Circular Bioconomy

TE ŌHANGA ĀMIOMIO Ā-KOIORA

A circular bioeconomy is an economy powered by nature. It minimises the use of non-renewable resources, reduces emissions and waste and works across sectors to use renewable resources efficiently. AgResearch is working with research and industry partners to explore ways New Zealand can utilise bioresources efficiently to minimise waste and emissions.

A circular system

A circular food system is needed to feed the world with a limited supply of resources while minimising impact on the climate and natural ecosystems. This requires designing a bioeconomy that focuses on the use of renewable natural resources that minimises waste and support both economical and environmental benefits.

New Zealand farms currently use some strategies that align with the circular principles of reducing unsustainable inputs, improving efficiency, and reducing and reusing cross-sector waste. Our review showed the food production industry could benefit from wider adoption of more of these strategies.

Replacing non-pasture based dairy cow feed supplement with food system waste was shown by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to reduce cradle-to-farm-gate carbon footprint of the average New Zealand dairy farm by 9%

Vicki Burggraaf, AgResearch Senior Scientist

Learn more about our Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Opportunities

AgResearch has partnered with local food industries and overseas organisations to develop and test solutions to gain additional value from food system waste streams and bioresources.

Areas we are exploring to provide industry solutions:

Extracting maximum value from the whole animal in microabattoirs
Mussel shells to improve soil health
Bioproducts research focused on secondary resources(external link)
Biopesticide development (external link)

Collobarative approach

In traditional economies, communities may rely on unsustainable external inputs of resources or compete internally for limited resources and produce a range of waste. Working together to share resources or to use one businesses' waste as a resource for another can benefit a range of stakeholders in a circular economy.

Regionally, AgResearch has worked with Design Factory NZ to reimagine the Waikato food system with more circular resource use. A circular Waikato network was developed to enhance communication between a range of stakeholders, including food, research and waste industries. This enabled better resource use at a regional scale.

Internationally, AgResearch also contributes to projects on circular food systems. Concepts explored include:

Better integration of livestock and plant-based food industries
Design of circular dairy farms
Carbon footprint of circular New Zealand and Irish dairy farms
Pastoral biorefineries

Impacts

AgResearch is working with partners to develop a framework in a number of areas of the circular system. The first steps in such analysis is to determine the goals of key stakeholders, the boundaries of the system and the flow of materials through the system.

Farm scale assessment

AgResearch has developed a farm scale circularity assessment framework using a dairy farm as a case study. Resource circularity indicators were applied for nutrients, plastic and fossil fuels along with a carbon footprint. This framework can be adapted for other farm systems and other resources such as water. It has also been used to compare different sheep and beef farm classes to determine nutrient circularity at different levels of intensification.

Supply chain assessment

AgResearch has expertise in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This includes assessing all impacts of production at scale. In addition to completing carbon footprints for a range of stakeholders in the dairy and red meat sectors, the team has explored water and nutrient footprints.

A cradle-to-grave dairy supply chain assessment has been undertaken using a case study of a New Zealand dairy supply chain, comparing business as usual with changes to:

cow feed supplements
energy sources for milk processing
milk packaging
directing packaging waste to recycling

Partnership

AgResearch is a partner in the Bioresource Processing Alliance (external link)(external link) (BPA) which works with the primary sector to increase the value and reduce the environmental burden of biological by-products. The BPA supports research and development alongside industry, from initial scoping of ideas through to pilot trials and commercialisation. This collaboration with the other BPA partners (Scion(external link), Plant & Food Research(external link) and Callaghan Innovation(external link)) has validated a variety of secondary resource streams.