Hosted by the University of Copenhagen and the Danish Ministry for Green Transition, on behalf of the European Commission, this conference marked the launch of the new EU Bioeconomy Strategy (available here). The strategy aims to unlock the full potential of bio-based innovation, enabling Europe to lead in regenerative, circular, and sustainable growth. This high-level conference, as part of the Danish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, explored how to boost and mainstream the bioeconomy through science, innovation, and governance.

You can find speaker biographies for the conference here, and a full programme here.

The overall theme of GBS2024 was: “One Planet – Sustainable Bioeconomy Solutions for Global Challenges”.

GBS2024 gathered leaders of bioeconomy from all hemispheres and highlighted a sustainable bioeconomy as the key to decarbonisation and sustainable transition to less fossil fuel dependent, rural and urban green economies; while building resilient and sustainable food systems, reversing biodiversity loss, meeting health challenges, and using innovation as a driver for new economic opportunities, especially jobs for the youth.

GBS2024 discussed:

• Cross sectoral topics (e.g., agri-food systems, forestry, ocean/aquatic, biomanufacturing, biopharma, biotechnology, biomaterials, and bioenergy)
• Ecosystems (e.g., nature / ecology, consumer products, construction, and urban design)
• Supporting mechanisms and enablers (e.g., policies, finance, standards, measurements, certifications).The GBS is a forum that fosters dialogue between widely different actors to promote sharing of best practices, to identify opportunities for global innovation and collaboration, and to gather champions in promoting the bioeconomy concept across disciplines and sectors amongst policy makers and financiers

You can find a report on the GBS 2024 here: https://gbs2024.org/gbs-2024-report/

Three workshops were organised at GBS2024 by IBF Working Groups

• Biorefineries: Factors impacting the implementation of biorefinery technologies in the global economy
• Forest: Building sustainable and inclusive forest-based bioeconomy value chains and business models globally
• ICT in Food Systems: AI-powered solutions for Pest and Disease Management in Primary Bioeconomy Production (see summary of the workshop here)

The 6th IBF Plenary meeting took place back-to-back with GBS 2024 in Nairobi.

50 participants from over 20 countries around the globe joined us in Nairobi or online.  We discussed past and current activities of the five Working Groups of the International Bioeconomy Forum (Microbiomes, Forests, Biorefineries, Plant Health and ICT in Food Systems). We also discussed the way forward for the IBF and how we can ensure providing most relevant contributions to the international science-to-policy agenda related to the bioeconomy.

A meeting programme and summary can be found here.

The presentations from the meeting can be found here.

The 5th IBF Plenary meeting took place as a hybrid event.

The aim of the meeting was to provide updates on IBF governance matters and discuss the future of the IBF and its Working Groups. In addition, the IBF plenary meeting discussed country perspectives on policy developments and strategies.

The 4th IBF Plenary meeting took online.

The aim of the meeting was to provide updates on IBF governance matters, report on the progress and validate the deliverables of the IBF working groups, and host a plenary session to deliberate on the most recent topics pertaining to bioeconomy. This year’s plenary is organised under the theme “A Decade of Biomass for a Sustainable Development”.

The meeting agenda can be found here and the meeting report can be found here.

The third Global Bioeconomy Summit took place fully virtual from 16 to 20 November 2020 with the support of the German government. Since the first summit in Berlin in 2015, the summits have established themselves as a unique format for global exchange on bioeconomy policy, governance and sustainable development.

A report on the summit can be found here.

The aim of the 3rd IBF plenary meeting was to update IBF governance matters, to validate the deliverables of the IBF working groups, and to discuss the role of the bioeconomy in the post Covid-19 world, as well as the future of the forum, including synergies and links to other international bioeconomy initiatives.

Participation:

Participants included the official IBF members and observer representatives and the working group leads. Representatives of countries, which are interested in joining the IBF, attended the meeting as observers.

A report on the meeting can be found here.

The second IBF plenary meeting was held from 26-27 May 2019 in Vancouver, Canada. Representatives of member and observatory states discussed the aims and vision of the IBF and its role in relation to other global bioeconomy initiatives. Leaders of the four working groups – Plant Health, ICT, Forest Bioeconomy and Food Systems Microbiomes – presented the objectives and roadmap of their working group.

Around 40 member, observer, and working group representatives attended. The meeting was a success, resulting in tangible progress and a clear path forward.

Please find the minutes of the meeting here.

The second Global Bioeconomy Summit took place in Berlin, Germany with a theme of  Innovation in the Global Bioeconomy for Sustainable and Inclusive  Transformation and Wellbeing.  The GBS2018 defined a set of 14 themes of global relevance for bioeconomy research and policy agendas. While some of these key themes relate to discussions continued from GBS2015, others are newly emerging topics, specifically:

• the links between climate change, health impacts and bioeconomy
• digitization and converging technologies in the bioeconomy
• communication and trust in transformative sciences & technologies
• interdisciplinary education and training at all levels in bioeconomy
• biodiversity as a resource and foundation for bioeconomy
• sea and ocean bioeconomy
• innovative ways of financing and
• bioeconomy in the cities or “biocities”

A report on the summit can be found here.

The IBF was announced by Commissioner Moedas on 13 October 2016 and it was officially launched on 30 November 2017 in Brussels with a first plenary meeting.

The meeting was co-chaired by the European Commission and AgriFood Canada. Nine extra-European countries from all the five continents participated. Canada, US, Argentina, South Africa, India, China and New Zealand joined the IBF as members. Australia and South Korea joined as observers.

Please find the minutes of the meeting here.

The first Global Bioeconomy Summit took place in Berlin, Germany.  See the YouTube video below for a summary of the Summit.