• Energy Research
• 2021-2025close
• GB close
• US close
• Spanish close

This report is a policy briefing containing the main findings of the PhD project Co-Creation of Sustainability-Oriented Innovations (SOIs) in Tourism. This project was conducted in close partnership with the Barcelona City Council to co-design institutional innovations to address sustainability challenges in the city by widely engaging stakeholders in a participatory process. To enable an open participatory process, the project was nested in the Consell de Turisme i Ciutat, which gathers key public, private and civil society organizations to discuss the main tourism development issues in the city of Barcelona. The project gathers data by conducting individual interviews, and a series of stakeholder workshops to better understand the complexity of designing SOIs collectively. Amongst the main findings, this report identifies how individual and collective conceptual nuances of innovation and sustainability affect the stakeholders' ability to embark on sustainability innovations in tourism. Further, it describes collective objectives, drivers and barriers that stakeholders identified when developing SOIs. The report also offers an analysis of current tourism specific and non-tourism SOIs in Barcelona and potential ways in which these existing SOIs could be leveraged to facilitate systemic change. One of the key findings of the study is a collection of co-created SOIs by the stakeholders, which are analysed in terms of their sustainability impact and their type of innovation. These SOIs include a wide range of policy actions and interventions related to management, product development and marketing, education, incentives and monitoring and evaluation. Amongst these SOIs, during the project, the stakeholders decided to focus on expanding on four SOIs which could have a greater potential to create systemic change in the sustainable development of the city and thus in the tourism sector. These four SOIs are presented in this report as one-page business plans to facilitate its potential application. Finally, the study provides a series of recommendations to enhance collaboration and governance mechanisms to allow SOIs to thrive as collective actions that are powered by legitimacy, trust and a fair distribution of power. In this line, to empower stakeholders to utilize the findings of this project the report introduces the idea of creating a Sustainability Innovation LivingLab.

Introducción. La biomasa lignocelulósica que proviene de residuos agrícolas, cultivos dedicados a la dendroenergía, residuos biológicos lignocelulósicos como subproductos de alimentos, sobras de cocina de hogares, restaurantes y locales comerciales, así como algas cultivadas, pueden ser considerados materias primas para el desarrollo de la bioeconomía. Dado que su composición se basa mayoritariamente en celulosa, hemicelulosa y lignina; materiales de base para la producción de diversos productos de valor agregado a partir de bloques de bioconstrucción en procesos integrados de bio-refinería. Objetivo. Establecer la importancia del uso de la biomasa como materia prima para su incorporación en los modelos de economía circular en los procesos de biorrefinería, tales como consideraciones de manejo de biomasa y pretratamiento de biomasa, el potencial intrínseco para la obtención de sustancias de valor comercial en función de la cadena de carbono. Desarrollo. Aproximadamente el 90 % de la materia seca lignocelulósica consiste en celulosa (30-60 %), hemicelulosa (20-40 %) y lignina (10-25 %) interrelacionados en una heteromatriz, mientras que el resto consiste en cenizas y extractos. Se estima que el potencial de generación de energía a base de biomasa oscila en Costa Rica cerca a los 600 MW y se han identificado proyectos activos que generan cerca de 122 MW. Conclusión. El aprovechamiento de la biomasa es un elemento importante para ser incorporado en la producción de bioenergía y desarrollo de una industria química renovable que conlleve a la consecución de objetivos enmarcados en el desarrollo de un modelo bio-económico, donde Costa Rica ha iniciado su incursión paralela al avance del siglo XXI. Introduction. The lignocellulosic biomass that comes from agricultural residues, crops dedicated to wood energy, lignocellulosic biological residues as food by-products, kitchen scraps from homes, restaurants, and commercial premises, as well as cultivated algae, can be considered raw materials for the development of the bioeconomy. Since its composition is mainly based on cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin; they can be used to produce various value-added products from bio-construction blocks in integrated bio-refinery processes. Objective. To stablish the importance of using biomass as a raw material for its incorporation in circular economy models in biorefinery processes, such as considerations of biomass management and pretreatment of biomass, the intrinsic potential for obtaining substances of commercial value depending on the carbon chain. Development. Approximately 90 % of lignocellulosic dry matter consists of cellulose (30-60 %), hemicellulose (20-40 %), and lignin (10-25 %) interrelated in a heteromatrix, while the remainder consists of ash and extracts. It is estimated that the biomass-based power generation potential in Costa Rica ranges close to 600 MW and active projects that generate about 122 MW have been identified. Conclusion. The use of biomass is an important element to be incorporated into the production of bioenergy and the development of a renewable chemical industry that leads to the achievement of objectives framed in the development of a bio-economic model, where Costa Rica has begun its parallel incursion to the advance of the 21st century.