Bioeconomy, circular economy and agroindustry 4.0: drivers to emerging technological switchs.

Abstract

The bioeconomy propositions point to an emerging technological switchs from an economy based on fossil energies to an economy based on renewable sources of biomass, toward to carbon sinks. The circular economy propositions seek to break down the closed extract-produce-discard cycle, alternating with the rational reuse of waste in the cleaner production chain. The agroindustry 4.0 propositions bring the digital network connection of physical systems, under the support of Information and Communication Technology, an alternative focused to sustainable and smart agroindustrial value chains. Thus, here is questioned how much the theoretical approaches and the respective technological propositions of bioeconomic, circular economy and agroindustry 4.0 are aligned, with carbon sinks. From this perspective, this theoretical essay focus to consider on the alignments of theoretical approaches and the respective technological propositions of bioeconomic, circular economy and agroindustry 4.0, with carbon sinks. It is qualitative research, with multi and interdisciplinary exploratory approaches. The text aims to be descriptive, found by of a bibliographic review. The results pointed to the existence of a transition from the initial conceptual approach of bioeconomic to a new dimension, sustainable bieconomic, regarding to carbon sinks. The findings recognized that the conceptual approaches and technological propositions of the sustainable bioeconomy are relatively aligned with those of the circular economy, and both are also relatively aligned with agroindustry 4.0. However, restrictions evidenced between the three propositions were warned, which means the existence of challenges to be overcome.