Table 1 Microbial-based industries and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

SDG 1: No Poverty

SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

The creation of microbial-based industries that meet the demand for sustainable practices and products is key for building new bioeconomic opportunities.

Microbial biorefineries that can produce bio-chemical and bio-fuel alternatives from renewable resources to replace fossil fuel derivatives³⁰.

Bioprospecting of extreme environments can yield robust microbes with bioproducts that can tolerate a broad range of operating conditions present across various industrial applications¹¹.

SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy

SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

A microbial-based bioeconomy promotes industrialization with consideration of the environmental impacts of the utilization, production, and consumption of materials.

Utilization of agro-industrial waste residues such as lignin via microbial-based conversion into value-added bio-based fuels, chemicals and materials¹³.

Discovering novel strains with improved ligninolytic capability or more efficient lignin depolymerization that can compete with or approve upon current chemo-catalytic methods¹³.

SDG 13: Climate Action

Use of sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels and their derivatives for production materials resulting in smaller or carbon-negative footprints.

Microbial biocatalysts that can convert sequestered CO₂ into usable bioproducts³⁰.

Identification of suitable microorganisms with efficient and diverse substrate and feedstock usage that can utilize various renewable resources for metabolizing compounds of interest¹¹.

SDG 14: Life Below Water

Production of plastic alternatives that are safer for life in marine environments.

Microbially-produced bioplastics are a promising bio-based, biodegradable alternative that can use renewable resources as feedstock for biopolymer production³¹.

Discovery of novel strains and metabolic pathways can improve all aspects of microbial bioplastic production, such as diversifying feedstock/substrate usage, more efficient production/extraction processes and improving end-of-life disposal methods³¹.

SDG 2: Zero Hunger

SDG 15: Life on Land

Microbiology has the potential to provide sustainable agricultural solutions through efficient land use and improving soil health.

Introduction of beneficial microorganisms into soil microbial communities to increase crop yield and reduce fertilizer use as an avenue towards sustainable agriculture³². Microalgae farming can provide either food or biomass for use in other sustainable industries and requires less arable land than other sources of renewable production¹⁴.

Bioprospecting and cataloguing microorganisms that are acclimated to specific ecological conditions for better rates of establishment in soil³².

SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being

SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

Environmental microbial community profiles can be either monitored for pathogens or searched for drug production pathways. This is crucial for the prevention of pandemics, as well as providing new sources for pharmaceutical development.

Microorganisms are the main sources of drug discovery and production and the search for new antibiotics is the key to combatting anti-microbial resistant pathogens¹². Metagenomic screening as a surveillance system where data on outbreaks or potentially high-risk microbes detected in different settings, such as food, water or other environmental sources are shared across a global network³³.

Mining genomes can unveil new biosynthetic pathways that present potential avenues to novel drug production¹².

SDG 4: Quality Education

SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

Collaborative efforts that share valuable data help develop diverse industries and promote sustainable practices within a microbial-based bioeconomy.

Sequence databases such as the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (https://www.insdc.org/), along with reference databases for proteins and biosynthetic gene clusters provide knowledge that can be used to further understanding in microbial ecology and biotechnology.

Publicly available data, along with accessible metadata provides is the backbone of a knowledge-based bioeconomy by providing the “big data” needed for large-scale bioprospecting efforts.