The EU Commission presents the new strategy for the bioeconomy: 2,700 billion euros and 17 million jobs

Jessika Roswall, European Commissioner for the Environment, showed up on November 27th in the press room of the Berlaymont Palace in Brussels wearing a wood fiber dress. Around her, a bathtub, a sofa, seaweed cosmetics. It is not a sustainable fashion show, but the presentation of the new European strategy for the bioeconomy. The message is clear: biological materials are not ecological folklore, they are already an industrial reality. And Brussels wants to multiply its use.

EU bioeconomy: numbers and potential

The numbers speak for themselves. In 2023, the European bioeconomy moved 2,700 billion euros and gave work to 17.1 million people, around 8% of those employed in the Union. Each direct position generates three indirect ones. Yet, according to the Commission, “the still untapped potential is enormous”. To unlock it, Roswall promises binding targets on bio-based products, a 10 billion euro industrial alliance by 2030 and faster authorizations for startups in the sector.

Strategy and incentives

The strategy identifies priority markets: plastics, textile fibres, chemicals, fertilisers, construction materials, biorefineries. All sectors where fossil alternatives still dominate, but where biological solutions are already technologically mature. Algae provide substances for drugs and cosmetics. Bio-based plastics enter packaging and car components. Agricultural and forestry residues become raw materials for the chemical industry.

“All this concerns growth, decarbonisation and jobs in Europe”, insists the Environment Commissioner. The plan includes a simplified regulatory framework that rewards circular models, massive public funding and a dedicated private investment group. Europe is 90% self-sufficient in biomass supply. The objective is to maintain it, diversifying sources and valorising waste and by-products.

Sustainability and circularity

But there is a critical issue: sustainability. Bioenergy represents more than half of the community’s consumption of renewables, but the European Environment Agency has already raised the alarm about the risks to biodiversity, ecosystems and carbon sinks. The Commission responds by promising biomass management “within ecological limits” and incentives for farmers and foresters who protect soils and improve CO2 absorption.

Circularity becomes a key principle: prolong the life of biological resources, use by-products and organic waste first, allocate primary biomass to uses with greater environmental and economic value. Only after food security is guaranteed and ecosystem services are preserved can biomass replace fossil materials.

The strategy also proposes a Bio-based Europe Alliance: European companies commit to joint purchases of biotechnological solutions for 10 billion by 2030. A way to stimulate demand and scalability, lowering the costs of bio-based products and making them competitive. For citizens, translated, it means more accessible ecological choices in daily life.

The current regulatory framework penalizes innovation: slow and complex authorizations slow down SMEs. Brussels announces the Biotech Act and a European Forum of regulators and innovators to speed up the processes. In the new multi-year budget, a “bioeconomy window” is proposed in the European Competitiveness Fund and in Horizon, dedicated to financing from research to industrial diffusion.

Blue bioeconomy and global leadership

The European Union wants to position itself as a global leader in bio-based technologies, reducing dependence on individual regions or resources. In the current geopolitical climate, security of supply is competitiveness. And the blue bioeconomy, which targets untapped aquatic resources such as fishery waste and cultivated algae, will have a dedicated initiative under the European Ocean Pact.

It remains to be seen whether the rhetoric of Palazzo Berlaymont will translate into concrete investments and actual markets. The bioeconomy is not science fiction, as Roswall says. But transforming it from a niche to an industrial pillar requires more than a dress made of plant fibers.