Going Beyond a Circular Economy: A Vision of a Sustainable Economy in Which Material,Value and Information Are Integrated and Circulate Together

Abstract

Foreword

Going Beyond a Circular Economy reflects the authors' fact-based vision of a future economy that transforms from being circular to sustainable. It is a vision roadmap that establishes a path to resource sufficiency, and has been contemplated and written within the frameworks of the VTT strategy, the EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy,¹ the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,² and the Paris Agreement on climate change.³

The approach of this roadmap is to consider the sufficiency of resources, material and energy. Resource sufficiency is a strong force that drives the transition from a linear economy to a circular one and further still towards a sustainable economy. The present transition from a linear to circular economy is inevitable because the abundance of resources we have enjoyed until now is coming to an end. An increase in production, manufacturing and consumption drives economies towards an ever-worsening scarcity of resources, eventually resulting in a battle for resources, both virgin and secondary. In order to escape this scarcity, we need to intensify not only recycling and reuse of materials and substances, as well as the sharing of commodities, but also the production of affordable and sufficiently renewable energy and fresh water.

Loss-resistant recycling, smart mastery of materials, high-performance materials and the use of the atmosphere as a resource reservoir will together enable access to a new era of sustainable resource sufficiency. Certain technological solutions, which are evident and seem implementable but are presently unrealistic due to cost, industrial feasibility or ethical considerations, do not restrict our vision, and if anything, serve to strengthen our resolve. For example, gaseous carbon compounds, nitrogen and water in the atmosphere as well as solar and other renewable energy solutions can all be used as affordable and sufficient resources for the future production of fresh water, food, chemicals and materials.

Editor's Note:

The text presented here is an excerpt of VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland's (Espoo, Finland) recent report, Going Beyond a Circular Economy: A Vision of a Sustainable Economy in Which Material, Value and Information are Integrated and Circulate Together. The report can be found in its entirety at http://campaign.vtt.fi/roadmap. The information and views expressed here are those of the Biotechnology Innovation Association and not necessarily Industrial Biotechnology or Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. and its affiliates.

We envision a circular economy and low-carbon economy as enablers when moving towards a genuinely sustainable economy. This work has been carried out in cross-disciplinary workshops and person-to-person brainstorming sessions with VTT experts from different fields. In addition, experts from industry, industrial associations, ministries, program owners and funding bodies have been interviewed to share their wisdom and broaden our minds. Our special thanks are due to everyone who has taken their time to give their views on a future sustainable economy.

Towards a Sustainable Economy

We offer three visions that establish a path to develop technologies, process concepts and business models as well as ways to produce, manufacture and consume in the future. To partake in the transition from a linear economy to a circular one and beyond requires the courage to abandon established ways of operating on all levels; in society, in business life and as individuals. It requires collaboration that crosses industrial and business-sector borders and engages research and development organizations, civil society, policy makers and education systems.

Ministries (such as the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Ministry of the Environment) need to be on the frontline of this transition, offering background support by easing regulation and assisting in the creation of innovative and collaborative ecosystems that could in turn become thriving business ecosystems.

We propose a platform for collaboration and innovation, open to all dedicated stakeholders, to kick-start planning the concrete steps that need to be taken along the development paths suggested in this publication. The work necessitates impact assessments, feasibility studies and collaborative development projects together with companies across business-sector borders, research organizations, public funding organizations and civil society. Although sustainably produced, reused products and recycled materials are the core business in a circular economy, digitalization, information technologies, servitization and platform economic solutions are enablers that lay the groundwork for the necessary changes. In the future, production, manufacturing and consumption will transform disruptively, entering into a cyberspace in which “everything is connected to everything else” and data creates power by managing with knowledge.

What are the possibilities of artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of things (IoT), digital service platforms, big and open data, as well as blockchain and related technologies to manage trusted digital transactions both for a circular economy and for other economies that may emerge alongside it?

The most tangible benefit of digitalization is an increase in resource efficiency. Primary and secondary materials and products can be funneled, used and reused in the most optimal ways by exploiting digital systems, automation and robotization. Data will become a marked productive means besides concrete resources such as raw materials or energy; management of data will mean management of material flows.

