The bioeconomy offers Europe a strategic opportunity to strengthen industrial competitiveness, achieve circularity, and increase resource security. To unlock this potential, the upcoming EU Bioeconomy Strategy must evolve into a fully-fledged industrial strategy, integrated into Europe’s wider competitiveness agenda.
The European Union is already a global leader in deploying bio-based solutions, but without the right framework conditions, Europe risks falling behind international competitors and becoming reliant on imported biomass-derived chemicals and technologies.
To address this, Cefic has published a new position paper and Five-Point Action Plan, setting out concrete, industry-focused measures. These actions will help deliver a Bioeconomy Strategy that supports the scale-up of bio-based chemistry, biomanufacturing, and achieve industrial transformation while adhering to planetary boundaries.
Five priority actions for an industrial bioeconomy
1 – Developing new value chains and new market opportunities by creating efficient demand
This includes incorporating measures to support bioeconomy industrialisation, fostering demand for biomass-derived products in product-specific legislation, aiding the transformation of existing industrial assets, and establishing high-performing bioeconomy clusters.
2 – Creating agile and coherent regulations and government policy to support innovation and realise the opportunities brought by the bioeconomy
The strategy should establish a regulatory framework that facilitates the scaling-up and industrial implementation of the bioeconomy, streamlining and harmonising initiatives, promoting cross-border cooperation, and establishing a single coordination body within the European Commission.
3 – Promoting sustainable sourcing of and access to biomass
Ensuring access to all types of bio-based feedstocks through sustainability criteria, recognising synergies across various sectors, supporting innovative management practices in agriculture and forestry, including ‘Agritech’, maximising the valorisation of by-products and wastes, while regenerating the health of agroecosystems, and reducing import duties via Free Trade Agreements (FTAs).
4 – Enabling innovations to move from the lab to the market
Continuing and increasing funding for Circular Bio-Based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE-JU), de-risking the scaling up of new bio-based innovations and optimising funding synergies, strengthening open-access infrastructures, and fostering the transformative potential of New Genomic Techniques (NGTs), enabling the development of precise microbial production systems.
5 – Ensuring the long-term competitiveness of the European chemical industry
European chemical companies need a compelling business case and improved competitive conditions with other sectors and international competitors to achieve the growth potential offered by the bioeconomy.
Cefic welcomes the European Commission’s work on revising the Bioeconomy Strategy and the introduction of related initiatives such as the Circular Economy Act, the Industrial Decarbonisation Act, and the Biotech Act. These efforts must be fully aligned to deliver an effective, industry-driven bioeconomy that strengthens Europe’s competitiveness while supporting its environmental ambitions.
