The big picture, as formulated in the European Green Deal, is quite clear: Europe needs to become a more sustainable, resilient, and competitive economy. The bioeconomy has a huge potential to contribute to the Green Deal transition as it encompasses all sectors involving the use of renewable resources, without comprising biodiversity goals. It is by making the shift to bio-based products and processes that Europe will strengthen its resilience and reduce its dependency on fossil and non-renewable resources. At the same time, this system change will help to reduce CO2 emissions. The importance of the bioeconomy is already recognized in the European Union’s policies, especially the EU Bioeconomy Strategy and its Progress Report.
In this regard, the European Bioeconomy Alliance (EUBA) just recently published a comprehensive overview on how the bioeconomy contributes to the achievement of the European Green Deal. The overview is accompanied by a selection of best practice cases to further illustrate the importance of the bioeconomy’s role. EUBA, of which European Bioplastics is an active member, is a unique cross-sector alliance committed to helping lead the transition from a fossil-based society to a more sustainable and circular bio-based industry.
Due to its versatility, the bioeconomy can contribute to very different parts of the economy. Food and nutrition security ranks amongst the EU’s key strategic objectives, and investments in a strong bioeconomy offer sufficient high-quality and sustainably produced aquantities of food. Furthermore, land-use and security of supply are optimized through a resource-efficient utilization of Europe’s renewable raw materials. This also applies to the production of bioplastics, where the land used for growing feedstocks for bio-based products is marginal. Even worldwide, only 0.02 percent of the global agricultural area is used for their production.
In the bioeconomy, renewable biological resources can be used in many ways. Amongst other things, in the bioplastics industry, new innovative processes are currently being developed using both first- and second-generation feedstock, i.e., from side-streams of the agri-industry, offering the potential for bioplastics to provide the agri-industry with a high value outlet for part of their side-streams and transforming waste into valuable resource.
Waste reduction is another important area where Europe’s bioeconomy can make significant contributions. For example, bioplastics broaden possibilities in waste management and contribute to creating circular produc