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\begin{document}

\title{Educating the managers of the bioeconomy}



\author[1]{Rosaria Ciriminna}%
\author[1]{Lorenzo Albanese}%
\author[1]{Francesco Meneguzzo}%
\author[1]{Mario Pagliaro}%
\affil[1]{Affiliation not available}%


\vspace{-1em}



  
  \date{May 08, 2024}


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\subsection*{\texorpdfstring{\textsuperscript{}Abstract}{Abstract}}

{\label{443446}}

The educational gap for which science is not taught to managers, and
management is not taught to scientists, is a significant obstacle to a
company's success also in the bioeconomy field. Companies worldwide
eagerly seek for new managers, researchers and technologists owning new
knowledge and skills in topics spanning from circular production
processes through new energy technologies and green chemistry. Most
employers, however, have difficulty recruiting qualified professionals
due to the shortage of qualified professionals. This shortage includes
bioeconomy managers capable to successfully lead bioeconomy companies.
Shaping the managers of successful bioeconomy companies, we argue in
this study, requires to transfer a closer understanding of the nature of
bioeconomy companies and their competitive landscape, as well as
identifying the main guiding principles for managing these
organizations.

\subsection*{1 Introduction}

{\label{524799}}

In the bioeconomy, the production of useful substances and of useful
energy starts from biological resources and from renewable energy
sources, respectively.\textsuperscript{1} The root cause of this shift
is closely related to the end of low cost (or ``easy to extract'') oil
which has literally driving the growth of global wealth and human
population since the early 1930s.\textsuperscript{2,3} Currently, new
bioeconomy companies worldwide eagerly seek for new managers,
researchers and technologists gifted with new knowledge and skills in
topics spanning from circular production processes through new energy
technologies and green chemistry. In Canada, for example, in 2008 a
labour market report noted that nearly half of companies active in the
bioeconomy (at that time chiefly identified with biotechnology) were
dealing with a shortage of ``skilled/experienced workers'' with at least
one-quarter of all companies reporting vacant
positions.\textsuperscript{4}

Thirteen years later, the situation was unchanged, with ``nearly
two-thirds of employers'' surveyed having difficulty recruiting
qualified professionals ``due to a lack of skilled, experienced
talent``. As a result, the team found, ``bioeconomy employers compete
for talent among themselves'' and ``with other sectors for candidates
with technical skills''.\textsuperscript{5} This shortage includes
bioeconomy managers, namely managers capable to lead bioeconomy
companies to successfully develop and market new bioderived products and
renewable energy services.

Accordingly, a recent (2019) survey of the educational gaps amid 192
bioeconomy companies, in European countries, and mostly in Spain,
identified management amid the six main general competences found to be
deficitary.\textsuperscript{6}

The importance of bioeconomy education is now widely recognized in both
economically developed and developing countries. The ``outstanding
feature of the bioeconomist'', wrote Lask and co-workers in 2017, ``is
interdisciplinary expertise built up from disciplinary
expertise''.\textsuperscript{7} To shape these professionals, the team
concluded, requires an interdisciplinary approach and new learning
environments. Several universities across the world have launched new
Master of Science (MSci) programmes in the bioeconomy.

Examples span from the 2 year Master ``Bioeconomy'' offered by the
University of Hoenheim in Germany since 2014, through the Master in
Bioeconomy and the Circular Economy held in Italy since 2017. Though
open also to students with a degree in social and economic sciences,
these Master programs either aim to educate ``the type of scientists
needed to successfully make this transition''\textsuperscript{8} or
provide ``a rich combination of theoretical perspectives on life science
innovation with a practical focus on the dynamics of the bioeconomy and
its value chains''.\textsuperscript{9}

In general, the educational programs of these Master courses include
both scientific and economic topics, in agreement with a 2012 study in
which Pagliaro identified the urgency to renew the education of both
scientists and managers by closing the ``two-cultures''
gap.\textsuperscript{10} Shaping the managers of successful bioeconomy
companies, we highlight in this study, requires to transfer a closer
understanding of the nature of bioeconomy companies and their
competitive landscape, as well as identifying the guiding principles for
managing said companies.