The value of a material increases when a service element is linked to it. We need concrete actions to be taken to push a circular economy from being material and product-centric towards a data-driven and service-centric operation model that significantly reduces the overall use of natural resources and stops further extraction.

Going digital will most certainly create new operational value creation and business models, and eventually a business branch. If we do not do it ourselves, somebody else certainly will. Stakeholders that can see this progress will be the competitive leaders of the economies and capable of staying ahead of the game.

Value Creation in a Circular Economy and Beyond

Future business will be conducted in a situation in which a scarce supply of resources and environmental concerns increase prices, cause price volatility and create uncertainty. It should be a trigger for companies to innovate solutions to do “more with less and cleaner.” Many studies have attempted to estimate the value of a circular economy, but with disparate conclusions.⁴ This is due to the complexity of a circular economy per se and a lack of common indicators and definitions to measure value creation in a circular economy compared with existing economic models.

Disconnecting the economy and business from resource over-exploitation requires innovative technological solutions, firstly to recycle non-renewable and critical materials, and secondly to replace them with renewable alternatives. Renewable material solutions have been seen to gain ground in technical products such as electronic and electrical devices. In addition, future product or process solutions that generate excess material or energy, rather than only consume them, will become more important (see Chapter 5 of VTT's full report). An existing example is consumer solar panels, which pay back their production and running costs over time, after which they produce excess energy that can be sold to the common energy market.

However, these novel concepts face regulatory obstacles that need to be overcome. A circular economy is a route into a genuinely sustainable economy in which material, information and value circulate together.

Integrated supply and value chains aim at waste-less and emission-less circulation and cascading use of materials and products, thereby optimizing resources. The essential objective is to keep substances, materials and products in circulation as long as possible and to keep their value as high as possible. Achieving this objective necessitates actions from all stakeholders throughout the entire material and product life cycle, not only when they are ready for disposal, or to be transferred to the next life via reuse or recycling.

Cascading use of materials is a central topic emphasizing end products of high value instead of a direct conversion to low-value end products or end uses, which is often seen as the easiest way to get rid of loss and waste with present technological abilities and in present non-collaborative business environments. Realizing longer product life cycles requires premeditated design starting from the material level, covering production and manufacture and ending with the design of products and ways to consume. Resource efficiency becomes a reality, as product lay days are reduced to zero by increasing the number of users benefitting from the same products and sharing easy access to products and services enabled by service platforms. This might also mean a need to update legislation and taxation.

In many countries the transition from a linear economy to a circular economy is hampered by outdated regulations that do not support development of technologies or new operational and business models.

Reshaping Existing Operational Business Models

Overall global material extraction has multiplied tenfold since the beginning of the 20th century, starting at 7 billion tonnes per year in 1900 and reaching 84.4 billion tonnes per year in 2015.^5,6 We continuously use more resources than the planet is capable of producing. At the current rate of development, the global demand for materials is estimated to reach 180 billion tonnes per year by 2050.^7,8 The balance between the planet's biocapacity and human ecological insatiability already had its turning point during the late 1960s.⁹ Eleven years ago, in 2007, the so-called Ecological Debt Day¹⁰ was in October. In 2018 humankind had already used nature's annual supplies by August.¹¹

According to the law of conservation of mass, material does not cease to exist. Currently, material accumulates in new, unpredictable and difficult-to-reach or challenging locations such as in the atmosphere, in water systems and the deep sea, in landfills and waste heaps—or is scattered haphazardly in the environment in forms that are difficult to collect and convert for reuse. The global economy has increased material stock on a macro level 23-fold, and this increase is in line with the growth in GDP, which has increased 27-fold.⁵ The amount of primary material used to build up or renew stocks grew from 1 billion tonnes per year to 36 billion tonnes per year over the same period of time, from 1900–20105. The world is not capable of providing this amount of virgin materials at all, much less sustainably. We have become accustomed to using materials and goods briefly and disposing of them when they no longer serve their purpose, and have now reached a crossroads where we must consider alternatives to today's consumption behavior. The recognized alternative is material and product circulation, which in its purest form means wastelessness and never-ending material cycles. However, keeping materials in never-ending circulation is utopian wishful thinking, even purposeless. Today, material circulation reaches less than 10%,⁶ which is alarmingly low. Increasing circularity, for example to 50%, would require fundamental and visionary changes at all levels of economies worldwide.

