Bio-based plastics evolution and the challenges to achieve dominance

Oil prices and availability and the investment cycle heavily influence innovation in petrochemical industries. New feedstock is thus strategic to these industries [9]. The concerns on environmentally-friendly processes, on another hand, further increase the interest on renewable feedstock in the countries with attractive production costs. R&D on these renewable inputs reveals great opportunities in the bio-based plastics market. The objective here is to present the current bio-based plastics development situation and to identify the main factors which affect innovation on these technologies as well as their adoption and diffusion. The analyses are structured through the integrative framework proposed by Suarez [3]. An important dependency on the feedstock availability has been identified as critical, and Brazil seems to have competitive advantages, due to its strong knowledge on sugar cane production and ethanol processing. The Brazilian industry has already launched commercial products, but, none has already emerged as a clear front runner in the world market. Following the framework proposed by Suarez, the possible reasons for this barrier are discussed.