Jukka Kantola talks to Il Bioeconomista. The CEO of the World Bioeconomy Forum was invited to a historic bioeconomy panel at UNFCC COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to present findings of the bioeconomy society to the climate mitigation discussion.
For this year “The World BioEconomy Forum Goes to the USA – Live from Washington D.C. “The United States is making significant strides in the global bioeconomy. USA is not alone in this space as there is a growing interest in the bioeconomy – like in China, India or Brazil. All in all it looks like that number of bioeconomy strategies is growing, bioeconomy is providing solutions for the mankind and its economic value is also multiplying. All these requires more collaboration over various sectors and regions.
World BioEconomy Forum has responded to this evolving environment – Kantola claims- by launching a digital survey last February and open until end of October. Results of the survey will be unfolded on December 12 in Washington D.C. at the conference whose title is “Creating a Global Hub for the Bioeconomy”.
Interview by Mario Bonaccorso
How the global bioeconomy is evolving? What makes this year so particular?
The bioeconomy landscape is currently undergoing significant changes. The past 16-18 months have witnessed remarkable dynamism. We have seen that superpowers are deploying more efforts in this space, and it is seen also economically attractive. At the same time, it is providing source of solutions for the mankind challenges.
USA, China, India – they all have growing stakes in this space. USA launched executive order last September followed by bold goals on advancing biotechnology and biomanufacturing this spring. At the same time, they are revising their position to deploy more on their domestic biomass sustainable. China released historical first national bioeconomy strategy last May with actions on areas to improve health care, ensuring food supply, promoting green economy and ensuring biosafety and biosecurity. India took bioeconomy for the first time on the agenda of the G20. Just only few examples from the superpowers.
We all remember COVID…tamed, but not totally over and we still need to be alerted on it. Thanks to biotechnology there were new type of vaccines, which save millions of lives. Practical example on what bioeconomy can do. And reminding that biotechnology is part of the bioeconomy visions.
Economically bioeconomy is growing. If today value few trillion there are expectations that it will increase to level up to 30 trillion USD, which will account 1/3 of all economical activities. This is not introduced by me, it was expressed e.g. by Brian Deese, former head of NEC at the White House. Same type of voices we hear from other parts of the world.
So all in all. It has been hectic 16 – 18 months in the bioeconomy and we only see that importance of the bioeconomy is increasing.
There is also very fresh report available called “A status of Global Bioeconomy” where one can navigate more on this interesting field.
You have been now running the digital since beginning of the year? What do you think to achieve with it?
Especially since 2022 there has been more discussion on whether time is mature for arranging a global hub or home for the bioeconomy. This type of voices we hear from various continents. We are also well aware on studies made on this and that there are some emerging initiatives evolving.
We thought that it would be good to ask advice from the bioeconomy society and other interest groups. So we decided to arrange an open digital survey, in which all interest parties can join along. We launched the survey on 15 February in conjunction to the Roundtable from Rio de Janeiro about “Bioproducts around us”. In the survey we are asking three types of questions: What issues of the bioeconomy should be discussed at a global level; How a potential global hub should be managed and arranged; How it should be financed
It will take only some 10 minutes to reply on it, but is providing a good overview how this interesting topic is perceived among bioeconomy stakeholders.
We will be happy to tell more about the results in Washington D.C. on 12 December in the session “Looking to the Future” as part of the World BioEconomy Forum annual conference. We have invited in the panel other relevant global initiatives to joint talk on this topic. We think the survey will help us all on how the international collaboration could be arranged.
What do you expect from your Washington event? How do you see collaboration between the different regions?
Preparations for the Washington are progressing well. We are again expecting vivid dialog on latest developments of the circular bioeconomy among bioeconomy stakeholders. Like common today it will be arranged as a hybrid event – so even not getting there in person you may always join online.
The programme is arranged according the Four-Pillar Structure to help you pick up your topics of interest. All lessons of the bioeconomy year 2023 will be again compressed in the Declaration, which we will be annunced in the end of the Conference.
So, we believe there is an exciting narrative on this programme, and we’ll hope that you will be able to be active part of it.
Collaboration between the different regions is necessity to ensure developments of the bioeconomy. We are about to enter to the fourth industrial revolution – biorevolution – and by smart collaboration, borders do not stop this movement even though we are witnessing more polarisation in global politics. Digital revolution helped the mankind during the globalisation stage, and we think that biorevolution will help us all even under polarisation signs.
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