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Indicators to monitor and evaluate the sustainability of bioeconomy

Overview and a proposed way forward

Year of publication 2019

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 127

Author Bracco, S., Tani, A., Çalıcıoğlu, Ö., Gomez San Juan, M. & Bogdanski, A.

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Book (series)

ISBN 978-92-5-131796-9

Series title Environment and Natural Resources Management Working Paper

Series number 77

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) FAO has been working for many years on non-food biomass products (including sustainable bioenergy) and biotechnology, and it received a mandate to coordinate international work on ‘food first’ sustainable bioeconomy by 62 Ministers present at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) 2015. Moreover, FAO has received support from the Government of Germany to develop guidelines on sustainable bioeconomy development (Phase 1: 2016; Phase 2: 2017-mid 2020). This involves work on the bioeconomy monitoring, including the selection and use of indicators. The ultimate aim of FAO’s work on sustainability indicators is to provide technical assistance to countries and stakeholders in developing and monitoring sustainable bioeconomy, more particularly on identifying suitable indicators in line with the Sustainable Bioeconomy Aspirational Principles and related Criteria, agreed upon in 2016 by the International Sustainable Bioeconomy Working Group created in the context of FAO’s project on Sustainable Bioeconomy Guidelines. These indicators shall help both policy makers and producers/manufacturers in monitoring and evaluating the sustainability of their bioeconomy strategies and interventions. In order to cover all the relevant aspects and issues for a sustainable bioeconomy, our approach identifies impact categories from the sustainable bioeconomy principles and criteria. The monitoring approach suggested is balanced, since it considers the three sustainability dimensions (social, economic and environmental); at the same time, it proposes to use a limited set of core indicators, to keep the monitoring feasible and cost-effective. The suggested methodology starts with a review of existing monitoring approaches to identify already available indicators, from which the authors.

Cite this content as:

Bracco, S., Tani, A., Çalıcıoğlu, Ö., Gomez San Juan, M. & Bogdanski, A. 2019. Indicators to monitor and evaluate the sustainability of bioeconomy. Overview and a proposed way forward. Rome, FAO


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