Driving Sustainability: Circular Bioeconomy and Governance in Andalusia (Southern Spain)

Environmental degradation remains an increasingly urgent challenge, leading to focused debates at the Rio+20 conference (2012) on how to operationalise sustainability. This conference’s central theme was the green economy and the role of institutions in driving the transition to a more sustainable model. Today, concepts such as the green economy, circular economy, bioeconomy, and circular bioeconomy (CBE) are integral to institutional efforts towards sustainable development. The CBE has significant potential as a driver of sustainability. This article examines the challenges, opportunities, and governance structures that the Andalusian (Southern Spain) public administration is implementing in the context of the CBE. The findings are based on qualitative methods, with a comprehensive literature review, semi-structured interviews, and workshops with different stakeholders from the quadruple helix model, conducted as part of the ROBIN project and other related projects. The results systematises the main weaknesses and strengths collected during the fieldwork in terms of the tools of governance. The conclusions highlight the need to develop this model and outline the actions needed to develop the CBE further.