The bioeconomy has the potential to contribute significantly to sustainable development and a just transition. To ensure the sustainable production of bio-based products, it is essential to understand their potential environmental, economic, and social impact. However, the social dimension receives far less attention in sustainability literature and assessments than the environmental and economic dimensions. Especially in the Global South, where a large part of the world's biomass is produced, vulnerable communities are at higher risk of being negatively affected by the bioeconomy. These risks include food insecurity, monoculture expansion, and unequal wealth distribution. Therefore, it is crucial to understand new bio-based value chains' (potential) social impacts better. This paper contributes to this debate by developing a prospective Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) for a bush-based value chain in Namibia. We assessed the existing charcoal value chain and identified potential social risks, impacts, and opportunities of a prospective value chain to produce marine biofuels from encroacher bush. We use this case study to reflect on the SLCA methodology and compare the SLCA results with our qualitative fieldwork based on interviews and a multi-stakeholder workshop. We found that the current methods for SLCA do not adequately capture salient aspects of the local context. SLCA is a good method to quantify some social impacts and to identify social risks in the value chain, such as labor conditions and existing policies. However, the methodology of SLCA currently misses a more nuanced understanding of the context and potential social issues, like issues related to gender and ethnicity, and the adherence to existing policies. We propose adding more context-specific indicators to the risk assessment. In addition, stakeholder engagement is crucial for identifying and assessing relevant social impact categories, and we advocate for incorporating local stakeholders' subjective assessments. This approach allows for the inclusion of softer social impact categories, such as gender and ethnicity-related social norms, which are not easily captured by general indicators.

Promoting inclusive development through public policies is a complex task that presents different challenges and even controversies. The National Program for Biodiesel Production and Use (PNPB) in Brazil is one example of an effort to promote sustainable development within an inclusive strategy with good intentions but many challenges. One of the PNPB goals is to diversify feedstocks for biodiesel production, and oils from the Acrocomia spp. palm genus have the potential to meet this goal. As acrocomia's value chain is under development in Brazil, particularly with a focus on the macaúba palm (Acrocomia aculeata), and in different regions of Latin America, we state that it is possible to develop it with the inclusion of smallholder farmers. In this sense, this paper focuses on analyzing the challenges and opportunities for smallholder productive inclusion in the value chain. Our main question is: How can the participation of smallholders in the cultivation of macaw palm be promoted? The answer to this question is based on literature and field research carried out by the authors. Our study finds opportunities for inclusion, but also four main challenges to be considered with caution: i) the shift from agroextractivism to commercial plantations, ii) the limited acreage available to some small farmers, iii) the slow pace in generating economic results, and iv) negative past experiences with other crops. We emphasize the importance of development strategies that offer incentives, mitigate risks, and guarantee greater security in decision-making for those involved. The available literature about the acrocomia value chain focuses mainly on technical and agronomic aspects, with few outputs on inclusion. In this sense, this paper calls attention to the development of the novel biobased value chains from the acrocomia palm without leaving social responsibility behind.

Bio-based value chains (BBVCs) have often been criticized for their detrimental social and environmental effects. Existing methods such as social impact assessment do not sufficiently address these negative effects because of their limited focus and lack of attention to social justice. This paper explores the contribution of Capability Sensitive Design (CSD) to designing BBVCs for social justice. CSD is a combination of Value Sensitive Design (VSD), an approach to account for human values in a design process, and the Capability Approach (CA), a normative framework that incorporates multiple dimensions of human well-being. Three case studies demonstrate how CSD can be used to make design choices in the early stages of developing new BBVCs from waste biomass. The cases explore olive oil residues in Spain, coffee and cocoa residues in Colombia, and encroacher bush in Namibia. CSD is a relatively new approach and its contribution to social justice in BBVCs remained unexplored. We show that CSD can contribute to distributive, recognition, and procedural justice by allowing the identification of local vulnerable stakeholders and providing tools to connect their needs, knowledge, and capabilities to concrete design choices.

Safe-by-Design (SbD) is a new concept that urges the developers of novel technologies to integrate safety early on in their design process. A SbD approach could—in theory—support the development of safer products and assist a responsible transition to the bioeconomy, via the deployment of safer bio-based and biotechnological alternatives. Despite its prominence in policy discourse, SbD is yet to gain traction in research and innovation practice. In this paper, we examine a frequently stated objection to the initiative of SbD, namely the position that SbD is already common practice in research and industry. We draw upon observations from two case studies: one, a study on the applicability of SbD in the context of bio-based circular materials and, two, a study on stakeholder perceptions of SbD in biotechnology. Interviewed practitioners in both case studies make claims to a strong safety culture in their respective fields and have difficulties differentiating a SbD approach from existing safety practices. Two variations of this argument are discussed: early attentiveness to safety as a strictly formalised practice and early attentiveness as implicit practice. We analyse these perceptions using the theoretical lens of safety culture and contrast them to the aims of SbD. Our analysis indicates that professional identity and professional pride may explain some of the resistance to the initiative of SbD. Nevertheless, SbD could still be advantageous by a) emphasising multidisciplinary approaches to safety and b) offering a (reflective) frame via which implicit attentiveness to safety becomes explicit.

