PRESS RELEASE

EU Bioeconomy Strategy puts bioplastics at the heart of Europe’s industrial transition

Brussels, 27 November 2025 –  EU Commission embeds biobased plastics in a coherent PPWR framework and prepares legally binding targets – signaling that biobased plastics are now an active priority of EU industrial policy.

European Bioplastics (EUBP) welcomes the European Commission’s new Bioeconomy Strategy, which confirms – more clearly than ever – that biobased plastics are a strategic pillar of Europe’s future industrial base. Additionally, the revised Strategy recognises the sector as a lead market in the transition away from fossil-based materials, acknowledging its potential to scale up the EU bioeconomy

The Strategy confirms the Commission’s vision: replacing fossil-based materials with sustainable biobased solutions, scaling industrial deployment across value chains, and creating predictable demand conditions for innovative materials, including bioplastics. It also embeds biobased plastics within a coherent PPWR architecture, by committing to adopt, in 2027, criteria and targets for biobased plastics— a milestone that can provide much-needed regulatory clarity and long-term investment certainty. We also applaud the approach taken in the strategy to support biobased plastics in complementary with recycled content targets and coherently across sectors and applications.

EUBP strongly supports the Strategy’s emphasis on deployment, simplification, and market scale-up. Europe hosts world-class innovation in biopolymers, but companies frequently delay scale-up due to fragmented rules, inconsistent recognition of biobased content, and insufficient demand signals. The measures announced today – from clearer standards and definitions to streamlined authorisations and improved metrology – represent essential building blocks for a coherent Single Market for biobased materials.

The launch of the Bio-based Europe Alliance, set to aggregate up to €10 billion of demand for biobased materials by 2030, is a powerful market-pull instrument. When coupled with the forthcoming Bioeconomy Investment Deployment Group, it can reduce investment risk, enable bankability of first-of-a-kind facilities, and anchor production capacity in Europe rather than abroad.

To make these instruments fully effective, EUBP encourages the Commission to rapidly operationalise the Strategy’s commitments across product, packaging, waste, and environmental and climate legislation. Ensuring that biobased content, biodegradability, compostability and design-for-circularity are recognised consistently – alongside reuse and recycling – is essential to avoid conflicting signals across EU policies.

EUBP also supports the Strategy’s reaffirmation of the cascading use principle, which prioritises high-value material applications of sustainable biomass ahead of energy uses. Robust sustainability criteria, traceability, and fair access to secondary biomass streams will be vital to ensure both environmental integrity and industrial resilience. For EUBP, any future sustainability criteria for biomass used in materials should build on existing RED criteria and be matched with strong market-pull measures, so that they incentivise defossilisation rather than adding new barriers.

End-of-Life solutions, like biodegradability and compostability of selected plastic(s) applications that deliver net benefits – including improved biowaste collection, quality composting, and anaerobic digestion – must be scaled in parallel with clear, enforceable product labelling to reduce confusion for citizens, municipalities and businesses. EUBP stands ready to work with the Commission on practical implementation pathways. 

“The Strategy sends a strong signal: Europe wants to lead in sustainable materials, and bioplastics are part of that future,” said Lorenza Romanese, Secretary General of European Bioplastics. “For the first time, the Bioeconomy Strategy and the Commissioner’s call for scale-up converge on a simple truth: Europe will not lead the green transition through innovation alone, but through the capacity to industrialise it — and the genuine commitment towards legally binding biobased plastics targets is the moment where Europe stops admiring its potential and starts activating it.”

The reviewed Bioeconomy Strategy is a decisive step towards a more resilient, defossilised and circular European economy. European Bioplastics is ready to collaborate with the Commission and Member States to swiftly operationalise this Strategy so that Europe’s strategic vision translates into fast, concrete and scalable industrial deployment.

European Bioplastics advocates for a supportive policy and regulatory framework that enables favourbale market conditions for the bioplastics sector to thrive. The association serves as both a knowledge and business platform, bringing together key stakeholders to support the development, market introduction, and scale-up of sustainable bioplastic solutions across Europe. 

For more information, visit: www.european-bioplastics.org 

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