Bioeconomies Optimized for Local Development
We are the change we want to see in the world.
Globally distributed, carbon-neutral bioeconomy
will bring a more equitable planet with a stable climate.
Everything around you, from clothes, medicine, to fertilizers, is made using petrochemicals. But using oil exacerbates climate disaster, and since petroleum-based industries are concentrated in highly-developed areas, it creates inequality of opportunities.
Developed countries started addressing those problems by switching to biomanufacturing - making the same chemicals as obtained from petroleum, but via biological production. Almost all industrial materials can be made by fermentation, a similar process to making bread. The technology for manufacturing with biology is here, but it is not evenly or equitably distributed.
We urgently need to give access to those renewable, bio-based industries to underserved communities around the world. This will accelerate a paradigm shift in how we make the things that we need, in ways that will mitigate climate change and foster thriving economies.
We will achieve this by building a worldwide network starting with 50 bioreactors, fueled by feedstock grown by local farmers, operated by local personnel, producing materials for local industry.
By building such bioreactors, and infrastructure to use biomade chemicals in local manufacturing, we will provide opportunities for farmers, for workers operating the bioreactors, and stimulate local manufacturing using the bioreactor-made materials.
This project gives opportunities, not aid. We will create jobs, infrastructure and blueprints to make more jobs, education and training. Moving towards manufacturing everything we need with biology changes cultures and our way of life.
We will address economic inequality by growing regional centers of manufacturing and commerce, fueled by local agriculture. This will decrease reliance on fossil fuels, mitigating climate change.
Everything around you is made with petrochemicals.
The industry is geographically concentrated, creating inequality of opportunities. Using petrochemicals causes climate change.
Climate change exacerbates inequality, with the burden of climate change-induced land loss, crop failures, disease outbreaks and other issues falling overwhelmingly on low income communities, marginalized populations and women.
Inequality of resources and opportunity is the root cause of many conflicts, forced migration and poverty.
Everything in our economy is made from and with petrochemicals. These finite resources are disproportionately produced in lower-income regions, but transformed into value-added products and disproportionately consumed in higher-income regions.
Traditional geographies of industry thus contribute to unequal access to resources and opportunity, which are concentrated in relatively few regions of the world, driving inequality.
Oil makes food
Many people don't realize the extent of our reliance on oil.
When we think about the use of petroleum in food production, the first thing that comes to mind is fuels, used to transport goods and power farm machinery. But there's much more.
Modern agriculture uses fertilizers that are derived from petrochemicals. It would be impossible to maintain current food production without oil-based fertilizers, fungicides and pesticides.
For example, nitrogen fertilizers are obtained through processing of petroleum and methane. Majority of sulfur fertilizers also come as a by-product of petrochemical processing.
Our reliance on oil is also driving climate change, by increasing emission of greenhouse gasses.
In turn, climate change exacerbates inequality, with the burden of climate change-induced land loss, crop failures, disease outbreaks and other issues falling overwhelmingly on low income communities, marginalized populations and women.
Inequality affects all humans. Unequal access to resources and opportunity means that not every person can reach their full potential.
The driving force of this economic inequality is concentration of resources in relatively few regions of the world. This concentration of industry is related to the way we manufacture things: with large-scale processing that uses petroleum. Economic opportunity is concentrated around large industries, which depend on petrochemicals.
This challenge of inequality impacts all those living in underserved and low-income communities, who are prohibited from accessing the education, training and jobs that create pathways to stable livelihoods.
We will build a global network of small scale bioreactors, and develop training, safety and policy resources.
We will create a foundation for world-wide bioeconomy, growing regional industry and decreasing reliance on oil.
All humans will benefit.
Some will benefit directly through working with the bioeconomy ecosystem.
Everyone will benefit indirectly, having a planet that is not on fire.
Yes.
There is direct evidence for the effectiveness of every element of this plan.
What is bioeconomy?
Bioeconomy means industry, production and all economic activity that uses renewable resources.
