In the younger age, many times children or young adults are encouraged to join team sports such as football. This phenomenon doesn’t only raise from the will to develop specific practical skills or improve the health state of the youngest. Building a sense of community and compromise in children is believed to provide them with soft skills essential in their future life. Growing through the ideas of responsibility towards others and collaboration to achieve certain goals, raises the abilities to interact through communication and also teaches us a strong lesson: we cannot do everything by ourselves. Being part of a team and understanding the different roles of each player, helps us from a young age to understand the power of collaboration, and the satisfaction that raises from a job well done together. Such scenario can equally be applied to the development of bioeconomy. Unlike the more traditional economy, focused on a linear production system, bioeconomy sets a circular approach with different players, aiming to score as many goals as possible against climatic crisis.
However, this collective work needs players with different abilities, same as a football match, or have you ever seen a match with 11 strikers? What about with 11 defenders? Perhaps 11 goalkeepers would keep our net safe, but to win, we also need to move on, score some goals! The equilibrium lies on diversity, on the abilities of each player, the relevance of every specific role. Only this way it is possible to reach a just transition into a more sustainable living model.
In the big frame, bioeconomy needs those who keep “environmental damages” from happening, same as goalkeepers and defenders do in the pitch! These can for instance be waste treatment plants. Those take care of the generated tons of waste and keep them from being thrown away into landfills or oceans, which would increase the pollution levels. Such activities do not only increase the greenhouse gases emissions, but also result in an aggression towards the biodiversity. The appropriate management of waste, definitely keeps goals from being scored in our net. However, while it is always important to defend our net, we also need to score goals in order to win the match. This role is about finding new ways to develop our activity in a non-harmful way for the environment, and even aiming to improve it. This, for example, may be the role of researchers, who play in the first row facing challenges with their wide expertise within several fields of the natural sciences or engineering sectors. They are capable to take the “balls” that our goalkeepers saved, and make them reach the opposite net. In the sustainability field, much work in research centers, research and development departments and universities focuses on the optimization of waste valorization processes, aiming to score back with the ball that initially was directed towards our net.
Bioeconomy is a clear example of the relevance of team work and expertise diversity, enhancing the importance of each player and specially the collaboration among them, and these are only a few examples of the roles that can be taken. We can take a role in the sustainable transition through very different activities, we just have to find our strength and learn on the way from our team mates!
