CALL FOR EVIDENCE

FOR AN INITIATIVE (without an impact assessment)

This document aims to inform the public and stakeholders about the Commission's work, so they can provide feedback and participate effectively in consultation activities.

We ask these groups to provide views on the Commission's understanding of the problem and possible solutions, and to give us any relevant information they may have.

Title of the initiative

Towards a Circular, Regenerative and Competitive Bioeconomy

Lead DG – responsible unit

DG Environment

Likely Type of initiative

Communication

Indicative Timing

Q4-2025

Additional Information

A. Political context, problem definition and subsidiarity check

Political context

The bioeconomy –understood as biomass production, biomass conversion into food, bio-based materials, and products (including bio-chemical ones) and bioenergy– generated EUR 728 billion of value added and employed 17.2 million people in the EU in 2021. This amounts to 5 % of the EU’s gross domestic product and 8.2 % of its employment (JRC 2022). This shows the growth potential of a regenerative bioeconomy that contributes to the EU’s competitiveness, strengthens its industrial base, further reduces our reliance on fossil fuels, and boosts our rural areas.

The European Council’s strategic agenda for 2024-2029 called to ‘develop a more circular and resource-efficient economy, driving forward the industrial development of clean technologies, reaping the full benefits, also for regions, of the bioeconomy’. However, as underlined by the Competitiveness Compass, the bioeconomy, as part of the European market, risks to suffer from ‘a persistent gap in productivity growth’.

The current political context, marked by geopolitical tensions, including Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and by stronger international competition, has emphasised the need for increasing EU competitiveness and strengthening resilience, resource efficiency, food sovereignty and energy security in the EU, while ensuring affordability and accessibility of these basic goods and services for all. Internationally, the G20 started a Bioeconomy Initiative, and the US, China and India announced new ambitious bioeconomy plans to make better use of the revolution in biotechnology and biomanufacturing.

In line with the Competitiveness Compass, the Clean Industrial Deal and the EU Climate Law, the bioeconomy plays a key role in supporting the EU in reaching its climate and energy goals by 2030 and climate neutrality by 2050, while combating biodiversity loss and pollution. According to the Vision for Agriculture and Food, the bioeconomy and circularity are key instruments for agriculture, forestry and the entire food system to reduce external dependencies, diversify sources of income and strengthen the role of primary producers.

The implementation of the 2012 bioeconomy strategy and its update in 2018, achieved significant progress in research and innovation. Despite this, trade-offs and fragmentation of the policy framework are hampering the potential of the EU to achieve a leading position in a rapidly expanding market, by leveraging bio-based materials, biomanufacturing, biochemicals, and agri-tech and food-tech sectors, which present a significant growth potential. In this context, the 2025 Commission work programme announces a new bioeconomy strategy by the end of 2025.

The new bioeconomy strategy will promote the more circular and sustainable production and consumption of biological resources for food, materials, energy and services, providing potential alternatives to fossil fuels. It will be aimed at farmers, foresters, industry and businesses particularly SMEs and startups of the EU and its rural and coastal areas. It will help them close the innovation gap and make a success of the green transition. The strategy will aim to reduce the pressure on the limited resources through innovation in primary production, increased circularity, and resource efficiency. The strategy will address barriers and identify drivers for bioeconomy innovations and solutions to reach the market.

Problem the initiative aims to tackle

The EU bioeconomy could boost competitiveness by increasing the use of sustainable biomass in high-value applications, in line with a circular and resource efficient use of the limited biomass resources.

More financing is needed to bring these bioeconomy solutions from the factory stage to scale-up facilities and commercialisation. Various barriers hinder or slow down their development, largely due to lacking cost competitiveness, a non-level playing field in the single market with fossil resources, complex regulatory hurdles, inconsistent legislation and implementation across the EU, insufficient funding associated to high-risk investment needs and gaps in financing and insufficient infrastructure.

