EU Bioeconomy Strategy hides old mistakes in new branding
Press release, Brussels | The bioeconomy is not inherently circular or sustainable, it must be built that way. The EU’s revised Bioeconomy Strategy takes some steps to do that, but it missed opportunities to do a lot more, environmental organisation ECOS says.
Today’s revised Bioeconomy Strategy [1] makes some headway but falls short on giving a clear vision for a European bioeconomy that operates within planetary boundaries, says ECOS. This risks continuing the degradation of resources (such as forests, soils, farmland, and water systems) instead of steering the bioeconomy towards resilience and circularity.
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.
Planetary health should be in the spotlight
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.
A starting point that needs a more ambitious vision
The bioeconomy is a leading cause of ecosystem degradation and resource depletion [2]. 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.
Gaps to fill
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.
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Notes to Editors
[1] European Commission press release announcing the EU Bioeconomy Strategy (November 2025): https://environment.ec.europa.eu/publications/bioeconomy-strategy_en
[2] The most resource-intensive parts of the bioeconomy include the agri-food system, fast fashion, and intensive forestry. These sectors in particular drive high levels demand for biomass, land-use change, and environmental degradation. For example, the food sector drives global biodiversity loss and contributes a lot to the climate crisis. It also results in a lot of food waste – and global food demand is rising. Moreover, at the current pace, by 2030, the fashion industry is projected to use 35% more land for cotton cultivation, forest for cellulosic fibres, and grassland for livestock. While over 80% of Europe’s forests face bad or poor conditions due to climate-related hazards like fires, pest infestations, windthrow, and overlogging.
[3] The cascading use principle means prioritising the use of biomass for the highest-value, longest-lasting products first, reusing and recycling it as much as possible, and using it for energy only as a last resort. It ensures limited biomass delivers maximum value while reducing pressure on nature. For more information, see this illustration: https://ecostandard.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/ECOS-wood-buildings-1024×1024.png
[4] ECOS position paper (June 2025), Circularity, regeneration, and responsibility: Revising the EU’s Bioeconomy Strategy: https://ecostandard.org/publications/circularity-regeneration-eu-bioeconomy-strategy/
[5] Joint letter calling for a future-proof EU Bioeconomy Strategy (June 2025): https://ecostandard.org/publications/future-eu-bioeconomy-strategy/
Contact
If you have questions, please contact:
Alison Grace
Senior Press & Communications Manager at ECOS
alison.grace@ecostandard.org
+32 493 19 22 59
ECOS – Environmental Coalition on Standards is an international NGO with a network of members and experts advocating for environmentally friendly technical standards, policies, and laws.
