The European Commission proposes some measures that would rein in the environmental pressures driving nature loss, ECOS says, but it will not be enough to meet the full scale of the problem. Nature is framed primarily as an instrument for EU competitiveness, with too few sustainability safeguards in place to make the bioeconomy resilient in the long-term. True competitiveness depends on healthy ecosystems capable of performing essential functions such as carbon storage, temperature regulation, flood control, and water purification.
Samy Porteron, Senior Programme Manager at ECOS – Environmental Coalition on Standards, said: “This strategy has made some progress towards getting the most out of limited biomass, but instead of fixing other old mistakes, it puts them centre stage and wraps them in new branding. Competitiveness is important and can only work in the long-term if we stay within planetary boundaries. Europe’s forests, soils and water systems are already degraded and need to be restored as we move away from fossil resources. The seeds of potential in this strategy must now be cultivated into a truly modern bioeconomy that meets human and planetary needs.”
Safeguarding planetary health is not prioritised enough in the Bioeconomy Strategy, ECOS explains. Without it, a bioeconomy that is competitive in the long-term will be harder to achieve. Missed opportunities include:
- Promoting bio-based production with insufficient safeguards to prevent pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate impacts from bio-based products, especially plastics. Bio-based products must prove real sustainability, today they still rely on intensive forestry and agricultural models.
- Relying too heavily on voluntary or offset-based schemes that lack evidence of being effective.
- Little support for ecological forestry and farming practices.
The bioeconomy is a leading cause of ecosystem degradation and resource depletion. The EU’s revised Bioeconomy Strategy does not get the balance completely right, ECOS says, but it does offer some measures that could be built on to have a positive environmental impact. For example:
- The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) process is noted as a key framework to set ecodesign requirements, starting with textiles and furniture.
- Improved monitoring and data transparency is signalled in a suggestion to expand the visibility of environmental impacts across the bioeconomy.
- The cascading use principle [3], or the efficient use of biomass, could be extended into a wider EU policy process to remove subsidies which skew the market towards burning wood for energy.
While the EU’s revised Bioeconomy Strategy does lay the groundwork for some improvements, it has also missed crucial opportunities, ECOS says. It will now fall to other legislation – from the ESPR to soil and forestry initiatives – to introduce real support for ecological practices and the safeguards and sufficiency measures needed for a truly sustainable and competitive bioeconomy.
