1. Premises for the update

Finland’s first national Bioeconomy Strategy was adopted in May 2014 as part of the Government resolution on “Leading Factors of Growth”. It was consistent with the content of the EU Bioeconomy Strategy adopted in 2012.

The EU Bioeconomy Strategy was updated at the end of 2018. At the request of the Commission, the European Bioeconomy Scene 2019 conference in Finland came to the conclusion that Finland would prepare the Council conclusions on the updated EU Bioeconomy Strategy.

The conclusions were adopted by the Competitiveness Council in November 2019. They urge Member States to accelerate the bioeconomy by drafting or updating their national bioeconomy strategies.

On 1 July 2020, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment appointed a steering group, a coordination secretariat, and a Bioeconomy Panel providing advisory assistance and consisting of representatives of stakeholders for the Bioeconomy Strategy update project (TEM071:00/2020).

The draft of the strategy was published on the Lausuntopalvelu.fi website for opinions. The received feedback (50 opinions) were taken into consideration where applicable.

The aim of the Bioeconomy Strategy update is to increase the bioeconomy’s value added so that social and economic equity and the planet’s carrying capacity are taken into account.