Contesting the framing of bioeconomy policy in Germany: the NGO perspective

ABSTRACT

Civil society has so far been little involved in bioeconomy discussions. In 2019, German non-governmental organizations (NGOs) concerted their criticism towards the bioeconomy policy in Germany in two joint statements. Assuming that such developments may further polarize the societal debate on bioeconomy, we set out to understand the NGOs’ criticism, as well as their framing of bioeconomy as opposed to the bioeconomy understanding at the federal level. We find that in many cases the bioeconomy frames emerging from policy documents differ substantially from those of NGOs. Despite lacking a common bioeconomy vision, NGOs agree on the same existing set of problems which are mainly related to the neoliberal (green) growth narrative advocated in federal policy documents. Drawing on deliberative governance concepts, we discuss ways how both NGOs and policymakers can bring bioeconomy into the contemporary public debate and thus allow for different, and perhaps more diverse interpretations of the bioeconomy.

KEYWORDS:

• Bioeconomy
• framing theory
• social movement
• Germany
• NGOs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Translation by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lena Riemann

Lena Riemann is research assistant at the Chair of Forest and Environmental Policy at the University of Freiburg where she works on different societal aspects and stakeholder perceptions of the transition to a forest-based bioeconomy.

Alexandru Giurca

Alexandru Giurca is executive manager at the Heidelberg Center for the Environment (HCE). His main interests and expertise are in the broader area of bioeconomy, spanning from sustainability transformations, innovation networks and environmental communication, with a particular focus on the actors, policies and politics of the forest-based sector.

Daniela Kleinschmit

Daniela Kleinschmit is professor for Forest and Environmental Policy and Vice-President for Internationalization and Sustainability at the University of Freiburg. Her areas of expertise include: forest governance, bioeconomy, policy integration, participation and political communication.