A new bioeconomy strategy for a sustainable Europe

On 11. October 2018 the update of the European bioeconomy strategy was presented by Jyrki Katainen, Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness and Carlos Moedas, Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation. The 2018 update of the European bioeconomy strategy aims to accelerate the deployment of a sustainable European bioeconomy so as to maximise its contribution towards the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as the Paris Agreement.

The European Commission will actively support and promote all types of innovations and practices for sustainable food and farming systems, forestry and bio-based production through a systemic and cross-cutting approach linking actors, territories and value chains.
The update proposes an action plan including 14 measures related to three major objectives:

• Strengthen and scale up the bio-based sectors, unlock investments and markets
• Deploy local bioeconomies rapidly across the whole of Europe
• Understand the ecological boundaries of the bioeconomy

In order to achieve the objective two the forest-based sector is envisaged to play crucial role:
“New opportunities arising for the forestry sector in view of replacing nonsustainable raw materials in construction, packaging with bio-based materials and for providing more sustainable innovations in sectors such as forestry-based textiles, furniture and chemicals, and new business models based on the valuation of forestry ecosystem services.”
For 2021-2027, the Commission has proposed to allocate €10 billion under Horizon Europe for food and natural resources, including the bioeconomy.

More: https://ec.europa.eu/research/bioeconomy/index.cfm?pg=policy&lib=strategy

Dr. Boris Vashev
Agency for Renewable Resources (FNR), Germany

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