Is ‘Bio-Based’ Activity a Panacea for Sustainable Competitive Growth?

Taking a European Union focus, this paper explicitly models competing uses of biomass to quantify its contribution toward a sustainable low carbon model of economic growth. To this end, a state-of-the-art multisector multiregion modelling tool is combined with a specially developed bio-based variant of a well-known global database. Employing a decomposition method of the market drivers and classifying alternative future pathways, the aim is to understand how public policies can influence the apparent trade-off between the goals of lower carbon economic growth, environmental preservation and sustainable biomass usage. Results reveal that in targeting specific societal goals public policy can be effective, although this can lead to broader economic issues of resource inefficiency and even direct policy conflicts.