Bioregions Facility presents Bioeconomy Perceptions Survey at ERIAFF Annual Conference 2022

Bioregions Facility on June 13, 2022

Photo: Mabel Amber

How do business and policy actors perceive the bioeconomy? This question, among many others, is what the Bioregions Facility aims to answer through their regional Bioeconomy Perceptions Survey targeted at government and industry.

The Survey procedure is organised around a Survey Toolkit, that allows a regional partner to launch the survey in cooperation with Bioregions Facility. The Survey Toolkit, provided in the regional language, contains all the necessary materials to enable the regional partner to identify target participants in different government and industry groups and disseminate the pre-formatted Survey. Afterwards, the results are analysed and translated into an analysis report and communications package, by high-level researchers at the European Forest Institute.

Contact us at bioregions[@]efi.int to launch the Survey in your region!

So far, the Survey has been launched by five regions: North Rhine-Westphalia, North Karelia, Basque Country, Castilla y León and Tuscany. The Bioregions Facility aims to attract at least five more regions before publishing a cross-regional comparison of Bioeconomy Perceptions in European regions. Therefore, the Facility started a cooperation with the ERIAFF network and will present a cross-regional comparison of four regions at the ERIAFF AC 2022. 

The Bioregions Facility will make two interventions at the ERIAFF Annual Conference. On 14 June at the plenary session “Projects and Good practices from ERIAFF members”, you can expect a brief introduction to the Bioregions Facility and the Survey process and benefits. On 15 June (11:30-13:30 local time / 10:30-12:30 Brussels time) at the BIOREGIONS Working group (Programme+ Link to join online), a comparison of the results from four regions will be presented.

More information about the survey

More information about ERIAFF Annual Conference

Photo: Mabel Amber via Pixabay

Bioeconomy perceptions in North Karelia

Bioregions Facility on June 8, 2022

The Bioregions Facility launched its Bioeconomy Perceptions Regional Survey in North Karelia in the period September-November 2021 in the local language, Finnish. The Survey was targeted at different groups within government and industry, to understand how they perceive the bioeconomy, its benefits, and its challenges. More specifically, the Survey aims at achieving six target outcomes: i) understand how business and policy actors perceive the bioeconomy; ii) revisit value chain priorities and related communication efforts; iii) identify barriers & supporting conditions; iv) assess “willingness to engage” with the bioeconomy; v) get insights on how to improve collaboration with government & industry and; vi) find key leverage points for bioeconomy development by identifying overlaps with other policy areas. Here we present six key highlights, one per target outcome, of the Survey in North Karelia.

  • Respondents generally perceived bioeconomy as promising, and specifically to address environmental challenges. Respondents see the contribution to energy transition, and to a low-carbon economy, as the most relevant positive impact of the bioeconomy.
  • North Karelia business and policy actors suggest that nature-based tourism, bioenergy and wood construction are the bioeconomy sectors with highest potential for growth in North Karelia.
  • Limited co-operation among different stakeholders (policy, business, etc.) is perceived as the most important barrier for bioeconomy development. Several supporting conditions were rated in between important and extremely important, namely investment in innovation, availability of scientific information, public procurement programmes and adequate regulation.
  • Both government and industry respondents indicated that their sector or department is willing to develop the bioeconomy.
  • Government and industry respondents felt very similar about who is responsible for different tasks in moving the bioeconomy in North Karelia forward. Both groups indicated that they are equally responsible for investments in research, development, and innovation and for ensuring positive environmental and social impacts. In addition, both groups emphasised that the government is more responsible in communicating and promoting the bioeconomy among the general public.
  • According to respondents, bioeconomy has strong goal alignment with environment related policy areas, especially climate change mitigation and clean energy. Other policy areas with very high overlap with bioeconomy are biodiversity conservation, circular economy, and rural development. Bioeconomy was considered to have less goal alignment with social and economic policy areas.

Read the report

Slide deck with key results

ROSEWOOD4.0 Final Event – Fostering innovation towards a more sustainable forest sector in Europe

Bioregions Facility on May 5, 2022

Photo: ROSEWOOD4.0

On 14-15 June the H2020 ROSEWOOD4.0 project will hold its final event in Barcelona, Spain (hosted in a hybrid format). The event is co-organised by the European Forest Institute (EFI) and Steinbeis Europe Zentrum (SEZ) and will consist of 3 sessions with innovation towards a more sustainable forestry sector in Europe as the cornerstone. Attendees will be able to decide whether to participate in the whole event or just register for any of the organised modules.

