Bioeconomy

The JRC has published a new release of the EU Biomass Flows tool, contributing to its biomass study. It is a visualisation, in the form of Sankey diagrams, of the flows of biomass for each sector of the bioeconomy, from supply to uses including trade. In addition to the updated data, novel features of this release include a redesign of the flows for woody biomass and integration of food waste flows.

Forests where any environmental, social or economic restrictions do not have a significant impact on the current or potential supply of wood. These restrictions can be established by legal rules, managerial/owner’s decisions or because of other reasons.

The European Commission has adopted a Communication on the European Growth Model, setting out the key investments and reforms that are required to achieve our common objectives with respect to the green and digital transition and to strengthening social and economic resilience. It also underlines the importance of coordinated action by all relevant actors, including the EU, Member States and the private sector.

In this science for policy brief, JRC researchers describe a framework based on the Life Cycle Assessment method, presenting two indicators: the Consumption Footprint and the Domestic Footprint. The first looks at the consumption perspective, and assesses the environmental impacts of consumption at EU and at Member State level, including impacts embodied in trade with non EU countries. The second looks at the territorial perspective, to quantify the overall impacts of domestic production and consumption happening within EU or Member States boundaries. The brief presents the main results from the calculation of these indicators in the EU from 2010 to 2018.

In February 2012, the European Commission adopted its first Bioeconomy Strategy to radically change the EU’s approach in managing its biological resources. The updated Bioeconomy Strategy in 2018 maintained the five original objectives, and expanded the focus areas on the regional deployment of the bioeconomy across Europe and on increasing the understanding of the ecological boundaries. The Commission’s Knowledge Centre for Bioeconomy and its Bioeconomy Monitoring System play a crucial role in building up the knowledge base on key issues and in tracking the bioeconomy’s progress towards sustainability in the EU and its Member States.

This study, carried out by researchers in Wageningen University for the European Commission, responds to an action of the 2018 Bioeconomy Strategy and provides guidance on managing healthy and resilient ecosystems in the context of the bioeconomy in Europe. It specifically focuses on agro-ecosystems, forest ecosystems and marine aquaculture ecosystems. The guidelines synthesise principles, good practices, indicators, policy and financial enablers, and stakeholder engagement approaches.

The JRC has published updated Sankey diagrams of woody biomass flows in the European Union for the years 2009-2017. Starting from primary sources of wood, removals or imports, wood can either feed wood processing industries for the manufacturing of wood-based products or be used for energy production. The woody biomass transferred across the different transformation steps and among the different subsectors follows complex flows, illustrated with the Sankey diagrams, where the width of each arrow is proportional to the magnitude of the flow.

Researchers from the EC Joint Research Centre have reviewed the qualitative impacts on biodiversity and carbon emissions of 24 specific bioenergy pathways on forest ecosystems and biodiversity. The analysis focuses on interventions that may be used to supply additional forest-based energy. It highlights win-win and lose-lose options and relates them with the measures proposed by the European Green Deal policy.The study has been carried out under the umbrella of the JRC Biomass mandate, to address one of the actions of the European Biodiversity strategy.

The European Commission, together with the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) and a consortium of sustainability consultants and algae organisations have launched a European algae stakeholder platform, called EU4Algae. The aim of the platform, as a unique space for collaboration, is to accelerate the development of a European algae industry and promote algae for nutrition and other uses among consumers and businesses in the EU.

A new JRC report summarises the findings of an inclusive, participatory process that explored possible building blocks for the legislative framework on sustainable food systems, foreseen in the EU Farm to Fork Strategy. The project identified and discussed five building blocks: a sustainability assessment framework, transparency, dealing with consequences of the transition, policy coherence and multi-level governance, and international trade.

Stewardship and use of forest lands in a way and at a rate that maintains their productivity, biodiversity, regeneration capacity, vitality and their potential to fulfill, now and in the future, relevant ecological, economic and social functions at local, national and global levels and that does not cause damage to other ecosystems.

Check the highlights from the new publication of the Working Group 2 of IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Authored by hundreds of the world’s top climate scientists, the publication confirms that climate change is here to stay and some of its effects are now unavoidable. The report finds that climate change induced by humanity impacts nature and people more intensely, more frequently and over a wider geographical area than previously thought.

A international group of researchers has provided an estimation of the total tree species richness at global, continental, and biome levels, highlighting the vulnerability of global tree species diversity to anthropogenic changes.The study found around 73 thousands tree species globally, of which 9 thousands still not discovered. The researchers have indicated that almost one-third of all the tree species to be discovered may be rare.

The Knowledge Centre for Bioeconomy has published a new webpage, focusing on how the forest-based bioeconomy contributes to climate change mitigation through carbon storage and material substitution. You can watch an introductory video, read the brief and explore key data and publications from different sources, plus a glossary of related terms.

JRC researchers developed a dataset of current and future potential distributions of 67 tree species in Europe at 10 km spatial resolution. The EU-Trees4F dataset includes both climatically suitable future areas of occupancy and the future distribution expected in 2035, 2065, and 2095, under a scenario of natural dispersal for two emission scenarios. It can support applications in various fields, including the bioeconomy.

Researchers have analysed how the historical reduction of fish biomass due to fishing pressure has impacted the marine biogeochemical processes. They used a marine ecosystem model, whose estimates suggest that the biogeochemical impact of fisheries can be comparable to that of anthropogenic climate change.

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A recent paper in Nature Scientific data introduces a global dataset documenting outcomes of diversified farming practices for biodiversity and yields, specifically designed for use in meta-analysis.