Authors: John Zysman, David Zilberman, and Dan Breznitz
The bioeconomy can be understood simultaneously as a successor to the industrial economy, a corrective to its most damaging consequences, and a complement to the digital economy. At present, it remains largely aspirational: a proposed pathway toward sustainability that seeks to reconcile economic growth with environmental limits. A modern bioeconomy must be clearly distinguished from earlier epochs of traditional agriculture. It is characterized instead by the deployment of advanced life sciences, sophisticated biological tools, digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and precision systems.
The green transition represents one component of this, much broader, transformation to a bioeconomy. It refers to the substitution of renewable, often plant-based, materials and energy sources for depletable resources and fossil fuels. Yet the green transition should not be understood as a narrow technical adjustment. It is a system shift, requiring systemic thinking about production, energy, infrastructure, labor, and governance. The challenge—both technical and political—is how to accomplish this green transition in a manner that opens into a full-scale bioeconomy.
This framing immediately raises a central question: how can places and governments maintain prosperity and societal wellbeing while supporting the development of a true bioeconomy? Put differently, can the bioeconomy be transformed from an aspirational goal into a practical framework capable of guiding growth strategies? Addressing this question requires moving beyond abstract visions to consider how transitions unfold in specific economic and institutional contexts.
This chapter considers several concrete regional experiences, one of which is Inland California. Its purpose is to structure a broader conversation about how particular places—including regions across Europe—can construct equitable growth models that both facilitate and advance the transition to a bioeconomy. Doing so requires careful attention to the historical foundations of the bioeconomy and to the political and economic challenges embedded in system-level change.