The irrevocability and imperative of a transition towards a sustainable economy challenges companies and communities to explore novel ways to thrive and create value. The kick-start moment is at hand. Making profit is obviously an essential element in value creation, but environmental and social sustainability are increasingly important. Circular business models focus on supporting long-life materials and products, reuse, cascading use, renewability and regeneration, integrating production processes and the sharing of goods. “It is about finding ways to move revenue generation from selling physical stuff to providing access to it and optimizing its performance along the entire value chain.”¹² Business is done in collaboration using integrated systems in which value chains are linked, thereby avoiding loss and leakage.

One of the necessary changes could be concurrent energy production and chemical compound recovery of organic and biological materials and substances that have reached the end of their life. Existing technological solutions enable the recovery of CO₂, CO, and H₂ in addition to energy. These gaseous compounds can be returned into circulation as raw materials. They can be refined by chemical and biotechnical means into new materials and substances provided affordable, emission-less energy is available in sufficient amounts.

Reshaping existing business models is a necessity on the way to change. The impact of a quantum improvement of current models will not be enough. There is a need to revolutionize the economic structure. We will have to forget how business is done today and start anew.

Yet another change is the transition from ownership to sharing or leasing. Material producers and product manufacturers sell services and the right to use them rather than the materials or commodities themselves. A service and leasing element added to a material or product increases its value to both consumer and producer. This new way of operating focuses on optimal use of resources and designing intelligent, high-performance material solutions that enable long-lasting and value-retaining commodities that are easily reused or recycled, provided these activities are organized in a way that does not cause a rebound effect,¹³ such as increased consumption and consequently increased production, meaning that what is thought to be sustainable actually results in an increase in the use of materials and energy. All of these changes necessitate systemic thinking, resilient enabling and on-time regulation, innovative material and product solutions, novel operational and business models, and industrial renewal enabled by diverse digital and big and open data-based solutions. For example, starting from integrating intelligence into materials and ending with collecting and analyzing big and open data to plan efficient circulation, as well as global digital platforms to trace and trade materials and goods in circulation.

Achieving a Sustainable Economy Requires Massive Digitalization

The exponential rise in digitalization has already had a huge impact on our society during the last decade. Digital connectivity has brought with it tremendous opportunities, and one of them is a circular economy. However, the leverage of the digital connectivity level that we are discussing in this vision paper is much more extensive. Traceability, quality information and condition estimation of the materials and products requires massive digitalization of the material-related operations from extraction to production and end use, as well as the restoration of materials back into use. The goal is to collect data from all stages of material circulation and share it in ecosystems where materials exist and circulate. Added value will be tapped through the information that is analyzed from the data that is gathered at different stages of the material circulation. The more the different factors in the ecosystems communicate and share data, the greater the understanding achieved.

Currently, most digitalized environments operate through centralized systems, which is a limiting factor in building informational natural resource management. To realize this vision, we need to move from a centralized towards a decentralized network of systems where all of the crucial assets and operations are connected.

Accelerating the growth of distributed networks is vital in transitioning to a network of systems. The goal is to connect all existing separate networks that carry critical information about material flows and assets. By connecting different networks, communication and data access will be dramatically intensified. Data flow provided by this transition will allow precise calculations for all resources used worldwide and enable real-time optimization of the material circulation. A network of systems will open up a world where all of the critical decisions regarding natural resource utilization are made based on precise real-time information. Extensively connected systems will enable, for example, feedback from the consumer directly to the material owner or manufacturer, which in turn enables a fast response to a consumer's needs. Unnecessary or incorrect material use, product variations or manufacturing steps can be avoided. Besides providing information about efficient and deliberate material circulation, real-time information is available about, for example, the real-time state or availability of natural resources. Transparent big data enhances an open dialogue between stakeholders in ecosystems, which in turn creates the shared holistic view that is needed for building a sustainable and resilient society. The transition to a network of systems has to take place as we move towards 2030 to accelerate the transition from a linear to a sustainable circular economy, and thus have an impactful effect on reducing material use and extraction. This might happen even faster than expected. The transition towards a network of systems is going on already and is taking place in different locations and at different speeds. The faster all of the crucial operations are digitalized and connected, the better prerequisites to enter into a genuinely sustainable economy.