In particular, bioeconomy start-ups in the EU often face significant challenges in scaling up, leading some to seek opportunities and skilled workers abroad. Key factors contributing to this trend include limited access to venture capital, market fragmentation, shortage of workers, and regulatory hurdles.

The EU has been successful in mobilising public funding for bioeconomy research and innovation. For instance, the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (2014-2020) and its successor, the Circular Biobased Europe (CBE) partnership (2021-2031) attracted private investment of EUR 2.4 billion pf private investment by the end of 2023, matched with EUR 871 million of support from the EU. The common agricultural policy is expected to mobilise around EUR 8.5 billion for agricultural and forest-related bioeconomy. Still, these figures remain low if compared with current programmes of non-EU countries to promote the bioeconomy.

Member States and regions have pointed at the need to put in place an enabling framework that includes cross-cutting measures in areas like monitoring, finance, networking, awareness raising, and skills development.

Recent studies also show the need to foster solutions that halt biodiversity loss and environmental degradation, in particular through innovation in primary production, increased circularity, and resource efficiency that delivers more value from less resources and rewards the primary producers for sustainable land management.

Basis for EU action (legal basis and subsidiarity check)

Legal basis

Article 114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) gives the EU power to adopt measures for the approximation of laws in the single market. Article 179(1), Article 181(1) and Article 185 give the UE the overall competence to support, coordinate or supplement the actions of the Member States with regard to their research and technological development activities. Articles 191, 192 and 193 give the UE the competence to preserve, protect and improve the quality of the environment and the prudent and rational utilisation of natural resources. Article 173 states: ‘the Union and the Member States shall ensure that the conditions necessary for the competitiveness of the Union’s industry exist’. Articles 174, 175, 176 and 177 require the EU to strengthen economic, social and territorial cohesion and reduce disparities between the levels of development of the various regions (including rural areas and areas affected by industrial transition). With regard to the need to preserve and improve the environment, Article 194 gives the UE the power to promote the development of new and renewable forms of energy, in a spirit of solidarity between Member States.

Practical need for EU action

Sectors and value chains that rely on biological resources and bioeconomy solutions often span multiple Member States and often have a global dimension. This is the case in primary production, but also in value chains like food, paper, chemicals, construction or textiles. In a similar way, environmental, circularity and energy and climate challenges go beyond national and regional boundaries while affecting people unequally, putting considerably higher pressure on vulnerable groups. Therefore, many key challenges, barriers and trade-offs in relation to production, processing and use of natural resources and biomass are better addressed and/or coordinated at EU level, in close cooperation with Member States.

Activities related to research, innovation, funding, demonstration, deployment and commercialisation benefit from EU level scale, the single market, and cooperation between Member States and regions. Coordination at EU level is key for the efficiency and effectiveness of these activities. EU-level coordination also strengthens the governance and monitoring of the bioeconomy, which cuts across many sectors, Member States and regions. It supports an EU-wide enabling regulatory framework for the bioeconomy, coherent policies, a level playing field in the single market across sectors and Member States, and sufficient focus on shared EU-wide priorities.

B. What does the initiative aim to achieve and how

The bioeconomy strategy will aim to boosting the EU’s competitiveness and increase green jobs while promoting a bioeconomy that reconciles different biomass uses while respecting ecosystems’ ecological boundaries. This should help bring innovative bioeconomy solutions to the market, while ensuring sustainable biomass supply in the long term and actively engaging with international partners. The new bioeconomy strategy communication will be aligned with the Competitiveness Compass, the Clean Industrial Deal, the Vision for Agriculture and Food, the Council Recommendation on ensuring a fair transition towards climate-neutrality and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. It will seek synergies with the upcoming start-up and scale-up strategy, the life science strategy, the ocean pact, the European Biotech Act, the Circular Economy Act, the Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act. The communication will be accompanied by an annex outlining the different measures.

