Author: Dirk Carrez | Director of Bio-Based Industries Consortium
We recently published the latest annual call of the current Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU). Since 2014, the start date of the BBI JU, the biobased industry in Europe has come a long way.
As the Horizon 2020 program comes to an end, we look ahead to Circular Biobased Europe: a new, more ambitious and comprehensive partnership for bio-based industries with the European Commission. We make every effort to involve new stakeholders, such as the primary sector, regions and financial institutions.
The overall objective of the proposed European partnership is to continue the societal transition towards a sustainable bio-based economy, leading to sustainable and competitive solutions for greater circularity and use of European biomass, residues and waste, with an emphasis on regional approaches, to to pave the way to climate neutrality by 2050. This is fully in line with the European Green Deal.
Together with various other associations and stakeholders from multiple and diverse sectors, we have now developed a Vision for a circular, biobased society for 2050. We want to realize a circular biosociety:
- in which informed citizens will benefit from a bio-economic social model;
- in which biobased products and services are competitive in terms of both price and performance;
- where Europe is the global hub for biobased industrial investments;
- and in which a sustainable biobased industry will play a central role in the fight against climate change.
Based on these objectives, we have started developing a Research and Innovation Agenda (SIRA) for the upcoming partnership.
The common element
BIC, the Biobased Industries Consortium, is not a classic trade organization. Our companies represent many different industrial sectors, and our many associate members also come from different disciplines and sectors, e.g. universities, think tanks, research institutions, regions, etc.
But the common element that brings us together is the belief that new connections and innovations across industries and disciplines are needed to create biobased value chains. And we will continue to do that.
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