\subsection*{2 Guiding principles for managing bioeconomy
companies}

{\label{112913}}

Managers of successful bioeconomy companies need first a closer
understanding of the nature of bioeconomy companies and their
competitive environment.

Producing useful substances and functional materials from biological
resources, these companies actually are chemical companies competing
with existing chemical manufacturers deriving their products either
directly from oil or from oil-derived chemicals. From
bioplastics\textsuperscript{11} through biobased monomers and fine
chemicals, this simple fact explains why in the last thirty years
(1990-2020) many bioeconomy companies attempting to produce biobased
substances and materials either failed or abandoned the original plans
after investing tens or even hundreds of millions of
dollars.\textsuperscript{12} A few names of a truly long list include
Cere plast, Vertellus Specialties, TerraVia, Metabolix and Rennovia in
the USA, Bio-On and Mossi Ghisolfi in Italy, BioAmber in Canada, Leaf
Resources in Australia, and Bio-Xcell in Malaysia.

The highly integrated petrochemical industry, indeed, not only starts
its productions from self-produced feedstocks obtained from oil
transferred from its oil (``petro'') division, but also relies on highly
efficient, heterogeneously catalyzed continuous
processes.\textsuperscript{13} This allows the industry to produce
virtually all synthetic polymers (invented between the 1930s and the
late 1960s) at very low cost and in huge amounts. Furthermore, the
industry has not been harmed by oil price volatility because when oil
price is high, revenues from fuel sales increase and largely compensate
reduced sales of petrochemicals due to higher selling prices. Under
these conditions, it is necessary for bioeconomy company managers to
learn from the few examples of successful companies.

\subsection*{2.1 Low volume, high margin
bioproducts}

{\label{916497}}

Management consultants studying companies using synthetic biology
production processes (\emph{i.e.} , fermentation) lately identified
three approaches common to successful companies, namely \emph{i} )
target low volume, high margin products; \emph{ii} ) license technology;
and\emph{iii} ) adopt modular manufacturing using multiple small
fermenters distributed globally, in place of a large fermenter in one
facility, to flexibly meet demand from different
regions.\textsuperscript{14}Examples identified by the consultants
include France-based Global Bio\selectlanguage{ngerman}énergies now producing cellulosic
isobutene for cosmetic products rather than for making fuels, and
USA-based Genomatica licensing its sugar fermentation route to
1,4-butanediol to Italy's Novamont and to Germany's
BASF.\textsuperscript{14}

\subsection*{2.2 From ingredients to complete
formulations}

{\label{655591}}

More generally, after targeting the production of one or more low
volume, high margin bioproducts, successful bioeconomy companies will
target the production of the functional formulation using the same
ingredient or combination of ingredients. An exemplary case are the
China-based companies manufacturing hyaluronic acid via microbial
fermentation.\selectlanguage{english}
\begin{figure}[H]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.70\columnwidth]{figures/figure-1/figure-1}
\caption{{Production targets of successful bioeconomy companies: low volume, high
margin functional ingredients, and functional formulations.
{\label{674249}}%
}}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

\par\null

After the first few years in which they supplied the ingredient to
cosmetic and biomedical companies based in western Europe or North
America, they became supplier of the medical and cosmetic formulations
widely used in China and across the world as dermal
fillers.\textsuperscript{15} In this shift (Figure 1), the ``vertically
integrated'' company will earn the huge difference in revenues existing
between active ingredients and the final functional products sold on the
rich healthcare, cosmetic, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical markets.

\subsection*{2.3 Lean production in small, flexible
plants}

{\label{103392}}

The key technologies that will enable economically convenient and
actually highly profitable bioeconomy productions are similar to those
that are eventually enabling a major shift in the global chemical
industry.\textsuperscript{16} An in-depth knowledge and understanding of
these technologies and their possibilities is therefore required for
biobased productions to thrive. The aforementioned productions can be
based on chemical synthesis, and thus rely on heterogeneously catalytic
processes taking place in small, high-throughput flow
reactors;\textsuperscript{17} or can be based on new, waste-free
extraction routes of natural products.\textsuperscript{18}

