The producer society and the transition towards a biobased society

Abstract

The biobased economy is a concept proposed by policymakers to accommodate the transition towards a sustainable society. This concept however is not familiar outside of policymaking and some academic circles, while a socio-technical transition supposes the shared commitment of the whole society. The need for this commitments becomes even bigger as society develops into a network society, which becomes increasingly irresponsive to one-sided governmental command.The paper contends that this dual problem should be overcome, the concept of a producer's society is introduced as a policymaker's perspective that allows the resolution of the need for having wide societal commitment to the transition towards a biobased economy and the need to make have a government that can address the network society in an effective manner. The concept of the producer's society entails that government should see citizens as the producers of their own environment, instead of either inactive policy consumers or active deliberative citoyens.