Likely impacts

The strategy’s main aim are set out below:

·Ensuring the long-term competitiveness of the EU bioeconomy and investment security. The strategy will identify measures to scale up and commercialise existing and emerging biotech solutions and bio-based products, in particular by tapping into the significant growth potential of bio-based materials substituting fossil-based ones (e.g. sources of alternative proteins, bio-based materials or biochemicals).  It will entail looking at practical measures to remove unnecessary barriers to bio-based manufacturing and bio-innovation and unleash the full opportunities of primary bio-based production.

·Increasing resource-efficient and circular use of biological resources, by creating an efficient demand. This means transforming how we value and use biomass resources, prioritizing extended high-value applications while encouraging industries and consumers to embrace circular practices that maximise economic returns from each unit of biomass. It might also entail providing targeted support and incentives for higher value added uses of biomass feedstock and by-products in line with the cascading principle.

·Securing the competitive and sustainable supply of biomass, both domestically and from outside EU.  The strategy will strengthen the role of primary producers, generating wealth in rural areas by creating jobs and diversifying incomes for foresters and farmers and rewarding them for the preservation of ecosystems. 

·Positioning the EU in the rapidly expanding international market for bio-based materials, biomanufacturing, biochemicals, and agri-food and biotech sectors. This will be done, in particular, by steering existing foreign policy mechanisms in the area of the bioeconomy in the context of Global Gateways, exploring the need and appropriateness of bringing bioeconomy under international multilateral fora, and promoting green diplomacy on bioeconomy.

Future monitoring

The Commission will continue to monitor the bioeconomy’s development through the EU Knowledge Centre for Bioeconomy and the Bioeconomy Monitoring System. It will further improve these systems.

The progress of the measures proposed will be continuously monitored, and the Commission will assess their implementation four to six years after the adoption of the strategy.

C. Better regulation

Impact assessment

No impact assessment is planned as the communication is a non-legislative initiative and sets out a general policy approach. However, legislative proposals stemming from the communication may qualify for an impact assessment.

The communication will build on the evidence of the 2022 progress report and on the evidence gathered by the EU Knowledge Centre for on Bioeconomy, the feedback received from the consultation activities and upcoming, reports from the knowledge community.

Consultation strategy

The consultation strategy plans for two types of consultation activities. First, a web-based public consultation will be open for at least12 weeks on the Have Your Say-portal. Stakeholders are invited to reply to the survey in the portal. Stakeholders are also invited to give their views on this call for evidence, including on the questions in the section ‘Problem the initiative aims to tackle’.

Secondly, several targeted stakeholder workshops will be organised in parallel to the web-based public consultation. A synopsis report analysing all stakeholder contributions will conclude this process.

In addition to the workshops, several stakeholder events will have a focus on the bioeconomy (e.g. EU Green Week 2025 and European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform’s conference).

The consultation strategy also takes into account past and ongoing events and consultations, including: the conference on the 2022 progress report, the launch of RIV4BFS, the CBE stakeholder forum, SE Riksdag conference, the Bioeconomy Seminar, the FOOD 2030 conference, and ongoing engagement activities that are part of the preparation of related initiatives.

Why are we consulting?

The call for evidence and public consultation will ensure that the Commission takes into account the perspectives of stakeholders, especially young people, SMEs (including start-ups), non-governmental organisations, trade unions, and primary producers. To this effect, the Commission will transparently gather their views, arguments and underlying information and analysis on the bioeconomy and the future EU bioeconomy strategy, in particular on the questions in the section ‘Problem the initiative aims to tackle’.

Target audience

The Commission invites stakeholders to provide their input, in particular:

·General public;

·Businesses and Industries, including SMEs;

·Primary producers of biomass, farmers and foresters;

·Social partners and representatives of professions, industry, manufacturing and services;

·Non-governmental organisations;

·Consultancies;

·Organisations supporting research and innovation;

·Organisations active in education;

·Organisations representing regional, local, and municipal authorities, other public or mixed sub-national entities; and

·National and regional public authorities, EU decentralised agencies and other bodies (EU agencies), as well as public authorities of non-EU countries, or international organisations