In both cases, the new continuous high-throughput productions are
conducted in digitally controlled small, modular plants rather than in
huge plants requiring both large capital expense and large operational
costs. This, \emph{inter alia} , allows to flexibly adapt productions to
customer demand in various regions of the
world.\textsuperscript{19}Besides cutting the cost of shipping, this
will end the reliance on foreign suppliers for substances that can be of
vital importance for entire countries, as shown by the prolonged
shortage of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) not only in
low-income countries but also in industrially developed countries such
as the USA, European and Oceania countries.\textsuperscript{20}

\subsection*{2.4 From suppliers to business
partners}

{\label{285984}}

In bioeconomy productions, suppliers necessarily turn into business
partners. The fact that value chains of the agri-food and industrial
products converge ``due to the shift to bio-based raw materials leading
to a mutual dependence and triggering new material flows and food
processing technologies'' was identified in the early studies on
technology and innovation management in the
bioeconomy.\textsuperscript{21} In practice, learning that their
by-products supplied at low cost are used for the production of high
value substances and materials, farming, forestry or fishing companies
will increase prices with the risk to undermine the economic convenience
of said bioproductions.

Rather than trying to fix prices with easily broken long-term supply
contracts, successful bioeconomy companies have two management options.
They will either enter into partnership with their suppliers by
establishing jointly owned production plants, thereby sharing revenues
and profits, or they will become owners of plantations, forests or
fishing companies.

Italy's Indena, for instance, owns several hectares of olive orchard
plantations in southern Italy from which it sources the olives used to
produce phenolic extracts rich in hydroxytyrosol and verbascoside to be
turned into valued cosmetic applications (skin protection and skin
antiaging topical and oral formulations). This way, a specific olive
variety was selected amid more than 300 existing varieties, while
botanists chose the best harvesting period to ensure high levels of
verbascoside and other biophenols.\textsuperscript{22}

Relying on seasonally dependent biological resources used as raw
materials, the manufacturing of biobased products requires establishing
mutually beneficial relationships with the suppliers of the raw
materials, which generally are agriculture, agrifood, forestry or
fishing companies. Gone are the days in which plants or flowers grown by
poor farmers were collected in African regions with ``most of the
benefits captured by the retailers''.\textsuperscript{23}

The scale of biobased productions and the need to assure the quality of
the biological resources supplied requires the development, often from
scratch, of a complete supply chain starting from harvest, followed by
appropriate handling, storage and delivery of the required biological
raw materials. For example, facing a huge increase in demand and
production in the last decade (2010-2020), the pectin industry could not
rely any longer on slow and highly variable supply of dried lemon peel
chiefly sourced from Argentina. Hence, large pectin manufacturers opted
to build new production plants in Brazil next to plantations of orange,
lemon and lime.\textsuperscript{24}

Among other benefits, the immediate supply of waste citrus peel after
fruit squeezing allowed preventing microbial spoilage of the fresh
peels, which could be readily processed to extract the valued
hydrocolloid.

The natural products industry, which originally supplied costly flavour
and fragrance ingredients such as vanillin to the food and perfume
industries, currently supplies a huge variety of ingredients to the so
called ``natural and organic industry'', namely a sector comprising food
supplements, natural organic food and beverage, functional food and
beverage, and natural living (personal care, household cleaning and pet
products). In 2020, only in the USA such industry enjoyed \$259 billion
revenues (Figure 2) increasing at 12.7\% annual growth
rate.\textsuperscript{25}\selectlanguage{english}
\begin{figure}[H]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.70\columnwidth]{figures/figure-2/figure-2}
\caption{{Structure of the natural and organic products industry in the USA in
2020. {[}Reprorduced from Ref.25, with kind permission{]}
{\label{566223}}%
}}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

\textbf{Hosted file}

\verb`chiart 1.xlsx`  available at \url{https://authorea.com/users/374659/articles/549840-educating-the-managers-of-the-bioeconomy}

Chiefly comprised of European and North American companies, the natural
products industry mostly sources natural products from plants, algae and
fish. Plants and algae are either collected from the wild in rural areas
of Africa, Asia and Latin America or purposefully grown. The active
ingredients are then extracted and isolated as standardized extracts in
dedicated plants based in France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Spain,
USA and Canada and then sold to a number of different industries for
their pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmetic and health applications.

