The BioBase research initiative at Aarhus University has had the ambition of increasing the collective yield of biomass from Danish agriculture and utilising that biomass, partially to replace fossil fuel, but also to increase local protein production in order to replace protein from South American soya plantations.

When new production systems or technologies are developed which permit the aforementioned switches, the increased biomass production and utilisation in Denmark will have several environmental and economic consequences.

The research platform ECO-ECO has aimed to establish a foundation in order to illustrate the environmental and socio-economic consequences of an increased biomass production as well as an increased production of biobased products in a broader sense. In relation to particularly promising technologies, detailed environmental and socio-economic analyses of the consequences have been carried out prior to implementation. This is done to be able to properly brief decision-makers in relation to the new technologies, not least in order to understand their possibilities and limitations.

The platform has supported the building of interdisciplinary competences within social, environmental-economic and organic-economic analyses, including life cycle evaluations, and incorporated these tools in complete analyses of potentials and challenges in the bio economy.