Biomass such as crops and agricultural waste is increasingly used as the primary resource for products like bioplastics and biofuels. Incorporating the needs, knowledge, skills and values of biomass producers in the design of global value chains – the steps involved in creating any finished product from design to delivery – can contribute to sustainability, reliability and fairness. However, how to involve biomass producers, especially if they are resource poor, remains a challenge. To make sure that inclusion in global biobased value chains is both fair and effective, the capabilities of relevant actors need to be taken into account, especially of those producing biomass. Access to resources determines to what extent a specific actor can participate in a global value chain. Therefore, differences in capabilities should be a central consideration when new (biobased) value chains are designed. Using the capability approach as an ethical framework to realize inclusion, we discern three complementary strategies for setting up inclusive value chains. Firstly, designing for local conversion factors second, providing adaptive design for new capabilities, and third, investing in local conversion factors. Applying these strategies can lead to context-sensitive design of biorefineries that allow for true inclusion of local stakeholders. We support these claims with reference to case-studies of sugarcane production in Jamaica, modified tobacco in South Africa and the non-edible parts of corn (stover) in the US.

The recovery of resources, including water reuse, has been presented as a solution to overcome scarcity, and improve the economic and environmental performance of water provision and treatment. However, its implementation faces non-technical challenges, including the need to collaborate with new stakeholders and face societal acceptance issues. Looking at the prominence of the circular economy in current policy developments and the challenges to resource recovery, exploring these issues is urgently needed. In this work, we reviewed a broad range of literature to identify societal values relevant to the recovery of water and other resources from wastewaters, particularly urban and industrial wastewater and desalination brines. We discuss tensions and uncertainties around these values, such as the tension between socio-economic expectations of resource recovery and potential long-term sustainability impacts, as well as uncertainties regarding safety and regulations. For addressing these tensions and uncertainties, we suggest aligning common methods in engineering and the natural sciences with Responsible Innovation approaches, such as Value Sensitive Design and Safe-by-Design. To complement Responsible Innovation, social learning with a Sustainability Transitions or Adaptive Governance perspective is suggested.

In this paper, we provide an overview of how Safe-by-Design is conceived and applied in practice in a large number of engineering disciplines. We discuss the differences, commonalities, and possibilities for mutual learning found in those practices and identify several ways of putting those disciplinary outlooks in perspective. The considered engineering disciplines in the order of historically grown technologies are construction engineering, chemical engineering, aerospace engineering, urban engineering, software engineering, bio-engineering, nano-engineering, and finally cyber space engineering. Each discipline is briefly introduced, the technology at issue is described, the relevant or dominant hazards are examined, the social challenge(s) are observed, and the relevant developments in the field are described. Within each discipline the risk management strategies, the design principles promoting safety or safety awareness, and associated methods or tools are discussed. Possible dilemmas that the designers in the discipline face are highlighted. Each discipline is concluded by discussing the opportunities and bottlenecks in addressing safety. Commonalities and differences between the engineering disciplines are investigated, specifically on the design strategies for which empirical data have been collected. We argue that Safe-by-Design is best considered as a specific elaboration of Responsible Research and Innovation, with an explicit focus on safety in relation to other important values in engineering such as well-being, sustainability, equity, and affordability. Safe-by-Design provides for an intellectual venue where social science and the humanities (SSH) collaborate on technological developments and innovation by helping to proactively incorporate safety considerations into engineering practices, while navigating between the extremes of technological optimism and disproportionate precaution. As such, Safe-by-Design is also a practical tool for policymakers and risk assessors that helps shape governance arrangements for accommodating and incentivizing safety, while fully acknowledging uncertainty.

More pluralised understandings of incumbencies are often overlooked in transitions research, which may lead to underestimating the enabling roles of incumbents in niche projects. This study explores these roles by applying a power framework to five struggles revolving around a path-breaking decentralised wastewater treatment project in the city of Ghent (Belgium). Remarkably, incumbents from multiple regimes use power to enable the niche project. The study identifies and discusses four patterns in the enabling role of incumbents in niche projects. These patterns are clarified by focussing on incumbents from multiple regimes, belonging to local authorities, neighbouring and more distant regimes, as well as on the power of structural trends related to the urgency of sustainability challenges. As such, the study contributes to the understanding of multiple incumbencies and the conditions under which these may reinforce niche projects. For practitioners, the study underscores the role of power dynamics in the water/wastewater sector.