In this project, we focus on materials and chemicals: bioeconomy here means producing goods from chemicals obtained via biological fermentation, instead of producing the same good with chemicals obtained from oil (petrochemicals).
We can mitigate both inequality and climate change simultaneously by building a globally distributed renewable, carbon-neutral industry that develops industrial capacity and creates opportunities, catalyzing circular economic development in local communities.
The makings of such an industry already exist: making chemicals with biological fermentation, known as biomanufacturing. It allows us to make the same chemicals we traditionally obtain from oil, but without ecological threats from the petrochemical industry.
Biomanufacturing leads to bioeconomy, where products and materials are derived from renewable bioprocesses instead of from fossil fuels.
Unfortunately, biomanufacturing today is centralized. The solution is distributed biomanufacturing, so that local communities can solve local problems.
Our solution to global inequality and climate change is to jump-start the transition from oil-based industry to an equitable, distributed, carbon-negative bioeconomy.
To begin the march towards this vision, we will build a world-wide network of 50 local biomanufacturing hubs with bioreactors that turn plants into chemicals and polymers for local industry, and the infrastructure to grow local economies from those raw materials.
We will use existing knowledge and procedures for building local biomanufacturing hubs.
Our innovation is to build local sites stimulating the regional economy, breaking the current concentration of opportunities and benefits in most developed regions.
We will demonstrate the benefits of bioeconomy over traditional reliance on fossil fuels, producing evidence of the need to build more bioreactors - our bioreactor network becomes a seed of growth for global bioeconomy.
We will do this by working closely with communities, to co-design circular local economies around regional priority industries that could transition to biomanufacturing, and become beacons for sustainable production and consumption. For example in regions known for textiles, the bioreactor will produce polyester (now obtained from petroleum), sustainable pigments or enzymes to process textiles without using energy-intensive high temperatures and polluting chemicals.
We will also co-design with target communities the types of downstream products, hiring practices and supply chains that would support local economic and social flourishing.
Our team has biotechnology, education, policy and safety experts. We will additionally consult with leading industry experts on choice of bioreactor equipment and processes.
See more info and technical details below, and evidence of effectiveness of all parts of this project.
The group directly benefiting from this project is workers in underdeveloped regions.
Specifically, our project will provide opportunities and benefits for farmers (who will provide feedstock), bioreactor personnel (providing jobs and education opportunities), and manufacturing and artisan workers (who will be using the raw materials made in the bioreactor).
Effects of this project will be felt throughout the entire local economy around the bioreactor sites. The local production of raw materials will enable local, small-scale manufacturing, fueling growth of local economies and training opportunities, beyond the personnel directly working with the site. This will limit global inequality of opportunities.
The impact of this project will be felt world-wide, with long term durable benefits for the economy, climate and all humans.
This project will jump-start growth of bioeconomy processes, mitigating climate change, both through limiting carbon emission from traditional petrochemical processes, and through capturing atmospheric carbon via growth of plants as feedstock for the bioreactors.
Therefore, all humans will experience long-term benefits of improving climate-change related problems.
Local farmers will generate income from bioreactor feedstock - supporting diverse, climate-resilient agriculture.
All feedstock for the bioreactors will be purchased locally, using Fairtrade Standards.
We will design a specific process for each bioreactor, to ensure feedstock can be plants that naturally glow in that region. This will allow farmers to grow native plants, not cash crops, and it will increase tolerance for the changing climate conditions.
The biomanufacturing sites will provide local jobs for the blue collar workers of the bioeconomy. We will provide on-site training for the bioreactor operators and maintenance personnel. The bioreactors will provide stable, sustainable jobs, comparable to the traditional industry factory line and trade jobs.
Right now, most bioeconomy jobs are high-skilled, requiring post-secondary education and often a PhD degree. In the future of global bioeconomy, most of the jobs will be not in the development of new processes (highly skilled research positions) but in the maintenance of the bioreactors, processing of the biomade products, and processing of feedstock. This will enable more broad and equitable distribution of benefits of bioeconomy to all populations.
