Barely six years old, the EU’s Bioeconomy Strategy, currently under
revision, is slowly but surely propagating green shoots of sustainable
economic recovery in innumerable and unexpected ways, writes Joanna
Dupont.
Joanna Dupont is the Director of Industrial Biotech and Cross-Sectoral Strategy at EuropaBio.
Plastic packaging for cheese made from milk waste, car tires made from
dandelion rubber, bikes made from bamboo, coffee cups made from coffee
grounds, car fuel made from wheat straw, T-shirts made from trees: These
are just a few of the bio-based products developed in recent years.
And yet, this is just the beginning. The bioeconomy, circular by nature,
is not only at the forefront of making valuable products and processes
from biomass rather than from fossil carbon. It’s also leading the quest
to turn trash into cash and is a future lifeline for many sectors
struggling for survival in the face of globalisation and digitalisation.
The rationale for enabling the development of the bioeconomy is as
compelling as it ever was: by 2050, the world population is expected to
reach nine billion people, which will put unprecedented pressure on the
environment and its natural resources.
Coupled with the combined threats of climate change, biodiversity
depletion, water and land shortages and increased levels of pollution,
new solutions are urgently needed. An innovation-driven bioeconomy, with
increased sustainability as its end goal, will provide renewability,
circularity and multi-functionality whilst creating jobs, growth and
prosperity in rural, coastal and urban areas.
But while unprecedented progress has been made since 2012 in some areas
of bio-based research, innovation and investment, not least as a result
of the EU’s €3.7 billion Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking, a
number of factors have put the brakes on driving commercial success of
new products and processes.
An abundance of scientific excellence and a conspicuous lack of
bio-based scale-ups had become a familiar story in Europe, with many
companies heading for more predictable investment environments overseas
to commercialise the results of their work, taking jobs and growth with
them.
Compounding this is a communications challenge. For many vital
influencers of the developing bioeconomy, including consumers
themselves, the concept has been difficult to get to grips with. This
could be due, in part, to the fact that the bioeconomy is so broad that
it means very different things to different people.
This is improving and, increasingly, a burgeoning number of member state
and regional bioeconomy initiatives are ensuring that examples of the
‘’backyard bioeconomy’’ are accessible, relatable and tangible for their
communities. Then there is the low level of understanding of just how
many of our everyday products are currently made with fossil carbon,
from soap to shoes, to sofas to smartphones and beyond, which could
instead be made from locally grown biomass.
A further challenge, for emerging bio-based industries themselves, is a
constant need to reduce costs whilst still operating at small scale, to
create new markets and to demonstrate sustainability criteria in a
marketplace flooded with fossil-carbon alternatives facing no such
hurdles.
But, the very fact that the bioeconomy intrinsically links land and
natural resources with production and consumption can, itself, be cause
for concern. NGOs have helped to highlight some practices which are of
concern, in particular with regard to cultivation practices for certain
energy crops.
Indeed, to be truly sustainable the bioeconomy should arguably only use
biomass in a smart and efficient way and, ideally, for purposes where no
other renewable alternatives are available to tackle the threats and
resource shortages that we face.
Differentiation is, however, important and consideration of the options
alternatives available, in the context of the demands of a growing
population and the other grand challenges we face is essential.
In other words, we must consider these debates in the context of the
potential consequences of maintaining ‘business as usual’ and
acknowledge that in the dialogue around the development of the
bioeconomy there will not always be a perfect solution or agreement on
the direction or speed of travel.
But what there should be is a consensus on the need to enable future
generations to tackle the challenges that they will face, as highlighted
so well by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and to have
sufficient, sustainable, renewable food, feed, fuel, fibre and other
materials to meet their needs without compromising the climate, the
environment or its ecosystems.
To prepare for the future, a concerted effort is needed to ensure that
the solid foundations of research and innovation in the bioeconomy are
built upon. But future bio-based innovators must also be afforded the
chance to emerge, reach economic self-sufficiency and thrive.
This means creating a predictable coherent, policy environment, to
attract the investors waiting in the wings, and market stimulation
measures to help bridge the omnipresent commercialisation ‘’valley of
death’’. Bioeconomy pioneers are hopeful for an ambitious but achievable
revised bioeconomy strategy to ensure that the next six years are even
more transformative than the last.
Read more: EU Bioeconomy 2.0– Cultivating a home grown success – EURACTIV.com
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