Environmental concerns in political bioeconomy discourses
Résumé
The term bioeconomy has been generated as a new discourse in the environmental policy arena. This paper raises three questions: (i) are environmentalconcerns integrated in the political discourses of bioeconomy and, if so, to what extent?, (ii) in which way is the environment framedin the political discourses of bioeconomy?, and (iii) are environmental concerns considered in the political discourses on forest-basedbioeconomy? The theoretical framework of this paper builds on the cognitive approach of policy integration and on frame analysis. Theempirical research design is a comparative qualitative analysis of five different political bioeconomy discourses in the EU and four different EUmember states – Germany, Finland, France and the Netherlands – in general and in the forestry sector specifically. Results show a weak andmainly rhetorical integration of environmental concerns in political bioeconomy discourses. Three major environmental frames are identified:(i) The dominant frame of ‘Environment benefitting from economic growth’, (ii) the ‘Environment as a challenge’ and (iii) the less visible‘Environment as a standard’ frame. In general, these frames address the environment mainly as a challenge or something that needs to be safeguardedwith the help of the bioeconomy. With the exception of Finland, amongst the countries studied, forests plays only a minor role inbioeconomy discourses while environmental concerns in this strand of discussion are mainly focused on sustainability arguments in general.