We receive and publish this post by Jukka Kantola, the founder of the World BioEconomy Forum. The World BioEconomy Forum is a global platform for circular bioeconomy stakeholders to share ideas and promote bio-based solutions.
We have witnessed that several economies are putting more efforts into the bioeconomy. Only in the last half year alone there have been multiple examples of work being carried out, despite other challenges, including the tail end of the pandemic, geopolitical tensions and energy prices.
Some examples include:
• Finland’s renewed biostrategy (April 2022)
• The China Biostrategy launch (May 2022)
• East Africa Union biostrategy (June 2022)
• The Bioeconomy Initiative from the USA (EO on National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing September 2022)
• EU’s tenth year anniversary on biostrategy (October 2022)
Latin America is also making moves forward as we at the World BioEconomy Forum 2021 provided the platform and space where the state of Para announced their biostrategy in Brazil. The bioeconomy is everywhere. World BioEconomy Forum has been actively engaged with them, for instance we have been in discussions relating to China’s Bioeconomy, in talks with the White House on its EO, as well as contributing to the EU bioeconomy Conference.
Not only that there are biostrategies evolving in this space, it is becoming also playing ever bigger role economically. It is said that bioeconomy will account for one third of economic activities by 2030 being 30 trillion USD (Schmidt Futures, 2022). This is also a basis for the USA recent bioeconomy announcements.
Not only that: for the first time the bioeconomy has made its debut at the Conference of Parties. I was personally invited to the UNFCC COP27 for a bioeconomy panel organised by UNIDO. This is a somewhat historical occasions as never earlier has the UN-host arranged a bioeconomy panel at a COP Blue Zone. This is well in line with our theme of 2022, which was World BioEconomy Forum talks on climate.
Does this mean new era for the bioeconomy? At least there are good signs of it. The progress of the bioeconomy will bring along more responsibilities what the sector will face. There are issues like sustainable feedstocks, product safety, security and labelling – only few examples what are already debated in various regions. No wonder thatthere is a discussions on the way on does the bioeconomy need have a ”global home/hub ”. We are pleased to share these messages in the UNFCC COP27 to facilitate developments of the bioeconomy.
I’d like to invite you to join on this journey. If you think you’d like to be part of it, you may always join in the World BioEconomy Circle to be in the middle of this all.
IL BIOECONOMISTA 