No Doubt, In recent years there has been a growing recognition that more sustainable development approaches are required across both the private and public sectors, and that these must progress far beyond just cleaning up waste streams, or recycling. For example,

• in the Plant / Crop-Based Renewable Resources Vision 2020 and associated roadmap
• The goals for future contributions from bio-based renewable inputs call for an increase in the proportional contribution to total demand by at least five-fold within the next 20 years.
Many projects are underway to meet these goals. In some cases, the contribution from traditional lignocelluloses’ biomass may be improved through achieving higher useful yield per unit land area, or via breeding selected alternate crop types for specific situations . In other cases, advanced processing methods, and multi-product output flows, will allow new, economically viable, biorefineries. However, it is difficult to envisage a significant shift to a bioenergy and bio-based product economy without some breakthrough advances in key research areas – one such area with immense potential is biotechnology.