Policy Area Bioeconomy

Sustainable use of natural resources must be considered in all decision-making processes, where often a holistic point of view helps capture opportunities. The bioeconomy in combination with the principles of circular economy represents an opportunity for productivity, economic benefits and environmental improvement, often referred to as circular bio-economy. It is evident that current resource outtake is not at a sustainable level, which triggers Baltic Sea Region youth to act. Circular bio-economy can in this context become an enabler for sustainability, which draws young people’s interest towards bio-economy sector. The Baltic Sea region is already a bioeconomy hotspot and is the home of strong bioeconomy industries, perhaps most notably in the forestry and food sectors. The Baltic Sea Region with abundant natural resources, such as 30% of Europe’s forests, and its long tradition for sustainable management has demonstrated how the bio-economy can benefit the climate and provide various ecosystem services as well as being the backbone of the circular economy in the region. This includes development of new food and other products and services from land, sea, lakes and the forest in line with the Farm to Fork strategy, which contributes to sustainability of other sectors such as tourism. This action will function as an umbrella for many cross-cutting bio-economy activities such as: sustainable forestry; increased use of wood; sustainable food systems; identifying and developing use of alternative proteins and digitalisation while mainly focusing on the blue and green bio-economy potential. This activity includes a bioeconomy trend analysis in the Baltic Sea Region, identifying the most relevant macro trends for bio-economy in the region. The results of the analysis will be used to support policy dialogue within the national and regional stakeholders of the Stratgey and raise awareness of the development of bio-economy and the potential of a more circular bio-economy in the Baltic Sea Region.

Eutrophication is still one of the major threats to the Baltic Sea environment. This is caused by oversupply of nutrients (N and P) mainly released from the agricultural sector and waste water. The global phosphorus resources are limited and often situated in geopolitically delicate areas. At the same time, valuable nutrients, e.g. in manure, are wasted instead of being used for plant nutrition. New solutions such as digital tools, organic fertilizer products and biochar must be developed and implemented to facilitate the transition towards a circular bio-economy, as well as better adaptation to the different aspects of climate change. The action is closely coordinated with the activities of PA Nutri and will partly be a continuation to the current action: Recycling of nutrients in agriculture. This new action must, when so is appropriate and beneficial, include aquaculture and forestry management into the concepts. For example, farmers are often forest owners, with the forest in connection with their agricultural land. Therefore, considering an area’s various natural resources can be an appropriate strategy to meet eutrophication challenges. There is still much to do to improve efficiency and sustainability of the use of natural resources. In addition, the new action will include new activities that can improve the sustainability and adaptation of agriculture to climate change, such as improved management of water and waterways in agriculture, increased energy sustainability in farms and activities to improve the adaptation of peatlands, wetlands as well as for connected forestry lands and aquaculture. There will be focus on new digital solutions for achieving the objective: knowledge exchange, especially peer-to-peer learning has proven to be the most efficient method in adopting new tools or methods; development of communication channels and learning platforms. The new action will look for synergies with reducing emissions of air pollutants from agriculture such as ammonia (e.g. fertiliser use, manure processing) and NOx (e.g. energy efficiency, non-combustible renewable energy).

Bio-economy cuts across sectors, connects land and aquatic ecosystems and comprises both economic, social and biological aspects. It includes primary production sectors that use and produce biological resources (e.g. agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture) as well as sectors using biological resources and processes (e.g. food, bio-based products, energy and services). This action will address the importance of multiple use of resources through cross-cutting and cross-sectoral approaches to accelerate the deployment of a sustainable bio-economy and its contribution to climate change adaptation in the Baltic Sea Region. Results will contribute to the implementation of the EU strategy for a sustainable bio-economy and could be used as practical means of approaching multiple use of resources in planning of land, forest and aquatic ecosystems. Activities will support knowledge sharing and approaches that link actors, sectors, territories and value chains. This could include: to visualise methods and models to extract more value out of limited resources; identifying cross-sectoral industrial symbiosis that increases use of bio-based products; assessing cross-cutting challenges and opportunities; assessing impact and importance of policy instruments and alignment of funding sources; visualise potential to provide sources of income diversification and visualisevalues of non-market benefits, ecosystem services and social values such as recreation.