Register for Bioregions international workshop – Unlocking regional bioeconomy transitions

Bioregions Facility on April 29, 2022

Photo: Loredana Habermann / Adobestock.com

Bioregions Facility and DBFZ (German Biomass Research Centre) are co-organising a two-day hybrid workshop about “Unlocking Regional bioeconomy transitions. State of the art and ways forward”. The workshop features several keynotes and panels to address the role of regions in the European bioeconomy, to better understand regional key drivers and enablers, as well as an analysis of flagship regional initiatives and successful policies to unlock investment in the bioeconomy. In this way, participants will be able to collectively reflect on what makes a region attractive for bioeconomy investments. On the second day, there will be a study visit to UPM’s new biorefinery construction site at Leuna, in the Saxony-Anhalt region, as a real-life example of attracting bioeconomy investment to the region.

The workshop is organised as a hybrid event taking place on 28-29 June 2022 at DBFZ facilities in Leipzig and at UPM’s new biorefinery construction site in Leuna.

Register now!

Preliminary programme

Practical information

Learn more about UPM’s new biorefinery

Photo: Loredana Habermann /AdobeStock

Forest Bioeconomy at the EU Policy Landscape – Priorities for regional action

Bioregions Facility on April 8, 2022

Photo: EFI

Bioregions Facility organised a webinar on “Forest Bioeconomy at the EU Policy Landscape – Priorities for regional action” for its regional members on 25 March 2022. The topic was introduced by EFI’s Liaison Officer in Brussels, Dr. Harald Mauser, who has been analysing and contributing to EU forest and bioeconomy related polices for several years.

For decades EU policy making regarding forests, has been fluctuating between a multifunctional forest management approach, and a nature conservation interest. Recently biodiversity conservation has gained much more importance and higher priority in political agendas, shifting this balance more to the nature conservation side.  Bioeconomy has co-shaped this balancing debate, but as Dr. Mauser has observed in the recent years, there has been a shift from seeing bioeconomy as the solution, to seeing the bioeconomy as a risk. But so far, no other alternative has been presented in Brussels to the current linear and unsustainable economic model that we know we all need to overcome.     

Dynamics of the forest related policy making in the EU has changed significantly in regards to the numbers. When looking back forty years at EU policy making, there were a number of international agreements that were reflected in, or complemented by, a limited number of EU political processes. Today, we still see a number of international processes and agreements, but in addition there is a much larger number of policy processes throughout the EU in form of legislation, strategies and programmes that are all related to forests and wood.

Dr. Mauser also presented activities, that in his view were particularly interesting for forest-based bioeconomy regions such as the recently announced network of forest dominant rural areas and municipalities. He believed Bioregions could offer an existing structure to such a network. He also advised that regions could benefit by building strategic partnerships and collaborating with other sectors, engaging more with society and policymakers to inform, raise awareness and build trust.

To learn more, see Harald’s presentation here (pdf). For further information or for a link to watch the recording, contact: siebe.briers @ efi.int.

New Bioregions website boosts regional initiatives for a circular forest bioeconomy

Bioregions Facility on January 31, 2022

Photo: Bioregions Facility

The newly launched Bioregions website provides a vivid gateway to the forest circular bioeconomy, revealing a wealth of information and resources, and showcasing initiatives and opportunities at regional scale.

The European Forest Institute (EFI) and pioneering regions across Europe have been working closely together since 2020 to share ideas, experiences, and good practices on the circular forest bioeconomy. The Bioregions Facility, coordinated by EFI, supports bioeconomy initiatives with regional roots to have an outsize impact internationally, fuelling the transformation to a circular, forest-based bioeconomy in Europe.

The new website for the Facility is packed full of information on the forest circular bioeconomy, featuring themes on wood construction, green chemistry, forest fashion and green care, as well as a huge repository of resources, information on forthcoming events, and forest bioeconomy news. Regional bioeconomy innovation ecosystems are explored for the three member Bioregions, North Karelia, North Rhine-Westphalia and Basque Country, with facts & figures, vision & strategy and relevant actors.

The Bioregions Facility has an ambitious work programme, with the website featuring findings and results from past work, as well as an insight into what’s ahead.

Explore the Bioregions website!

About Bioregions Facility

The Bioregions Facility promotes transregional cooperation for a sustainable and integrative forest-based circular bioeconomy. The European Forest Institute established the Facility in 2020 together with three pioneer regions willing to take the lead in forest bioeconomy development: Basque Country (Spain); North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany); and North Karelia (Finland). Bioregions aims to fuel the regional sustainable forest bioeconomy by supporting innovation, networking, and policy learning.