Kluyver Centre for Genomics of Industrial Fermentation, Delft University of Technology, Section of Biotechnology and Society, Delft , The Netherlands.
Interface Focus. 2011 Apr 6;1(2):248-54. doi: 10.1098/rsfs.2010.0034. Epub 2011 Feb 2.
The societal debate on biofuels is characterised by increased complexity. This can hinder the effective governance of the field. This paper attempts a quantitative bird's eye meta-analysis of this complexity by mapping different stakeholder perspectives and expected outcomes as seen in the secondary literature on biofuels, along the lines of the People-Planet-Profit framework. Our analysis illustrates the tension between stated and actual drivers of large scale biofuel development, especially for first generation biofuels. Although environmental (Planet) aspects have dominated the biofuel debate, their overall assessment is mostly negative with regard to first generation biofuels. By contrast, economic (Profit) aspects are the only ones that are assessed positively with regard to first generation biofuels. Furthermore, positive and negative assessments of biofuel development are strongly influenced by the differences in focus between different stakeholder clusters. Stakeholders who appear generally supportive to biofuel development (industry) focus relatively more on aspects that are generally assessed as positive (Profit). By contrast, non-supportive stakeholders (NGO's) tend to focus mainly on aspects that are generally assessed as negative (Planet). Moreover, our analysis of reference lists revealed few citations of primary scientific data, and also that intergovernmental organizations produce the most influential publications in the debate. The surprising lack of listed references to scientific (primary) data reveals a need to assess in which arena the transition of scientific data towards secondary publications takes place, and how one can measure its quality. This work should be understood as a first effort to take some control over a complex and contradictory number of publications, and to allow the effective governance of the field through the identification of areas of overlapping consensus and persisting controversy, without reverting to claims on technical detail.
关于生物燃料的社会争论具有复杂性不断增加的特点。这可能会阻碍该领域的有效治理。本文试图通过映射生物燃料的次要文献中不同利益相关者的观点和预期结果，沿着人与星球利润框架，对这种复杂性进行定量的鸟瞰元分析。我们的分析说明了大规模生物燃料发展的既定和实际驱动因素之间的紧张关系，特别是对于第一代生物燃料。尽管环境（星球）方面主导了生物燃料的争论，但就第一代生物燃料而言，对其的总体评估大多是负面的。相比之下，经济（利润）方面是对第一代生物燃料唯一评估为正面的方面。此外，对生物燃料发展的正面和负面评估受到不同利益相关者群体之间关注焦点差异的强烈影响。通常支持生物燃料发展的利益相关者（工业）相对更关注被普遍评估为正面的方面（利润）。相比之下，不支持的利益相关者（非政府组织）往往主要关注被普遍评估为负面的方面（星球）。此外，我们对参考文献的分析发现，很少有引用主要科学数据的情况，而且政府间组织在辩论中产生了最有影响力的出版物。令人惊讶的是，缺乏列入科学（主要）数据的参考文献，这表明需要评估科学数据向二次出版物的转变发生在哪个领域，以及如何衡量其质量。这项工作应被理解为首次努力控制复杂且相互矛盾的大量出版物，并通过识别重叠共识和持续争议的领域来实现该领域的有效治理，而不会依赖于对技术细节的主张。