The biomanufacturing hubs will provide practical learning opportunities for students. Each site will enable training of the next generation of skilled and trades workers operating bioprocesses.
The sites will also help teach bioengineering to science students, at high school and post-secondary levels, and provide workshops and demonstrations to the citizen science community. We will work with the local Fab Lab network and DIY biolabs, taking advantage of the bioreactor infrastructure.
The presence of bioreactor sites with education programs will allow local learners access to cutting-edge technologies that are now available only to students at the large academic centers.
Local manufacturing and artisan workers will be using the raw materials made in the bioreactor. The bioreactor processes will be designed to produce materials useful for existing regional industry, for example textile making, cosmetics, woodworking or plastic product manufacturing.
We will produce raw materials that replace petrochemicals, enabling manufacturing of the same types of products as traditional industry. Bioreactors will support small scale, regional industries, instead of concentrated large petrochemical manufacturing plants. This will give opportunities to the local manufacturing and artisan economy.
The presence of the bioreactor site will stimulate many areas of the local economy. Benefits will extend to people not necessarily directly working on biomanufacturing.
Opportunities for biomass suppliers contracts, bioreactor jobs, and access to products for downstream processing will be made available to everyone with potential to deliver, via a transparent and fair process.
We will actively seek out applicants and local collaborators from demographics that have historically received less opportunities and those with a high risk of migrating to find skilled work elsewhere (to mitigate “brain drain”).
Why not limit consumption?
It has been suggested that the solution to over-reliance on oil, and to climate effects of carbon-emitting manufacturing, would be to make less. Producing less plastics, less food waste (limiting need for fertilizers), less of any consumer products.
While limiting consumption would indeed limit the carbon impact of our economy, it is not a practical or just solution.
To limit consumption, people in developed countries would need to accept we can go without some comforts we are already used to, and people in developing countries would need to agree they will never experience those comforts.
This is not practical, as most people do not make individual life changing decisions to sacrifice their comfort for vague, long term effects.
This is also not just, asking large part of humanity to give up on ever achieving the comforts they see others already enjoy. Even if this comfort is ordering an extra plastic toy for your child, it is important for the individual's quality of life.
The urgency of the climate catastrophe made many people already adjust their consumption, travel and purchasing habits. Those changes are not enough to reverse the climate impact of our modern industry.
Instead of trying to convince everybody to drastically alter their habits, including giving up aspirations for future material comforts, it will be more practical and just to replace the non-renewable, polluting industry with sustainable, carbon-neutral bioeconomy.
It is possible to maintain our current lifestyle, while limiting climate impact. If all things we use and produce are biomade, instead of made from petrochemicals, the ecological impact of our lifestyle will become sustainable for our planet.
Climate change is caused by greenhouse gasses, released during processing of petroleum into chemicals. Biomanufacturing means producing the same chemicals with fermentation instead of from oil. It can sequester greenhouse gasses, instead of releasing more.
This will help stop and possibly reverse climate change, which in turn will help lower inequality, reversing adverse effects now ruining local economies and forcing migration.
Long term community impact will be caused by the policy and industry change from centralized petrochemicals to distributed biomanufacturing, with investors and government supporting local biological manufacturing instead of large fossil fuel industry.
Long term global impact is decreased forced economic migration, slowing down and reversing climate change in a carbon-neutral economy.
Biomanufacturing has been proposed to mitigate climate change.[1]
Biological manufacturing can provide sources of chemical traditionally obtained from petrochemical processes.[2,3]
All processes will be chosen to minimize the need for purification. Whenever possible, products will be secreted from hosts like yeast.
To reduce costs and maximize safety, Bioreactor facilities will be BSL1, non-GMP compliant, equipped with pilot scale (75L or 100L), fed-batch microbial fermenters (for example BioFlo 610)[4]
Whenever possible, we will work with local manufacturers and FabLabs to fabricate bioreactor components, fixtures and accessory equipment so it is repairable and generates engineering capacity.
