supply chain dissertation

C102 Towards the Circular Bio-economy Supply Chains: foresight and outlook

The aim of this project is to carry out a systematic literature review in order to:

1. Define the term bio-economy

2. Collate its distinctive features, characteristics and potential benefits of bio-economy

3. Identify common business practices in bio-economy (types of product)

4. Identify shapes and forms of logistics and supply chains to support bio-economy

5. Discuss the relationship between Circular Economy (CE) and Bio-economy

6. Synthesise a framework of Circular Bio-economy Supply Chains

The term bio-economy is hereby referred to as a collective endeavour to convert renewable carbon reserve from agricultural biomass and organic waste into value added products, including food, bioplastics, bio-based chemicals, biofuels and bioenergy.

The Circular Economy (CE) is known to be key to the bio-economy, as it should facilitate the recovery of both technical and biological materials. Being regenerative and restorative, the CE, from the outset, is seemingly obvious to act as the backbone of the bio-economy. However, the extant literature lacks an integrated and coherent view on how the shift towards a circular bio-economy will be affected by the downstream supply chains, especially the waste stream generation.

This thesis should fill this gap, by proposing the foresight and outlook on how to develop a coherent logistics and supply chains within the circular bio-economy realm.

The project will follow a Systematic Literature Review methodology (Tranfield et al., 2003). This methodology comprises of 5 phases in order to undertake a comprehensive search for relevant studies on the specific research topic.