Megatrends and Key Factors Affecting the Transition to a Sustainable Economy

The transition towards a sustainable economy is influenced by several current and emerging megatrends and drivers. Resource sufficiency, climate change, population growth and the expansion of the global middle class are all creating increasing sustainability challenges for the planet. Increasing resource insufficiency as well as worsening climate change and its implications for the environment raise some important questions: How do we maintain economic growth without compromising the wellbeing of nature and people, and how do we find solutions to decouple economic growth from the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources with minimal greenhouse gas emissions? The digital transformation of industries and society is a megatrend that supports the transition towards a sustainable economy on all levels, from optimized material life cycles to circular business models.

Global megatrends not only challenge the existing economic model but also have an impact on the development towards a circular economy and beyond. A circular economy evolves gradually from the existing linear economic approach, eventually disrupting it. This process does not take place in isolation. The current and emerging economic models co-evolve along with other economic models. A circular economy has many shared goals with a low-carbon economy, which battles climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions with non-carbon energy sources (including solar, wind, water and geothermal energy) and aims to improve resource efficiency through energy intelligence and carbon capture and utilization (CCU). Carbon reuse and CCU, which refers to the separation of CO₂ from flue gases for example, combined with the use of the captured CO₂ either as such, or as a source of carbon for other chemical and biochemical processes, is seen as part of a new materials economy.

A traditional materials economy focuses on the extraction and utilization of raw materials, both non-renewable and renewable, and operates according to linear economy principles. Just as with a circular economy, a new materials economy strongly emphasizes the value of raw materials and waste minimization. Sustainable extraction, production, use and reuse of both non-renewables and renewables can be seen as elements of the new materials economy that should also emphasize recycling critical raw materials over utilization of virgin alternatives.

The mineral economy and bioeconomy, as part of the materials economy, are also drivers for circular economies. Research, development and innovation are at the center of a new materials economy. The development of sustainable substituent materials and new, safe materials is driven by scientific and technological advancements, for example in industrial biotechnology and synthetic biology. New technologies for intelligent material circulation, extraction of materials from urban sources (for example the rise of urban mining) and accelerated nitrogen and carbon circulation speed up the transition towards a circular economy. Growing urbanization will increase the importance of cities and their role as economic engines in this evolution.

The evolution of platform and data economies is enabled by the fast development of digital and information technology (IT) solutions. Improved processes, materials and product design rely on the use of big data and artificial intelligence to improve resource efficiency. Digital platforms also play a crucial role in the development of service and sharing economies as part of a circular economy. Dematerialization, together with servitization, are important factors in decoupling economic growth from raw material use and its environmental effects: physical items can often be replaced with digital ones or services that significantly reduce overall material use.

Three Visions of a Sustainable Economy

This publication highlights three visions that the authors believe can ensure future resource sufficiency by moving via a circular economy (present situation and near future) towards a sustainable economy in the distant future. The visions are seen to emerge successively over the next two decades, or even sooner, and all effectively complement one another and enable a future in which resources are sufficient for frugal, sustainable and intelligent production of food, fresh water, materials, commodities and energy. Comprehensive material and chemical compound circulation, value maximization, energy transition, increasing data accumulation and exploitation, as well as information flow in networks, form the main thread of these visions: 1) Loss-resistant loops, 2) Mastery of materials and 3) The new era of resource sufficiency.

