The transition to a sustainable bioeconomy joins socio-economic and environmental goals. Getting there requires monitoring national consumption levels in relation to sustainability metrics. While substituting biomass for fossil and mineral resources can lead to win-wins, there is also a risk that if done the wrong way, impacts could accumulate at a global scale to push planetary systems beyond their boundaries and exacerbate vulnerability and injustice. This paper uses the German bioeconomy as a case study to demonstrate how and why monitoring footprints in relation to benchmarks is needed. It develops three types of benchmarks to put national consumption levels into the context of planetary boundaries, relative burdens, and territorial sufficiency. Existing literature on global limits for cropland use, sustainable timber harvests, biomass production, consumptive water use and climate emissions were reviewed to derive safe and equitable global benchmarks. All 5 environmental footprints of Germany's bioeconomy were found to overshoot the globally safe and equitable space, with footprints 1.6 to 4.2 times higher than the estimated lower boundary and 0.9 to 3 times higher than the estimated upper boundary. Germany has higher than average consumption and is import dependent for nearly all footprints. National footprints and benchmarks should be integrated into regular monitoring systems. They help to understand the combined burden of social norms and provide the evidence-basis for adjusting the socio-economic levers that steer innovation and incentivize choice. Societal discourse could strengthen benchmarks to better reflect risk and help legitimize policy interventions supporting responsible consumption levels toward a sustainable bioeconomy.
