Development of a bioeconomy monitoring framework for the European Union: An integrative and collaborative approach.

Integrative and collaborative process adopted to design the EU Bioeconomy Monitoring System • An EU-wide internationally coherent system to monitor the bioeconomy is described. • The system will provide information on the sustainability of the bioeconomy. • A multi-dimensional and comprehensive framework is required. • EU and international experts have contributed to the design of the system. • The system will be published through the EC's Knowledge Centre for Bioeconomy. The EU Bioeconomy Strategy, updated in 2018, in its Action Plan pledges an EU-wide, internationally coherent monitoring system to track economic, environmental and social progress towards a sustainable bioeconomy. This paper presents the approach taken by the European Commission's (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC) to develop such a system. To accomplish this, we capitalise on (1) the experiences of existing indicator frameworks; (2) stakeholder knowledge and expectations; and (3) national experiences and expertise. This approach is taken to ensure coherence with other bioeconomy-related European monitoring frameworks, the usefulness for decision-making and consistency with national and international initiatives to monitor the bioeconomy. We develop a conceptual framework, based on the definition of a sustainable bioeconomy as stated in the Strategy, for a holistic analysis of the trends in the bioeconomy sectors, following the three pillars of sustainability (economy, society and environment). From this conceptual framework, we derive an implementation framework that aims to highlight the synergies and trade-offs across the five objectives of the Bioeconomy Strategy in a coherent way. The EU Bioeconomy Monitoring System will be publicly available on the web platform of the EC Knowledge Centre for Bioeconomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]