Loss-Resistant Loops

Loss-resistant loops describe the prerequisites for the transition from the current linear economy to a circular economy. In today's world, materials are still abundant enough to keep production and consumption going at full speed, accumulating waste and depleting virgin resources along the way. Although resources are available, increasing environmental debt is resulting in severe damage. Insufficiency and eventually a loss of resources are seen, which requires immediate and efficient corrective actions. Production, manufacturing and consumption are therefore integrated to form loops that enable the enhanced circulation of materials and substances aiming at reducing waste and emissions, and increasing resource efficiency. Creating these so-called loss-resistant loops requires solutions for sustainable and clean energy, cascading use of primary and secondary materials, and material design that enables long-lasting reuse of products and full recyclability. Data-driven systems manage efficient material and product production and circulation. The focus is on transitioning from waste management to material flow management (For more information on loss-resistant loops, see VTT's full report).

Mastery of Materials

In the vision of mastery of materials, data and materials are fused together. Materials become intelligent, safe, traceable and identifiable. The need for intelligent materials and products is a consequence of the predominant resource scarcity. This development leads to volatility of raw material prices and the emergence of new business opportunities such as “material as a service.” In this vision, masters of raw materials have control of supply and value chains, which is possible only when the mastery can be authenticated. Information fuses with materials to make them identifiable and traceable during endless flows from cycle to cycle and transforming anew along the way. Open data clouds help to ensure that material supply and demand are more evenly matched. Fluent data-driven material flow management is the focus (For more information on Mastery of Materials, see VTT's full report).

The New era of Resource Sufficiency

The new era of resource sufficiency will rely on radical innovations enabling sufficient access to affordable, sustainable and renewable energy as well as life-supporting and life-facilitating compounds and materials made extensively of gaseous raw materials and fully recycled minerals without compromising the capacity of the planet ( Table 1 ). In addition to industrial exhaust gas and traffic emissions, the atmosphere is a significant reservoir of CO₂ together with other essential elements such as nitrogen and compounds such as water. The new era of resource sufficiency will rely on technological innovations enabling the use of atmospheric raw materials. Instead of being restricted to selected locations, resources will be available everywhere.

Table 1.

The Path for Change from a Battle for Resources to Resource Sufficiency

	SITUATION IN 2025	REQUIRED CHANGE	FUTURE VISION, BEYOND 2050
Materials	The carbon balance of industrial ecosystems is at a tipping point. Material loops are loss-resistant. CO₂ capture and storage is commonplace in industry. The battle for resources, particularly in relation to critical raw materials and water, is being won.	Substituting critical nonrenewable materials with renewable alternatives. Development of high-performing materials. Development of solutions to convert captured CO₂ and atmospheric compounds into food, chemicals and materials.	Food, chemicals and materials are produced in an environmentally friendly way. Everything physical circulates in a way that imitates natural circulations, but in an accelerated and controlled manner. Renewable materials are largely replacing exhausting non-renewables.
Energy	Carbon-based energy production is undergoing radical change; there is not enough organic or biomaterial available for energy production. A significant proportion of global energy is sustainable, but it is not sufficient to cover all needed operations.	Acceleration of self-sufficient devices that use and provide sustainable energy. Flexible and scalable solutions to capture sustainable energy from different resources.	Most energy is sustainable. A substantial amount of devices are self-sufficient and provide sustainable energy.
Data	Big data is exploited for all critical activities, such as resource management, health and wellbeing, and education.	Development of a network of systems to manage massive digitalization of all critical assets.	The world is managed by data, enabling resource sufficiency. Data is exploited to produce nutritious food and high-performance materials.

Man-made, intelligent and programmable molecules are synthesized of fully recycled substances. We can fight the battle for resources, forcing resource scarcity and climate change to fall by offering high-performance compounds and materials based on biological functionalities or, beyond this, materials which are produced as needed, on-demand and with features non-existent in nature. By this point the boundary between non-renewables and renewables will blur. The possibilities are limitless. Materials are designed to be assembled and disassembled on a molecular level, thus making them reusable in multiple applications. Insufficiency of nutritional food is a serious problem due to concomitant population growth and declining food production because of failing cultivation conditions caused by climate change and the reduction of arable land in areas where the need for food is the most urgent. Although moderate warming and CO₂ level increase is mostly beneficial for agriculture, severe warming followed by erosion, floods, drought and other natural calamities is becoming more common. Livestock is at risk because of diminished fresh water supply and edible feed is primarily fed to people. Although measures are being taken to limit GHG emissions through the use of technological solutions and regulative actions, they are not enough. Climate change and the deprivation of land use have already had a negative impact on nature. Disruptive new innovations in primary and industrial production emerge to overcome these challenges.

