limitations of our approaches when trying to slowly and incrementally adapt our economic system to deal with the current environmental challenges. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP, 2021) produced a report titled ‘Making Peace with Nature’, in which they present actions to transform our economic and technological system to cope with the ongoing environmental crises. They conclude that ‘Transforming humankind’s relationship with nature is the key to a sustainable future’ (11). (10) E.g. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/systems-thinking-for-civil-servants (11) UNEP (2021) Pag. 15: ‘Only a system-wide transformation will achieve well-being for all within the Earth’s capacity to support life, provide resources and absorb waste. This transformation will involve a fundamental change in the technological, economic and social organization of society, including world views, norms, values and governance.’ https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/systems-thinking-for-civil-servants 22 Figure 7: Iterative processes fundamental to successful sustainability transitions. Source: Oliver et al. (2021) Figure 7 summarizes the iterative processes needed to transform our linked social-ecological systems, highlighting the interlinked envisioning phase, implementation phase, and evaluation phase (Oliver et al., 2021). We can think about the bioeconomy as having gone through this cycle several times and, as shown in section 2.3, the vision has evolved from a bio-resource to a sustainable economy framing. This report might be a new starting point for another “envisioning” cycle, exploring what a bioeconomy strategy based on radically different human-nature relationships could look like. Maybe it would be more of a biocentric economy, but we certainly want to be mindful of errors in the past when anthropocentric and utilitarian values have been imposed on other cultures, and instead embrace the plurality of existing worldviews and perspectives (IPBES, 2022). At the same time, we should be cautious that plurality does not mean embracing and accepting all worldviews as equal, and ecocidal values should be avoided (Oliver et al., 2022). Navigating alternative worldviews towards a new vision is challenging, yet both indigenous wisdom and the findings of modern science on our human-nature relationship provide a timely and important challenge for a more fundamental reframing of our bioeconomy strategy. Implementing - Anticipatory knowledge (multiple policy outcomes/impacts) - How implementation success varies in a changing context - Polycentric governance requiring effective coordination and integration capacity Evaluating - Learning attitude - New sustainability transition indicators - Feedback into implementation decisions and decisions over the choice of transition pathways Envisioning - Co-creating plausible and normative visions - Innovative approaches to navigate societal values to feed into decision-making processes - Reconcile visions across different spatial scales 23 4 Is green growth possible? The case for degrowth. Giorgos Kallis Key messages – Chapter 4 — There is increasing evidence that genuine green growth is not happening and is unlikely to happen in the near future. — Alternatives to green growth, such as post-growth or degrowth, face considerable obstacles regarding their implementation and acceptability that call for new research. — Political acceptability is a central obstacle: only through a coevolutionary change of personal/everyday practices, social mobilization and institutional change can new transformative politics emerge. — Whether such political change can happen fast and far enough remains still uncertain. The main question addressed here is whether “Green Growth” is possible. A similar argument is laid out in Hickel and Kallis (2020). First of all, it is essential to have common definitions of the terms and concepts: 1. Green growth = economic growth compatible with planetary sustainability, that is reducing our environmental impacts within the planetary boundaries, biophysical thresholds beyond which the Earth system might become incompatible with human civilization (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015). Green growth is the basis of government actions regarding climate and the environment (e.g. in OECD (2011) and World Bank (2012), in the UN’s SDGs (12), as well as in the European Green Deal (13)). 2. Decoupling = separating economic growth from resource use and environmental impacts. Two types of decoupling can be defined: Relative decoupling means that GDP grows faster than resource use or environmental impacts, but these continue to grow. Absolute decoupling implies that resource use and environmental impacts actually decrease while GDP keeps growing. Green growth, according to most policy strategies, means developing new, cleaner technologies and improving the efficiency with which we use resources. Because many planetary boundaries are already trespassed (Persson et al., 2022), green growth requires not only absolute decoupling, but also that environmental impacts, especially greenhouse gas emissions, decrease fast enough to avoid crossing environmental irreversible thresholds, such as the 1.5-2°C climate change objective. So, it is more accurate to talk about not just absolute decoupling, but sufficient absolute decoupling, and not just green growth, but genuine green growth, that is sufficient and fast enough for keeping societies from crossing irreversible thresholds. 