Toolkit helps regions in EU towards bio-economy

How can regions successfully convert residual streams from the food and agriculture industry into food, animal feed, chemicals, materials or energy? A comprehensive toolkit was recently developed that allows regions to create a regional strategy for the development of the bio-economy step by step. The toolkit was developed in the EU project POWER4BIO, in which Wageningen University & Research collaborates with four other European research institutes.

The Bioeconomy Strategy Accelerator Toolkit provides local policy makers with 30 downloadable documents with which they can create a strategy in four steps. The method is based on strategies developed by 10 European regions as part of POWER4BIO. According to Martien van den Oever, project manager of Wageningen Food & Biobased Research, strategy development starts with analysing the potential that is already present regionally: “What raw materials are already available? What industry exists and how is the infrastructure? After that, you have a network with all interested parties that could play a role in the bio-economy. The next step is to work together with stakeholders to develop a vision on the regional bio-economy. In the final step, you will create the regional strategy, including a plan to implement that strategy. The toolkit supports regions in all four steps.”

www.bioeconomy-strategy-toolkit.eu