BioGreen: A bioeconomy for Ireland

Abstract

The project has been named BioGreen because it develops a new method to assesses the potential of the bioeconomy in contribution to Ireland’s sustainability goals. Bioeconomy refers to those parts of the economy that use renewable biological resources (biomass) from land and sea such as crops, forests, fish, animals, micro-organisms, and organic waste and residue to produce food, feed, materials, chemicals, fuels and energy (Potocnik, 2015; as cited in Devaney, 2017). The research is critical because we live in a world with increasingly limited resources. Ireland enjoys a marketing advantage for its domestic consumer food products due to its sustainable production practices. Development of a robust bioeconomy sector would further consolidate the country’s position as a world leader in sustainability (Devaney and Henchion, forthcoming 2017).