For comparison, in 2009 the industry, including the key sub-sectors of
food and beverages, cosmetics, herbal medicines and pharmaceuticals, had
\$65 billion revenues.\textsuperscript{26}

\subsection*{2.5 Managing the innovation
process}

{\label{575711}}

Studying the literature on technology and innovation management in
bioeconomy companies and building on a previous study of Golembiewski
and co-workers,\textsuperscript{21} van Lancker and co-workers in 2016
identified five main factors driving the innovation process in the
bioeconomy (Table 1), suggesting that an open innovation approach
naturally fits the bioeconomy.\textsuperscript{27}

\textbf{Table 1} . Five main factors and requiriments affecting the
implementation and management of innovation development processes in
bioeconomy companies according to van Lancker et al. (Adapted from
Ref.27, with kind permission)\selectlanguage{english}
\begin{longtable}[]{@{}ll@{}}
\toprule
\textbf{Factor} & \textbf{Requirement}\tabularnewline
\midrule
\endhead
Disruptive innovations & Redesigned business models, reconfigured supply
chains, etc.\tabularnewline
Complex knowledge base & Variety of sciences and technologies such as
life sciences, agronomy, ecology, food science, social science,
biotechnology, nanotechnology, information and communication
technologies and engineering\tabularnewline
Enhanced degree of cooperation with external actors & Cooperation with
suppliers, universities and research centres, customers and
distributors\tabularnewline
Enhanced commercialization efforts & New communication to convince
customers to adopt new biobased products, often obtained from previous
waste streams\tabularnewline
Complex and fragmented policy schemes & New products and new processes
expected to comply to a number of different regulations from different
administrative levels; biomass cascade steps often forbidden by current
policy\tabularnewline
\bottomrule
\end{longtable}

Five years later, all these factors and the fact that innovation
processes in the bioeconomy are cross-disciplinary, and include a
network of diverse stakeholders, are still relevant to managers of
bioeconomy organizations, irrespective of the specific production.

The most important and unique trait of bioeconomy productions, however,
is the virtually unlimited market for many said productions once an
economically viable production process has been identified. This is due
to the unique versatility of many biomolecules, independent of their
size (e.g. small biomolecules or large biopolymers), which creates room
for diverse potentially large-scale applications.

Two examples out of many possible ones nicely illustrate the concept.
Tannin is the name given to a mixture of high molecular weight
biophenols extracted from certain woods and bark and increasingly used
for widely different applications, including as an environmentally
friendly agrochemical.\textsuperscript{28} Due to an expensive and
energy-demanding production process, the current annual production of
commercial tannins amounts to about 230,000 tonnes. Tannin, however, has
a high-value chemical application as a building block in the preparation
of adhesives and resins.\textsuperscript{29} The limiting factor for its
utilization on the million tonne per year scale, has been and continues
to be its limited supply and high cost. In the words of the father of
the technology, ``the potential is enormous, but it is not
realized''.\textsuperscript{30}

Another example is pectin. Currently manufactured at 70,000 t/a rate,
this biopolymer is the most valued food
hydrocolloid.\textsuperscript{31} Though increasing since more than a
decade at 4-6\% annual growth rate, its production from citrus peel (and
apple pomace) is intrinsically limited by the high capital and
operational expenses of conventional production plant and process,
respectively.\textsuperscript{31} From biobased aerogels of exceptional
thermal insulating power through superior food and beverage texturizer
and emulsifier, pectin has a number of potential applications that so
far were constrained by its limited supply.\textsuperscript{24} Once a
low cost, high-throughput production process will be discovered and
industrialized, for example based on emerging
hydrodynamic\textsuperscript{32} or
acoustic\textsuperscript{33}cavitation extraction of citrus waste peel,
its potential will be realized and the usage rate will increase to
several hundreds of thousand tonnes per year.

Aware of the potentially enormous demand for the above-mentioned and
many other bioproducts, bioeconomy companies owner of new process
technologies should partner with other companies and license their
proprietary technology so as to increase supply and lower the cost of
these biobased ingredients, while increasing customer confidence in the
biobased alternatives.

