Declaration of the World BioEconomy Roundtable – Copenhagen 2025

Scaling the bioeconomy: leadership, finance, and strengthening Europe’s contribution

The World BioEconomy Roundtable[2], convened in Copenhagen on 1 December 2025 under the Danish Presidency of the EU Council and co-organised by the World Bioeconomy Association (WBA) and the Danish Industry (DI), gathered business leaders, financiers, policymakers, and scientists to reaffirm the bioeconomy as a cornerstone of Europe’s sustainable and competitive future.

Following the historic outcomes of the UN Climate Conference COP30 in Belém — where the bioeconomy featured for the first time within the official Action Agenda — and building on the continued bioeconomy track under the G20 Presidencies of India, Brazil and South Africa, this momentum is further reinforced by the G20 High-Level Principles on Bioeconomy, which are increasingly reflected across the international system through initiatives led by FAO, OECD, UNDP, and UNFF. This Roundtable marks a defining moment. It highlights the private sector’s readiness to move from commitment to implementation, advancing the bioeconomy — and its contribution to circularity — as a driver of climate solutions, biodiversity protection, industrial innovation, and sustainable growth.

The bioeconomy also holds unique potential to strengthen the resilience of supply and value chains, enhance food and feed security, and enable the sustainable reuse or substitution of critical raw materials — issues of growing global relevance.  It also offers significant potential for job creation and the development of sustainable rural and regional livelihoods, supporting more resilient and inclusive economic growth worldwide.

It also follows the release of the updated EU Bioeconomy Strategy in November 2025[3] and the upcoming EU Biotech Act, to be presented in two parts — part I in December 2025 and part II in Q2/Q3 2026. These developments represent important policy milestones within Europe and form part of a broader global momentum toward advancing sustainable bio-based industries and innovation. Taken together, they contribute to a new phase of international alignment — shifting from political recognition to practical implementation across regions.

At the Copenhagen Roundtable, participants recognised that Europe holds a unique opportunity to contribute to advancing the sustainable use of biological resources, biotechnology, and circular and bio-based value chains. The continent already possesses many of the world-class elements needed for this — a strong research base, active knowledge-sharing networks, a skilled workforce, advanced industrial capacity, and globally competitive corporations within the bioeconomy and biosolutions ecosystem.

However, realising this potential will require the establishment of enabling conditions that include:

• Predictable and ambitious policy frameworks, including the updated EU Bioeconomy Strategy, aligned with the Clean Industrial Deal, climate goals, and industrial competitiveness – making it easier to get innovations approved and on the market.
• Scalable financing instruments and investment confidence, supported by cooperation between the financial sector, foundations, and public agencies – significantly increasing funding for impact innovations and boosting upscale efforts. This includes the continued development of large-scale, mission-oriented instruments — such as the Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI) on Bioeconomy — which provide positive signals for long-term investment and help build confidence for industrial scale-up.
• Cross-sectoral collaboration that integrates agriculture, forestry, marine, and industrial ecosystems into cohesive bio-based systems delivering tangible impact – unlocking the full potential of currently underused or wasted bioresources.
• Clustering and integrated value-chain development, enabling multiple bio-based products and processes to be deployed together rather than relying on single-product pathways. Such integrated systems — similar to industrial clusters in other sectors — enhance economic viability, reduce risk, and maximise the value derived from biological resources.
• A continuously strengthened skills base, supported through education, training, and capacity-building at all levels — including improving the literacy of investors and management teams regarding bioeconomy opportunities, technologies, and risks — ensuring that talent, leadership, and capital can keep pace with innovation.

The World BioEconomy Roundtable recognised the importance of international partnerships to foster collaboration and knowledge exchange in advancing the global bioeconomy. Following the official launch of the Bioeconomy Challenge at COP30 in Belém[4] [5], partners around the world are engaging through dedicated mechanisms that address key thematic areas essential for scaling the bioeconomy — including the (1) development of metrics and indicators, (2) innovative financing mechanisms, (3) market development, and (4) sociobioeconomy approaches that benefit communities and territories. These collective efforts aim to align global finance and policy with bio-based transformation, ensuring that investments in innovation, natural capital, and sustainable value chains deliver tangible benefits for climate, biodiversity, and communities — locally, regionally, and globally. Traditional knowledge, combined with modern science and innovation, plays a vital role in shaping bioeconomy solutions that are inclusive, locally grounded, and globally relevant.

Europe’s business and finance communities expressed a unified call for greater policy coherence and investment predictability to scale sustainable bio-based industries. The Roundtable urged EU policymakers to:

1. Integrate the bioeconomy fully into the European green industrial deal and investment frameworks.
2. Accelerate the deployment of blended finance mechanisms that de-risk private investment and foster innovation.
3. Simplify regulatory pathways to bring new circular and bio-based products to market faster.
4. Strengthen international cooperation through trade, knowledge exchange, and green investment partnerships.
5. Introduce targeted market obligations and mandates that help create market pull for sustainable bio-applications, enabling them to compete with long-established fossil-based alternatives.
6. Explore opportunities for the European Union to engage with the Bioeconomy Challenge as part of its international cooperation efforts, reinforcing Europe’s contribution to global bioeconomy alignment and knowledge exchange.
7. Consider widening biotechnology and biomanufacturing applications beyond biomass feedstocks, in line with approaches already applied in various regions around the world

As the bioeconomy gains global recognition across the COP, G20[6], UNFCCC, CBD, OECD[7], and multilateral development institutions, participants noted that Europe has opportunities to strengthen its role in developing sustainable, circular, and bio-based products and the jobs associated with them. They also highlighted the importance of ensuring that innovation benefits producers and consumers within the region.

The message from Copenhagen is clear: the bioeconomy is moving from vision to scale. Business and finance are ready to invest, scientists (public and private) to innovate, and deliver — provided that policymakers continue to advance integrated, ambitious, and forward-looking bioeconomy agendas.

The World Bioeconomy Association and DI Biosolutions stand ready to work with the European Commission, Member States, and global partners to ensure that the bioeconomy remains at the heart of sustainable development — driving climate neutrality, biodiversity regeneration, and resilient societies for generations to come.

[1] https://bioeconomyassociation.org/the-world-bioeconomy-forum/the-world-bioeconomy-forum-declarations-and-reports/

[2] https://bioeconomyassociation.org/bioeconomy-events/world-bioeconomy-roundtable-copenhagen-2025/

[3] https://environment.ec.europa.eu/document/download/dbf8d2ba-9332-4f7a-b336-f356fa4b7236_en?filename=COM_2025_960_1_EN_ACT_part1_v10_0.pdf

[4] https://www.gov.br/mma/pt-br/noticias/at-cop30-brazil-and-global-partners-unveil-the-bioeconomy-challenge-to-scale-sustainable-investment-in-nature

[5] https://bioeconomychallenge.org

[6] https://bioeconomyassociation.org/bioeconomy-events/g20-and-bioeconomy-becoming-a-key-pillar-for-cop30/, https://bioeconomyassociation.org/the-world-bioeconomy-forum-report/g20-initiative-on-bioeconomy-g20-high-level-principle-on-bioeconomy/

[7] COP – United Nations Climate Change Conference / Conference of the Parties

G20 – Group of Twenty

UNFCCC – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

CBD – Convention on Biological Diversity

OECD – Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Multilateral development institutions – e.g., World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank (non-exhaustive)