The capability to use atmospheric raw materials enables access to sustainable, life-supporting and life-facilitating compounds and materials without compromising the capacity of the planet. Population growth is predicted to increase the need for food by 70% towards 2050.¹⁴ To tackle this threat, the sufficiency of sustainable, renewable and emission-less energy must first be secured. By this period, if not before, carbon-based energy production is experiencing radical change as there might not be enough of even the lowest-value organic or biomaterial available for energy production. Turning back to fossil is not an option. Businesses will evade the CO₂ risk and invest in non-carbon energy solutions such as solar, wind, geothermal, wave and nuclear power. By definition, the sun is an infinite source of energy. Technological solutions are approaching such readiness levels that enable feasible and sufficient solar energy supply together with wireless electricity transfer solutions. Novel technologies for energy storage will evolve to mitigate the variations in the solar energy availability on a seasonal and regional basis.

Gasification and other thermal processes are increasingly used to produce simple carbon compounds and hydrogen from end-of-life organic and biomaterials, and these compounds serve as feedstock for chemical compound and material synthesis and production. Minerals and metals are recovered from ash and other fully recycled sources. Apart from non-carbon solutions, energy is generated in thermal processes as a co-product together with CO₂, CO, and H₂, the capture and utilization of which are common practice. Energy-self-sufficient and energy-regenerative material and product solutions are increasingly in use to ease sustainable energy sufficiency.

In the first phase of carbon capture and utilization (CCU) CO₂ will serve as a starting material for a number of chemical compounds, some of which are converted to materials by biological and chemical means. This phase is followed by food production provided other necessary components, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, are sustainably available. Although biomass reserves are used in a cascading manner, population growth and an increased need for food necessitate novel raw material reserves to be taken into use to provide food for all people. Traditional agricultural and aquacultural production will not be enough to feed the human population and livestock. In the future sufficient and affordable sustainable energy makes it possible to direct CCU to produce food and offer clean, fresh water to all people and livestock and for the irrigation of plantations. Agriculture, water systems and nature in general can recover in dried and wasted areas. This development strengthens climate change mitigation and eases the evident geopolitical pressures caused by increasingly uneven distribution of fresh water, food and bioresources. Nevertheless, turning back to the present-day overproduction and conspicuous consumption will no longer be an option.

Nature has amazing capability to convert atmospheric CO₂ into sugars and further still into a plethora of other compounds. Photosynthesis also requires water and an energy source—the sun. The man-made conversion of CO₂ into chemical compounds and materials mimics nature's own way of producing multiform biomass. Currently, the most promising synthesis routes include the exploitation of microbes using CO₂ and sunlight, microbes using CO₂ and hydrogen and microbes using reduced one-carbon molecules (carbon monoxide, methane, methanol) as nutrients for growth.¹⁵

In the new era of resource sufficiency, no distinction is made between bio-based and fossil feedstocks as the original source of CO₂ is irrelevant. By definition, the utilization of fossil resources is reduced significantly from the present state. The newly generated CO₂ emissions come from the thermal conversion of biomass and organic end-of-life products as well as iron, steel and cement production, deforestation and land clearing for agriculture. As gaseous emissions from industry are increasingly captured for use, at some point in time we will witness a tipping point. The worldwide renewable biomass growth and CCU together will exceed CO₂ emissions, eventually leading to a negative carbon balance. CO₂ will not dilute out from the atmosphere altogether, but return to natural levels.

Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen together make up 96% of living matter—all these elements are available in the atmosphere.

Nature's synthesis power supports the return to the era of resource sufficiency. Microbes convert organic waste to desirable products via biotechnical and biological processes. They also exploit CO₂ and N₂ by nature. Biological and biotechnical processes are combined with chemical ones. In thermochemical processes heterogeneous and fluctuating organic matter is converted to simple carbon compounds, which natural and engineered microbes use for biosynthetic reactions. Living cells are factories that produce a variety of products ranging from chemicals and materials to food.