This will lead to major uptake of these products in place of competing,
less performing -- but until now much cheaper -- oil-based or biobased
alternatives, such as starch or gelatine in the case of pectin. In
selecting the partner companies, however, bioeconomy company managers
working in a highly competitive context should avoid to be na\selectlanguage{ngerman}ïve (as
well as to be too cynical, opposite side of the same
problem).\textsuperscript{34} Whether sourcing raw materials from
oil-based feedstocks or from biological resources, existing chemical
companies are (and will be) the main competitors of new bioeconomy
companies. In other words, the biorefinery is not the evolution of the
oil refinery, but rather its competitor.

\subsection*{2.6 Understanding the competitive
landscape}

{\label{916302}}

As mentioned above, bioeconomy managers need a better understanding of
the competitive landscape in which their companies operate, namely the
global chemicals market.

One of the world's largest biorefineries, located in France's Bazancourt
(Figure 3), converts more than 4 million tons of biomass per year (3
million tons of sugarbeet + 1 million tons of wheat + 400,000 tons of
other biomasses such as alfalfa and woody materials) into sugar,
glucose, starch, food or pharmaceutical alcohol, ethanol fuel, cosmetic
actives, etc., with annual revenues exceeding \textbackslash{}euro800
million.\textsuperscript{35} The site currently hosts eight companies
(ADM, Air Liquide, A.R.D., Cristal Union, Cristanol, Givaudan, Procethol
2G, Futurol project, Vivescia), none of which is a petrochemical
company. Out of 1,200 workers, 1,000 are permanent staff and 200 on-site
scientists.\selectlanguage{english}
\begin{figure}[H]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.70\columnwidth]{figures/figure-3/figure-3}
\caption{{Europe's largest biorefinery in France's Bazancourt occupies an area of
more than 260 hectares {[}Reproduced from Ref.35, with kind
permission{]}
{\label{618365}}%
}}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

~The biorefinery, reads a succinct presentation, offers ``opportunities
for synergies between stakeholders at the site'' with ``flows and
interconnections made possible through locations upstream or downstream
of existing facilities''.\textsuperscript{36} In reality, this is
exactly what the petrochemical industry does: integrating ``upstream''
oil and natural gas extraction with ``downstream'' refining and
production of oil-derived and natural gas-derived ``feedstocks'',
basically ethylene, propylene, butadiene, aromatics, and synthesis gas
(CO + H\textsubscript{2}), from which virtually all petrochemicals are
derived, including ammonia and methanol.\textsuperscript{37}

This industry, and the closely related but largely different fine
chemical industry,\textsuperscript{38} are the main competitors of the
emerging bioeconomy industry. Hence, the managers of successful
bioeconomy companies will first study the nature (and the history) of
the aforementioned branches of the chemical industry. Willing to enter
the chemicals markets with biobased alternatives, the same managers
should be aware that customers will buy their products driven only by
higher product performance (quality), lower prices and reliable (stable
and smooth) supply; and not by ``green'' or ``bio'' allures of their
company's productions.

This, in turn, requires to systematically adopting the model of lean
production in small, flexible plants, which is the only model capable of
producing low amounts of high value products at low production cost,
following the highly variable customer demand.

\subsection*{3 Conclusions and
perspectives}

{\label{805217}}

Starting from the need to transfer a closer understanding of the nature
of bioeconomy companies and their competitive landscape, this study
identifies the guiding principles for managing said companies. These
include the key enabling technologies of the bioeconomy, the factors
affecting the management of innovation in bioeconomy companies, the need
to turn suppliers into real business partners, and to focus on low
volume, high-margin bioproducts with the final aim to evolve from
suppliers of biobased ingredients to producers of the final formulations
reaching the retail marketplace.

Referring to tannin and pectin, we illustrated a unique trait of
bioeconomy productions, namely the virtually unlimited market for many
bioproductions once an economically viable production process has been
identified and industrialized. This is due to the unique versatility of
many small and large biomolecules, which creates room for diverse
potentially large-scale applications. In an opposite fashion to the
``blatant lack of reflexivity'' that ``characterizes the bioeconomy
discourse'',\textsuperscript{39} these newly shaped managers will manage
their company's bioproductions measuring and achieving reduced
exploitation of natural resources, aware that rebound effects are
possible,\textsuperscript{40} and can be avoided. Decoupling of
biological material resource use and economic growth is possible both at
the level of resource stocks, and at the level of biological
renewability.

