D8.4. Social acceptance of Bio-Derived Products from Biowaste

The main aim of this document is to report on the social acceptance of new bio-products and value chains of the VALUEWASTE project. This report summarizes the results from the data collection and includes conclusions from the analysis of that data and one workshop, highlighting opportunities.
The main purpose of performing these activities is to find answers to practical questions such as “Are people, in Spain and Denmark, aware of new technologies and resources and to what extent they are ready to accept new insect-, bacteria-based, or fertilizer products?”
One of the goals for the present Deliverable was to increase the number of participants, trying to reduce the difference between Danish and Spanish surveyed people. This fact was achieved as Danish participants increased by 87%, up to 225 people; whereas, Spanish participants were 279 at the end. This Deliverable enhances information provided in previous Deliverables’ results by increasing the number of responses (15% higher), adding examples, and providing data interpretation. This report thus complements existing Deliverables with a basis for the analytical approach.
The WP and Deliverable leader, SAVONIA, started the social acceptance context identification work with a series of interviews and small group discussions with companies, stakeholders, target groups and experts, which were reported, as part of D8.1 in February 2020 (M16), followed by the D 8.2. report in November 2020 (M25), and D8.3 on First insights on social acceptance, in June 2021 (M32). In addition, a survey questionnaire on social acceptance and social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) was developed in collaboration with Murcia (Spain) and Kalundborg (Denmark) municipalities. As previously discussed, the number of responses in 2021 was lower than expected. Therefore, a second campaign was performed in April-May 2022, to increase the number of responses, reaching a total of 523 participants. Kalundborg, Murcia and the industry partners have actively participated in the survey content development and realisation, including actions to increase response rates, with language editions before launch. Answers were collected, and data analysed and managed according to the European GDPR legislation and ethical requirements as agreed on VALUEWASTE Protection of Personal Data D11.2 and Human participation (D11.4) Deliverables.
Insights on barriers, opportunities and challenges have been collected from stakeholder and expert interviews, survey questionnaires both at Murcia and Kalundborg municipalities, and from an expert workshop on Social Acceptance and S-LCA, which applied portfolio techniques for joint future scenario insights. CETENMA has brought S-LCA insights, as well as evaluated and given feedback to improve the report.
The main scope of the social acceptance survey questionnaire was to measure the public level of social acceptance of the citizens’ opinion about the VALUEWASTE products coming from the three value chains (protein ingredients and recycled plant nutrients). The present study divides the social acceptance into three different perspectives: socio-political acceptance, community acceptance and market acceptance. Overall, citizens have awareness, involvement, and willingness to adopt new bioproducts, being independent of age, gender, education level, or residence. They think that environmental factors, quality, and
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prize are important factors, and it can be expected that the acceptance level will be high when these products enter the market. However, only few citizens have experienced new bioproducts from biowaste since they are not available at the market. Properties, like healthiness, nutritional value, quality, safety, prize and biowaste source are important for successful implementation of new bioproducts. At this point, it is interesting to mention that there were three hotspots found during the social acceptance analysis. These three hotspots were studied from the mentioned perspectives (socio-political, community and market acceptance). Four comparisons were performed according to the country (Denmark and Spain), gender (female and male), age (diverse age groups) and education level (diverse levels).
Awareness of citizens and their willingness to adopt new bioproducts give many opportunities that need to be considered when developing new business models for those bioproducts (Eskelinen et al., 2020). Hence, it is required to learn from the cultural and behavioural change use of alternative sources and new sustainable technology towards systemic change on circular economy and increase the awareness and dissemination of the project impacts to the society and environment. All these identified opportunities are useful when designing value proposition of a business model. The results will be used when developing the circular economy business models of VALUEWASTE (D7.4.).
In this way, one of the crucial challenges to reach the market with these kinds of products is to change both the production and the behaviour. At this point, two questions may arise i) which is the vital behaviour to be changed? and ii) how can the dissemination be improved to provide better information to consumers?
Also, to study the complex factors of social acceptance, it can be concluded that a systematic process and workshop, enabling interaction, idea generation and assessment, helps and supports in decision making, and increases trust and social justice on actions.
Lastly, the need for sufficient enabling policies and the reduction in taxes and legal restrictions must be highlighted. Without proper policymaking, the VALUEWASTE project can be greatly hindered.