Raising awareness of circular and sustainable bioeconomy in support of Member States to develop bioeconomy strategies and/or action plans

The European Green Deal, the Commission’s growth strategy, has set Europe on its path to be the first climate neutral continent by 2050 and achieve a green transition that must be just, fair and inclusive. One of the seven core pathways to deliver on climate neutrality, identified in the Clean Planet Strategy is the bioeconomy. The updated EU bioeconomy strategy has highlighted the relevance of developing national bioeconomy strategies and action plans to deploy a sustainable and circular bioeconomy across Europe taking into account economic, social and environmental aspects.

To date, there are still Member States, including many from Central and Eastern Europe that do not have a national bioeconomy strategy and/or action plan despite their high biomass resource base and new bioeconomy potential. This topic should support Member States to develop strategies and/or action plans by improving knowledge and raising awareness of a sustainable, circular bioeconomy, its challenges and opportunities as well as experiences made elsewhere.

Moreover, the topic should help to bring together national stakeholders in deploying and fostering the bioeconomy related research and innovation developments by engaging local stakeholders into the participation in macro-regional and European thematic networks and into building the common European Research Area.

The focus of the topic should be two-fold: reaching out to decision makers and public administrators in different ministries as well as to a wide range of stakeholders crucial for the development of the national strategies and bioeconomy deployment across Europe. These stakeholders could consist for example of investors, industries, SMEs, feedstock providers (e.g. waste, side streams, farmers, foresters, fishermen). It is also relevant to cooperate and establish links with relevant existing initiatives such as the BIOEAST, EUBIONET, BBI JU and the Circular Bio-based Europe (CBE) Partnership.

This topic should ensure that Member States without bioeconomy strategies and/or action plans become equally empowered to make the transition to climate neutrality as those that already have a bioeconomy strategy in place.