A single example suffices to render the idea. Recently demonstrated in
the case of the most fished species across the seas (the anchovy),
concomitant production of both fish oil\textsuperscript{41} rich in
omega-3 lipids and high performance organic
fertilizer\textsuperscript{42} can now rely on fish processing waste
rather than fish itself. This closes the material cycle through a green
chemistry technology (extraction with biobased and antimicrobial solvent
limonene) and converts anchovy waste into a highly valued resource.
Clearly, this discovery should not lead to increase pressure on the
anchovy stocks, but rather to diminish it by finally valorising the
biowaste amounting to \textgreater{}50\% in weight of the fish catched
and so far landfilled or, at best, used for the production of compost.

The same holds for the high energy efficient continuous flow productions
that will be used by successful bioeconomy companies, avoiding the
Jevons' paradox for which, since machines were more productive and
economical, this led to increased use and increased consumption of
energy (coal).\textsuperscript{43} Aware that the economies of flow,
rather than economies of scale, maximize value and minimize
waste,\textsuperscript{44} managers of such successful organizations
will be trained in energy management too. The reason is that energy is
no longer a technical issue left unmanaged, but a central one to be
taken in charge by fully trained Energy managers working in the top
management of the company to effectively achieve higher levels of energy
efficiency and renewable energy penetration.\textsuperscript{45}

Energy, indeed, plays a significantly more important role in driving
economic growth than is conventionally assumed.\textsuperscript{43}

Again, one example suffices to provide evidence supporting this claim.
From Clermont-Ferrand hospital parking through Algeria's coastal roads
using each hundreds of off-grid solar lighting systems based on
energy-efficient light emitting diodes, photovoltaic modules and Li-ion
batteries, thousands of roads, parks, parking areas and squares today
are lit thanks to solar lighting.\textsuperscript{46} Owners of the
lighting systems receive no electricity or maintenance bills, while
light is supplied every year's night to citizens in both economically
developed and developing regions. There is no rebound or ``backfire''
effect. The white light supplied is generally of much higher quality
(devoid of UV and IR radiation, with the right colour temperature and
with minimal light pollution thanks to advanced optics) than
conventional lighting systems using older technology with electricity
supplied from the grid.

In conclusion, from India\textsuperscript{47} through
Germany\textsuperscript{48} and the USA,\textsuperscript{49} everywhere
from across the world a critical analysis of research in management
education and Masters in business administration suggest to re-design
management education curricula to make education more practice-oriented,
and based on theory tested and tried in the field. Educating the
managers of the bioeconomy is no exception. This study suggests avenues
to plan and develop such a practice-oriented course developed in accord
to sound guiding management principles originating from a careful
analysis of successful and unsuccessful bioproductions in the first two
decades (2000-2020) of the bioeconomy. Eventually, as put it by Raelin,
this and related courses will be able to educate and develop managers
``who understand the meaning inherent in the current organizational
context rather than exporting young visionaries from the
outside''.\textsuperscript{49}

\subsection*{Conflicts of interest}

{\label{898771}}

There are no conflicts to declare.

\subsection*{Acknowledgements}

{\label{264158}}

This study is dedicated to the memory of solar energy pioneer Hermann
Scheer (1944-2010), who reminded throughout his entire professional life
the importance of practice-oriented education.

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\end{enumerate}\selectlanguage{english}
\begin{figure}[H]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.70\columnwidth]{figures/image7/image7}

\end{center}
\end{figure}

\textbf{Educating the managers of the bioeconomy}

\emph{Rosaria Ciriminna, Lorenzo Albanese, Francesco Meneguzzo and Mario
Pagliaro}

Shaping the managers of successful bioeconomy companies, we argue in
this study, requires to transfer a closer understanding of the nature of
bioeconomy companies and their competitive landscape, as well as
identifying the main guiding principles for managing these
organizations.

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\end{document}

