Growth by integrating bioeconomy and low-carbon economy:Scenarios for Finland until 2050

Bioeconomy refers to the various sectors of primary production, such us agriculture, forests and fisheries, and industrial sectors, which transform bio-resources to bio-products. Industrial sectors in bioeconomy cover food and feed industries, cellulose, paper and wood processing industries, bio-refineries, chemical and energy industries, and also the marine and maritime sectors. In addition, bioeconomy includes ecosystem services of nature, such as recreation and wellbeing as well as tourism. In this report, the primary focus is to analyse how to achieve full bioeconomy potential and bridge the on-going research to industrial implementation. In the analysis, we have mainly focused on forestry and forest industries, agriculture and food industries, as well as on bioenergy and biofuels. The aim has been to illustrate effective bioeconomy pathways and the impacts of accelerated R&D and related investments in bioeconomy on Finland’s welfare and greenhouse gas mitigation. The analysis is based on views and synthesis of a large group of VTT’s experts in the fields of forest and food industries, biomaterials, clean energy, and scenario modelling