What will the sites make
We will focus on biomanufacturing chemicals that can be used as substrates for making products, to stimulate local manufacturing and the artisan economy. We will not produce biofuels, biomedical products or controlled substances [5].
Example products we will make: polyesters for use in textiles and plastics [6–8], polyurethanes for coating, foams and insulation [9], chemicals and solvents for use in making detergents and cosmetics [10,11].
We will not manufacture products with biomedical applications or regulated under Controlled Substances Act.[5]
Where
Bioreactor sites will be located in regions with regional Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) 10 percentile or more below regional average. [12,13]
[1] Biotechnology as a new techno-economic paradigm that will help drive the world economy and mitigate climate change. Res Policy. 2019;48: 858–868.
[2] Zhang C, Ottenheim C, Weingarten M, Ji L. Microbial Utilization of Next-Generation Feedstocks for the Biomanufacturing of Value-Added Chemicals and Food Ingredients. Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2022;10: 874612.
[3] Clomburg JM, Crumbley AM, Gonzalez R. Industrial biomanufacturing: The future of chemical production. Science. 2017;355. doi:10.1126/science.aag0804
[4] Junker BH. Scale-up methodologies for Escherichia coli and yeast fermentation processes. J Biosci Bioeng. 2004;97: 347–364.
[5] U.S.C. Title 21 - FOOD AND DRUGS. [cited 1 Sep 2024]. Available: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2014-title21/html/USCODE-2014-title21-chap13-subchapI.htm
[6] Yang JE, Park SJ, Kim WJ, Kim HJ, Kim BJ, Lee H, et al. One-step fermentative production of aromatic polyesters from glucose by metabolically engineered Escherichia coli strains. Nat Commun. 2018;9: 1–10.
[7] Lee Y, Cho IJ, Choi SY, Lee SY. Systems Metabolic Engineering Strategies for Non-Natural Microbial Polyester Production. Biotechnol J. 2019;14: 1800426.
[8] Schiros TN, Mosher CZ, Zhu Y, Bina T, Gomez V, Lee CL, et al. Bioengineering textiles across scales for a sustainable circular economy. Chem. 2021;7: 2913–2926.
[9] Polyurethanes: Preparation, Properties, and Applications Volume 2: Advanced Applications. [cited 1 Sep 2024]. doi:10.1021/bk-2023-1453.ch001
[10] Niziolek AM, Onel O, Guzman YA, Floudas CA. Biomass-Based Production of Benzene, Toluene, and Xylenes via Methanol: Process Synthesis and Deterministic Global Optimization. 2016 [cited 1 Sep 2024]. doi:10.1021/acs.energyfuels.6b00619
[11] Assessing methods for the production of renewable benzene. Sustainable Production and Consumption. 2022;32: 184–197.
[12] World Inequality Report 2022. [cited 1 Sep 2024]. Available: https://chooser.crossref.org/
[13] United Nations Development Programme. [cited 1 Sep 2024]. Available: http://report.hdr.undp.org
BioBOLD will jump-start global network of biomanufacturing sites, democratizing benefits of bioeconomy.
Quantitative, peer-reviewed evidence exists for effectiveness of each element of this project, including socioeconomic impact of local development, and climate change mitigation. This project will use biomanufacturing solutions with proven human, economy and environmental impact.
Human impact
Migration in search of economic opportunities, leaving one’s community, is often not voluntary.[1,2] A person is forced to move due to manufacturing and opportunities being centralized [3–5]. Developing local economies, like we will do through this project, has been shown to effectively decrease the rates of this involuntary migration.[6]
Climate change provides a unique challenge to farmers, decreasing income from traditional food crops.[7] Our project will create a market for different types of plants used in biomanufacturing [8], providing income to farmers unable to grow traditional cash crops.