Case: What if there would be no need for oil, arable land or fresh water to produce nutritious food and functional materials?

In addition to optional routes for capturing and producing chemicals and materials from CO₂, fixing atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia (converted further to amino acids and proteins by either natural or engineered microbes) enables food production from “thin air.” The atmosphere is also a notable reservoir of water. The ability of certain autotrophic microbes, with the help of electricity to reduce CO₂ to simple hydrocarbons, such as methane or methanol, has been known for many decades.^16,17 Harnessing the microbial ability to fix nitrogen for industrial use is an alternative to be reckoned with, as the industrial nitrogen fixation process (Haber-Bosch synthesis of ammonia) is an energy-intensive process that emits significant amounts of CO₂. Food production is decoupled from agriculture, livestock husbandry and aquaculture. In turn this will partially solve the challenges related to land use, eutrophication of water systems, over-fishing and climate change. The environmental impacts are minimized to zero, and eventually solutions for producing personalized and nutritious food at home will be realized, although centralized closed, controlled and optimized food production “farms” will also emerge. Food production is no longer dependent on any specific temperature, humidity, soil type or region, and as such a food source can also be provided in locations that suffer from famine and lack of arable land due to drought and erosion.

Synthetic biology will revolutionize future production. Industrial biotechnology is revolutionized by synthetic biology, a combination of biology, engineering and information technologies.¹⁵ Synthetic biology paves the way for multiple applications responding to requirements caused by climate change, resource scarcity and waste accumulation. It enables 1) the development of powerful biocatalysts targeted to convert challenging heterogeneous organic and biomaterials into useful chemicals and materials with minimal environmental impact; 2) design and synthesis of high-performance molecules and materials, existing and non-existing in nature; 3) design and construction of production microbes needing less carbon and energy compared to their natural counterparts; 4) design and construction of microbes capable of synthetizing predetermined molecules and building blocks for information-containing and high performance materials; as well as 5) modelling and design of resilient microbe populations capable of converting a vast array of heterogeneous and transforming waste streams into defined molecules. Synthetic biology is a disrupting technology that will blur the boundary between renewable and non-renewable materials.

The boundary between nonrenewable and renewable will blur when we enter the new era of resource sufficiency. Critical raw materials (CRMs) are economically and strategically important but have a high risk associated with their supply. They are particularly important in electronics, environmental technologies and the automotive, aerospace, defense, health and steel sectors, but are currently lacking feasible substitutes.¹⁸ Synthetic biology focuses on synthetizing materials having similar (or better) functionalities as their natural analogues, for example spider silk. No doubt synthetic biology will possess the power to create molecular solutions that can be used to replace, for example, precious metals in electronics. Information technologies, bioinformatics and computational design of organisms and molecules together enable the synthesis of a limitless variety of compounds and materials essential to life. Biosciences in many application fields generate huge amounts of data. This data is converted into mathematical models and algorithms as well as further to programmed organisms that produce predetermined compounds. Biological compounds and materials have excellent life-supporting properties due to billions of years of development carried out by nature itself through evolution. Nature is a mastermind in creating high-performance materials, such as feather, mother-of-pearl, spider silk and cellulose, to name just a few. Even so, synthetic biology can beat nature when it comes to bringing completely novel functionalities to materials and how these materials are produced. Nature provides an abundance of materials in impressive packages, such as cellulose in trees, feathers on a peacock, or pearls in shells. Going synthetic liberates us from these packages, which have essential tasks in nature's grand ecosystem but are unnecessary and extravagant from the efficient and frugal chemical and material production viewpoint.

Case: Future agile biorefineries–creating specialty and high-performance materials from CO₂

What if we could produce high-performance materials based on solid knowledge of what society needs? To avoid the production of unnecessary and excess materials we need technological and business solutions to produce the right materials for use; at the same time, we also need accurate information on what is needed. Information gained by taking advantage of big data and digital solutions will allow us to design production based on precise information on what is needed and what the specific criteria are for production and manufacturing to be able to answer the demand precisely using resources optimally.

