About

The Bioregions Facility promotes transregional cooperation for a sustainable and integrative forest-based circular bioeconomy.

Bioregions Facility

The Bioregions Facility supports innovation, networking, and policy learning related to the development of a sustainable forest bioeconomy. It develops joint strategies and actions, promotes and catalyses bioeconomy business and innovation, and hosts capacity building activities and knowledge exchanges around four key themes:

Bioregions members are at the heart of the Facility. They are forward-thinking regions across Europe who work together to unlock regional potential through international exchange on forest circular bioeconomy issues. The three founding members are the Basque Country (Spain), North Karelia (Finland) and North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) who inaugurated the Bioregions Facility in 2020.

The European Forest Institute holds the Secretariat for the Bioregions Facility, contributing its robust networks and experience to scale up regional action, and engaging with an expanding network of European institutions and organisations to promote a sustainable, forest-based bioeconomy.

Join us?

Any European region making tangible advances towards the forest-based bioeconomy, and committed to sustainable, circular actions that consider the landscape, and forest resources, in a holistic way can apply to become one of the Bioregions.

Any other organisation operating in the bioeconomy can be part of our network to help us implement our vision, and foster collaboration and mutual support

Are you interested in becoming a Bioregion?

Interested regions can request to attend Bioregions meetings and meet our members, learn more about the benefits of membership, and even become observers for a limited period of time.

Please contact the secretariat for more information.

Mission & vision

The Bioregions mission is to work together across regions to share ideas, experiences and good practices that allow bioeconomy initiatives with regional roots to have an outsize impact across Europe, fuelling the transformation to a circular, forest-based bioeconomy in Europe.

Bioregions partners are committed to the implementation of these principles, to monitoring our progress towards these goals, and to sharing our approaches and lessons learnt in order to increase our impact across Europe.

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We work to achieve this mission through four strategic objectives:

Supporting regional government to develop policies on the bioeconomy

Catalysing innovation and growth in business and industry

Raising awareness among the general public

Attracting new regions, businesses, and civil society to strengthen the bioeconomy transformation across Europe

The shared vision of the Bioregions Facility is to work towards a bioeconomy that:

Seeks to transform main economic sectors to be bio-based, stimulating the creation of products and materials that perform better than non-renewable counterparts while realising the potential of nature-based solutions and green infrastructure.

Produces significant and measurable positive environmental impacts, contributing to an economy less reliant on fossil fuels, and preserving natural resources, biodiversity and ecosystem function.

Embraces resource efficiency and circularity, doing more with less by reducing material consumption, non-biodegradable waste and harmful materials.

Harnesses landscapes and communities, embedding regional tradition in sustainable value chains, seeking a fair share of benefits and respecting a diverse group of actors.

Key contacts

Chair:

Roland Daamen
Ministry for Agriculture and Consumer Protection of North Rhine-Westphalia
roland.daamen@mulnv.nrw.de

Vice Chair:

Leire Barañano
Neiker
lbaranano@neiker.eus

Coordinator:

Inazio Martinez de Arano
EFI
inazio.martinez@efi.int