HORIZON “BIO2REG”
BIO2REG is a European project that aims to enable the systemic transition of greenhouse gas-intensive regions through concrete and actionable measures to become bioeconomy model regions. Driven by a shift towards sustainable development, regions with carbon-intensive economies, such as coal mining, intensive agriculture, forestry, and fisheries and peat production, are undergoing significant structural change. The negative outcomes can be dire: for instance economic disruption, unemployment, social strain, and regional inequality. The bioeconomy, which utilises renewable biological resources and technologies for food, materials or energy production, can play a crucial role in shaping structural change. It has the potential to create new value networks, thereby promoting knowledge-based growth and jobs, ecosystem revitalisation and resilience, resource efficiency and circularity, and innovation, while taking into account the context-specific economic, social and environmental conditions of a region.
Regional stakeholders seeking to unlock this transition potential of the bioeconomy, however, often lack the necessary actionable know-how, framework and financial support. BIO2REG seeks to equip regional stakeholders with an array of practical knowledge and tools to design and implement a region-specific transition.