Investigating the barriers and mitigation strategies for biogas adoption in a developing economy: A multi-stakeholder networks perspective

Biogas production is one of the sustainable solutions for tackling organic waste and addressing serious environmental issues. In developing nations, however, stakeholders such as farmers, biogas plant owners, project developers, and investors continue to face diverse challenges in biogas production. Research on potential mitigation strategies to address the complex challenges in biogas adoption in the developing countries context is also scarce. Accordingly, we adopted a multi-stakeholder networks perspective to investigate the barriers and potential strategies for biogas adoption in Pakistan. To this end, we conducted twelve semi-structured interviews with energy consultants and environmental experts working in the biogas industry. Building on the multi-stakeholder networks perspective, the findings contribute to the existing literature by critically analyzing diverse barriers such as the interference of farmer unions, fear of project failure, mindset issues of stakeholders, dependence on a few feedstock suppliers, and lack of policy safeguards for investors. Further, the findings provide in-depth insights into mitigation strategies such as engagement with local communities, proactive biogas policies and best practices in developed and developing economies, cost-benefit analysis of biogas production, close monitoring of the upstream supply chain activities in the biogas industry, incentivizing the segregation of municipal solid waste, and collaboration between industry and academia, which are lacking in the current literature. We argue that rich insights from the present study could facilitate practitioners, stakeholders, and policymakers in advancing sustainable biogas policies and regulatory frameworks, promoting alternative feedstock options, improving stakeholder collaboration, initiating biogas awareness programs, and effectively managing biogas supply chain operations.