Bioeconomy, Circular Economy and Sustainability 2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues,

The bioeconomy is made up of those parts of the economy that use renewable terrestrial and aquatic biological resources, such as forests, fish, and wildlife, to produce food, building materials, energy, medicine, and other essential items. It includes forestry and wood production, with the related biotechnological, chemical and energy industries, but also the provision of other ecosystem services that can support sustainable economic growth. In a bioeconomy, agriculture is not conceivable without sustainable land management. This is because land is a resource that can be used for growing produce as well as providing habitats for animals and living space for humans. Wood from local forests is an important resource for the bioeconomy. Greater forest diversity and new wood-based materials have the potential to make the timber industry more sustainable. Nonwood forest products are essential items in the bioeconomy. Certain bioeconomy strategies and scientific publications consider the bioeconomy to be inherently sustainable (Hetemäki et al., 2017; Pfau et al., 2014). While certain authors consider the bioeconomy to be “circular by nature” (Carrez and Van Leeuwen, 2015; Sheridan, 2016),  Hetemäki et al. (2017) see the risk of following a linear business-as-usual approach if the principles of a circular economy  are not considered. The circular economy is defined by the European Commission (2015) as minimizing the generation of waste and maintaining the value of products, materials and resources for as long as possible. As a response to these critical discussions, the updated bioeconomy strategy of the European Commission (2018) announced that the “European Bioeconomy needs to have sustainability and circularity at its heart” (European Commission, 2018). Boosting the circular bioeconomy is one of the ways to help combat global warming and its consequences: climate change, biodiversity loss, increased forest fires, etc. Furthermore, it is important to generate less waste and recycle the waste we produce.

Scope and aims: Therefore, the purpose of the Special Issue will be to bring together scholars interested in the broadly understood bioeconomy, circular economy, agroforestry, climate change and sustainability. We encourage interdisciplinary perspectives on an organisation and its milieu, combining an individual and organisational approach, bearing in mind that only comprehensive and multilevel strategies can result in benefits. The list of topics below is by no means exhaustive; they are merely suggestions for scientific investigation. This Special Issue welcomes contributions presenting both conceptual frameworks, systematic literature reviews and empirical results in the following areas:

• Progress towards a sustainable bioeconomy;
• Good practices to operate the bioeconomy within safe ecological limits;
• Benefits of biodiversity in primary production;
• Circular economy;
• Agroforestry and its benefits;
• Climate change;
• Nonwood forest products;
• Constructing relations with the business environment (including customers);
• Education of stakeholders;
• Eco-innovations;
• Ecological trends in consumer behaviours.

Dr. Jitka Fialova
Dr. Petra Hlavackova
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• sustainability
• forest-based bioeconomy
• environmental management
• eco-innovation
• integrated value chain
• agroforestry
• nonwood forest products