4.1 Question #1: Is absolute decoupling of resource use from GDP happening? Is it even possible? Empirical data on global material footprint shows that from 1990 to around 2010 relative decoupling can be detected in the data, but from around 2010, this trend reverted, and material use has actually been increasing faster than GDP. For individual countries, we can see signs of absolute decoupling between GDP and the domestic material consumption (DMC) indicator. As defined by Eurostat (14), this indicator only accounts for materials directly used by an economy and does not include upstream flows related to imports. When these resources are included in the calculation, as done with the Material Footprint indicators (15), then the data show (12) Note from Editors: SDG 8 ‘Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all’. (13) Note from Editors: COM(2019) 640, pag. 2: ‘[The European Green Deal] is a new growth strategy that aims to transform the EU into a fair and prosperous society, with a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050 and where economic growth is decoupled from resource use.’ (14) Note from Editors: “DMC measures the total amount of materials directly used by an economy. It is defined as the annual quantity of raw materials extracted from the domestic territory of the focal economy, plus all physical imports minus all physical exports. It is important to note that the term 'consumption', as used in DMC, denotes apparent consumption and not final consumption. DMC does not include upstream flows related to imports and exports of raw materials and products originating outside of the focal economy ” (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/en/sdg_12_20_esmsip2.htm ) (15) Note from Editors: e.g. https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2019/goal-12/ https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/en/sdg_12_20_esmsip2.htm https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2019/goal-12/ 24 that actually the material footprint has increased proportionally with GDP for USA, EU-27 and OECD countries, with no sign of absolute or even relative decoupling taking place. The strong coupling of GDP and material use was also shown by Steinberger et al. (2013) through panel data analysis: comparing the material use and GDP of different countries overtime, they showed that 1% difference in the size of economies is associated with 0.8% difference in material use. One may argue that decoupling could still happen in the future, but Hickel and Kallis (2020) assessed all public studies and models by the UN regarding future resources use until 2050 and concluded that absolute decoupling would not be feasible on a global scale with continued economic growth. These findings might look surprising as a common narrative is that technological progress, digitalisation, and the shift towards a more service-based economy in high-income countries would lead to decoupling of resources from GDP. However, there are at least three arguments which provide a theoretical foundation to the tight coupling of GDP and resource use. Firstly, efficiency gains do not necessarily lead to using fewer resources. If we think in terms of labour resources, for example, machines did not lead to mass unemployment, because the surplus labour that was liberated by machines was hired to new activities of the economy which grew as labour became more productive (efficient). This phenomenon remains valid also for natural resources, as formulated in the “Jevons Paradox” (Polimeni et al., 2012), named after the 19th century economist Stanley Jevons who was the first who noted how steam engines used coal more efficiently, but as a result, societies used more coal, not less. As the cost of coal went down because of efficiency gains, new uses were invented to make good use of the cheaper coal. Secondly, services can be resource intensive. Materials are needed to build the hardware and energy is needed to sustain the software and network infrastructure required for the digital economy. Even emails do not come free of impacts or resources (Berners-Lee, 2022). Thirdly, service providers, even if not directly affecting material use through their activities, can use their income to consume material goods and thus contribute to the GDP-material coupling. 4.2 Question #2: Is absolute decoupling of GDP from carbon emissions in line with the 1.5°C target possible? Concerning greenhouse gas emissions, data shows that global CO2 emissions increased proportionally with GDP until about 2010, but afterwards emissions have increased slower than GDP, indicating the achievement of relative decoupling. A 1% growth of GDP is associated with 0.5-0.8 % increase of CO2 emissions the same year. Indeed, 21 countries have reduced their carbon footprint during 2010-2014 while their economies grew. However, these reductions have been in the range of 1-2% per year, a rate which is not nearly fast enough to avoid catastrophic climate change. For instance, Anderson et al. (2020) recently calculated that UK and Sweden would have to reduce their GHG emissions