Economy impact
Globalization of the world economy, and particularly concentrating production and financial systems in few global centers, significantly increases global income inequality.[9,10] This project will develop local bioeconomy hubs, decentralizing manufacturing. Developing an inclusive and local economy, supporting sustainable local development, can mitigate inequality [11].
Environmental impact
Biomanufacturing processes, which we will use in the bioreactor sites of this project, has significantly lower carbon footprint compared to traditional petrochemical based manufacturing.[12] This is measured as carbon dioxide emission during the making of the raw materials and downstream processing. Many biomanufacturing processes can even be carbon-negative, which means the end result is less CO2 in the air, as the process captures carbon dioxide. [13,14]
Carbon dioxide is one of the main drivers of climate change, therefore reducing CO2 emissions and capturing excess carbon can help mitigate the consequences of climate change.[15,16]
[1] Dao TH. On the Fundamental Drivers of International Migration. 2018.
[2] The World Bank. Moving for Prosperity: Global Migration and Labor Markets. World Bank Publications;
[3] Massey (et al) D. Theories of International Migration: A Review and Appraisal.
[4] Stark O, Bloom DE. The New Economics of Labor Migration. 1985.
[5] Mueller CF. The Economics of Labor Migration: A Behavioral Analysis. Elsevier; 2013.
[6] Belloc F. International Economic Assistance and Migration: The Case of Sub-Saharan Countries. Int Migr. 2015;53: 187–201.
[7] Karki S, Burton P, Mackey B. The experiences and perceptions of farmers about the impacts of climate change and variability on crop production: a review. Climate and Development. 2020 [cited 29 Aug 2024]. doi:10.1080/17565529.2019.1603096
[8] Zhang C, Ottenheim C, Weingarten M, Ji L. Microbial Utilization of Next-Generation Feedstocks for the Biomanufacturing of Value-Added Chemicals and Food Ingredients. Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2022;10: 874612.
[9] Heimberger P. Does Economic Globalisation Affect Income Inequality?: A Meta-analysis. 2019.
[10] Polacko M. Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality – An Overview. Statistics, Politics and Policy. 2021;12: 341–357.
[11] Niekerk V, Arno J. Inclusive Economic Sustainability: SDGs and Global Inequality. Sustain Sci Pract Policy. 2020;12: 5427.
[12] Prospects for carbon-negative biomanufacturing. Trends Biotechnol. 2022;40: 1415–1424.
[13] Carbon-negative biomanufacturing of chemicals from waste gases. Chem. 2022;8: 1178–1180.
[14] Liew FE, Nogle R, Abdalla T, Rasor BJ, Canter C, Jensen RO, et al. Carbon-negative production of acetone and isopropanol by gas fermentation at industrial pilot scale. Nat Biotechnol. 2022;40: 335–344.
[15] Mikhaylov A, Moiseev N, Aleshin K, Burkhardt T. Global climate change and greenhouse effect. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues. 2020;7: 2897–2913.
[16] Fawzy S, Osman AI, Doran J, Rooney DW. Strategies for mitigation of climate change: a review. Environ Chem Lett. 2020;18: 2069–2094.
Long term vision
The bioreactor sites will serve as a blueprint for future development.
Our long term goal is charitable and commercial investors and governments building additional biomanufacturing sites, expanding the global bioeconomy network.
This will ultimately amplify the human, economy and ecological impact of this concept worldwide.
Planning for scale
It will take much more than 50 biomanufacturing hubs to reverse climate change and centuries of economic inequality.
This project will have immediate impact at the 50 biomanufacturing sites, and long-term impact of democratizing bioeconomy.
The long term goal will be reached through world-wide scale-up of the biomanufacturing network, starting with 50 sites established through this work. This project will serve as a blueprint for construction of profitable, equitable and just bioproduction facilities, stimulating the local economy through a climate-friendly process.
The scale-up is built into our project. All protocols, procedures, and educational materials developed for the 50 sites will be made accessible to share and replicate. During site setup, we will iterate and learn, gathering experience for building future sites.
More information: info@biobold.org
Images: World Vectors by Vecteezy.