Cellulose is one of the most important raw materials for future product applications.¹⁹ New building blocks (nanocellulose, hemicelluloses, dissolving pulp) are already replacing oil-based and non-biodegradable plastics in consumables. Digital data management and transfer makes it easy to predict the market need and to react in real time to the production of different products.

Currently, cellulosic pulp production in modern biorefineries is a carbon-neutral process that does not require fossil raw materials or energy. In addition to cellulosic pulp, biorefineries produce many other products, such as lignin and ash that are valuable intermediates for chemicals or fertilizers. The pulping chemicals are recovered by combusting the dissolved organic matter, and the amount of energy produced during this process exceeds the needs of the biorefinery.

The chemical recovery cycle of pulp biorefineries produces significant amounts of CO₂ and will continue to do so in the future. However, instead of emitting CO₂ into the atmosphere as happens at present, it will be captured and transformed first into commodity chemicals and further to materials and even food. This will be achieved by artificial photosynthesis or other synthesis routes that convert CO₂ and water in the presence of carbon neutral energy into carbohydrates and oxygen, just like nature does in photosynthetic plants. In the biorefineries of the future, engineered microbes will produce specialty cellulose and other high-performing materials from the exhaust gas. Biotechnically engineered microorganisms will allow the production of entirely novel types of cellulosic polymers that are free of the functional limitations of plant celluloses. They embrace information needed for identification and traceability in whatever product the cellulose is used. Alteration of the cellulose degree of polymerization, nanofibril width, crystallinity, crystal structure and sizes as well as embedding information and novel functional groups is used to tailor cellulose properties, enabling applications in which plant cellulose does not meet the requirements.

Circularity and the Energy Dilemma

Energy is one of the critical challenges of our time. Together with the digital transition, a world where all materials circulate without generating waste and emissions necessitates a transition from fossil to sufficient sustainable energy. The dilemma of consolidating energy and the circular economy can be expressed simply: demand for energy is growing, meaning there is a need to generate more energy, but this energy must be produced in an emission-free way. The growth rate of the sustainable energy share is promising, though the pace is not rapid enough to combat climate change. Approximately 80% of the energy consumed is still from fossil stocks, the rest being from renewable sources like biomass, solar, wind, hydro, tidal, wave and geothermal heat.²⁸ There is an urgent need to increase the capacity of sustainable energy (For more information on Circularity and the Energy Dilemna, see VTT's full report).

Conclusions and Suggested Actions on How to Reach a Sustainable Future

This work wishes to attest that although global resource sufficiency and sustainability challenges are immense, they are beatable. We need to be open-minded enough to accept that increasing resource insufficiency will inevitably lead to a situation where we must be dauntless in pursuing radically ambitious technological, business and societal innovations to enable recovery and a return to resource sufficiency. Mere recycling of materials, however efficient, as well as carbon-neutral energy solutions, will not save us from making resource insufficiency and climate change worse. Starting to beat the challenges necessitates pragmatic “first things first” solutions:

investing in resource and energy-efficient processes

prioritizing energy saving in the most energy-intensive production and manufacturing processes

keeping critical non-renewables in circulation

developing feasible carbon capture and storage solutions

It is nevertheless clear that radical “propeller-head” inventions and innovations in the form of technologies and operational models in societies and business life, as well as among individuals, will change the direction of the progress we are being confined to follow. Some glimpses of these innovations have been presented in this paper. Servitization concepts need a nudge towards materials. Efficient material flow management and intelligent materials would be a significant factor in terms of intensifying resource efficiency, material circulation and material performance. At the same time, development in energy and other production should result in process and business concepts that enable emission-less production by capturing off-gases for use as raw materials.

The rewards of success belong to those who have the courage to quickly make the first radical moves. This requires broad-minded collaboration, new networks and new ways of thinking. We need flag-bearers and forerunners in disruptive technology development and application, and we should support industrial sectors to connect with each other and jump out of the “linear inertia” towards circular activity and further—beyond the obvious!

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