How will the Bioeconomy of the Future look like?

The BioMonitor project released two policy briefs that focused on future-oriented scenarios developed for the analysis with the BioMonitor Model Toolbox. These scenarios present possible future development pathways for the European Bioeconomy by 2030 and by 2050

In 2015, the United Nations identified 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for its 2030 Agenda and 196 parties adopted the Paris Agreement on climate change. On both the European and global political stage, these high-profile events have provided a much-needed push toward the achievement of a more socially responsible model of economic growth. Policy makers took action as they passed several policies and strategies under the umbrella of the EU Green Deal, within which the bioeconomy forms a key element for creating a sustainable, and carbon-neutral economy.

We have published two more policy briefs as a follow-up to our infopack on the BioMonitor Model Toolbox. These explore the current modelling tools' relevance to offering policy insights for the European bioeconomy, as well as the alternative "futures" that policy makers and other stakeholders may take into account when deciding on upcoming bioeconomy activities.

Using a set of bioeconomy indicators, the BioMonitor Model Toolbox allows us to analyse the different drivers of the bioeconomy and to choose those that promise to be more effective in the future. It is envisaged that this initiative will complement the Bioeconomy Monitoring System developed by the EC JRC.

As we explain in our infopack, we will be using the BioMonitor Model Toolbox to provide policy insights. We published a policy brief, where we provide our initial findings from the evaluation of 32 models, cross-referencing with policies that are related to the bioeconomy objectives such as food security, sustainable natural resources, independence from non-renewable resources, climate change mitigation and adaptation, competitiveness and job creation.

We designed the BioMonitor Reference Scenario (BRS) that serves as a baseline for policy makers and stakeholders. The BRS serves the time horizons of 2030 and 2050 and is a starting point for identifying success stories, pressure points, trade-offs and synergies through the prism of the three pillars of sustainability. To help in this endeavour, four possible alternative scenarios have been defined in another policy brief based on the level of global collaboration and bioeconomy policy cohesion, namely, 'Go-it-alone', 'Hand-in-hand', 'Drill-baby-drill' and 'BioEco-Resilience'.

All in all, both these documents serve as guides for stakeholders on the BioMonitor Model Toolbox as a means to build a more sustainable bioeconomy for our future.

Access the policy brief on the "Relevance of current modelling tools for offering policy insights for the creation of a vibrant European Bioeconomy by 2030 and 2050
Access the policy brief on the "BioMonitor Policy Scenarios for the European Bioeconomy to 2030 and 2050"

Provided by iCube Programme