Survey

Background

The number of bioeconomy strategies are ever increasing. Today there are already close to 60 national biostrategies and besides that there are countless numbers of regional biostrategies. On top of that there are also aggregated biostrategies, for example the EU or East African Union bioeconomy strategies. And it’s good to see that the number of these biostrategies are increasing.

The value of the bioeconomy is also increasing. It has been said that bioeconomy value will account for one third of all economical activities by 2030. (Schmidt Futures) i.e. being 30 trillion USD. We see a lot of evidence and news supporting this scenario globally: 

• The USA has the future value of the bioeconomy as basis for their approach to the bioeconomy
• An unprecedented survey estimates that the implementation of the bioeconomy in Brazil could generate an annual industrial revenue of US$ 284 billion by 2050
• Egypt is expecting its bioeconomy value to increase to a level of 54 billion USD
• Japan says it will increase its value of the bioeconomy by 50% towards end of the decade
  So, as we see value of the bioeconomy increasing everywhere, the various nations and regions on every continent are committing to more and more supportive measures. 

There are several other national discussions related to supply chains, traceability, feedstock availability etc. which could be advantageous to discuss at a global level. 

The bioeconomy is also related to climate change mitigation and biodiversity. They all belong to same family, but with the exception that only two older sectors (climate change mitigation and biodiversity) already have global hubs (COPs), where topics are discussed and agreed upon on a global level. UNFCC COPs have been run for thirty years and Biodiversity COPs close to twenty years. Their younger sector, bioeconomy, does not have any global hub or hub where its topics are discussed. 

Recently there have been more discussions on the subject of the bioeconomy and it’s the potential to have its own global hub. This is a huge topic and cannot be answered overnight. 

That is why the World BioEconomy Forum is dedicating its season 2023 to the topic of “creating a global hub for the bioeconomy”. During the season 2023 we will be revisiting the theme through the Four-Pillar Structure and by arranging roundtables in different continents to collect their views on a global hub concept.