Bioeconomy

The Scenario Exploration System (SES) is a board game developed by the JRC, to facilitate the practical use of scenarios from foresight studies. The Bioeconomy edition is based on four scenarios for the bioeconomy in 2050, created in a previous foresight study, and it will be used in a series of workshops. Participants will take up the roles of different bioeconomy stakeholders and navigate the different futures. This will enable them to develop a long-term perspective and experience the constraints and opportunities they might face in taking actions towards their goals, and in interacting with other bioeconomy stakeholders.

This policy paper presents the main results of a comparative study of food systems research and innovation (R&I) investment levels in the EU, considering public and private R&I spent at both national and EU level. Data were categorised according to the priorities, pathways and sectors identified by the European Commission’s Food 2030 R&I policy framework to understand overall levels of expenditure on different priorities in food-related sectors and to identify any potential funding gaps.- to be updated

The Council adopted a new Recommendation to stimulate and support policies and programmes about learning for the green transition and sustainable development. Among other things, it recommends that Member States consider learning for green transition as a priority area for training programmes, use the new European Competence Framework on Sustainability (GreenComp, developed by the JRC), support educators and provide them with adequate infrastructure and accurate data on the climate-related crises.

On 7th July, the bioeconomy community celebrated the World Bioproduct Day ' Discover initiatives and projects created for this special day (to be updated after 7th July)

The Commission has launched a public consultation on the revision of the Waste Framework Directive (WFD), including the setting of EU food waste reduction targets. The public consultation focuses on prevention (including reduction of food waste), separate collection, waste oils and textiles, the application of the waste hierarchy and the polluter pays principle. It is open for feedback until 16 August 2022.

In this sixth report about the EU progress towards SDGs, Eurostat presents a set of about 100 indicators, along the 17 SDGs, focusing on on aspects that are relevant from an EU perspective. The report includes short-term and long-term staticstical trends offers and analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts during the last two years and half.

In this new article, published in Nature Scientific Data, a group of international authors present the first reference data set and a prototype of a globally consistent forest management map with high spatial detail, in 226 thousand locations across the globe. The data collection method included a series of expert and crowdsourcing campaigns, combined with satellite data. The result provides a valuable set of spatially explicit information on the status of forests at the global scale and can be used for investigating the value of forests for species, ecosystems and their services.

This new report, elaborated for the European Commission’s Knowledge Centre for Bioeconomy, maps and analyses the deployment of bioeconomy strategies at regional level in the EU-27. The study covered regions at the territorial levels NUTS 1 and NUTS 2 and, in some cases, at NUTS 3 level, looking at different regulatory frameworks, different thematic coverage of the strategy, and different levels of development of the strategy.

It is the total area taken up by arable land, permanent grassland, permanent crops and kitchen gardens used by the holdings, regardless of the type of tenure or whether it is used as common land.

Residues are divided into four main sub-categories: agricultural, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries, and processing residues. A processing residue is a substance that is not the end product(s) that a production process directly seeks to produce. It is not a primary aim of the production process and the process has not been deliberately modified to produce it.

This report presents the role of urban agriculture to achieve the transition towards a circular economy, address climate change and other Sustainable Development Goals. It includes an analysis of urban agriculture typologies across the globe and the derived benefits in all three sustainability dimensions, but also the existing trade-offs. The report is accompanied by a policy guidance document with a road map for designing “fit-for-purpose” urban agriculture policies.

JRC researchers have developed a methodology to estimate the employment and value added of the bioeconomy at the regional level in the EU. The method uses existing data from the JRC and Eurostat and estimates the missing regional data from national statistics by applying various criteria, allowing the monitoring of major trends for regional bioeconomies in the EU. The report also highlights the main methodological challenges encountered and gives insights for future improvements.

In this study, JRC researchers assessed the impact of behavioural changes with regard to food system, focusing on the reduction of food waste and losses as well as healthy diets. Using the computable general equilibrium simulation model MAGNET, the authors have analysed four sets of scenarios, considering the impact of different attitudes towards food waste and diet, combined with food supply chain compliance cost variation and food system resilience, looking at the effect on Europe and globally.

Eurostat has released a new interactive visualisation tool to explore statistics related to the European Green Deal, with an overview of 26 indicators, divided into 3 main topics: reducing our climate impact; protecting our planet & health and enabling a green & just transition.

The Commission has presented a new package of proposals to make sustainable products the norm in the EU, boost circular business models and empower consumers for the green transition. These include a proposed Regulation on Ecodesign for Sustainable Products, an EU Strategy for sustainable and circular textiles and a revision of the construction products Regulation.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has just published the 2022 edition of "The State of the World’s Forests". The report recognises that forests have the potential to contribute to achieving green recovery and tackling multidimensional planetary crises, including climate change and biodiversity loss, through three interrelated pathways: halting deforestation and maintaining forests; restoring degraded lands and expanding agroforestry; and sustainably using forests and building green value chains.

The Commission launched a new public consultation to gather opinions and evidence from relevant stakeholders about food system sustainability. This is taking place in preparation of a planned initiative for a horizontal framework law, to accelerate and facilitate the transition to sustainability and ensure that foods placed on the EU market increasingly become sustainable. The survey is open until 21 July 2022.

The Commission has launched a call for young Europeans, with experience or interest in the bioeconomy, to join the Bioeconomy Youth Ambassadors programme. The selected Ambassadors will have the opportunity to participate in various events and contribute to the sustainable and circular transition of Europe. The call is open until 13 June 2022.