Future transitions for the Bioeconomy towards Sustainable Development and a Climate-Neutral Economy - Bioeconomy opportunities for a green recovery and enhanced system resilience.

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing an unprecedented global health crisis and socio-economic upheaval and led to severe consequences well beyond previous crises of the last decades which mostly were related to financial issues. COVID-19 caused sudden economic, psychological, and partly physical shocks to markets, societal sub-systems (e.g., education, food, health), and people.As a direct consequence, today, food security and resilience are at stake. The effects on bio-based products and bioenergy (in particular: biofuels) vary and their role in the recovery (with possible changes in customer’s behaviour) could differ as well.The linkages of the bioeconomy to post-pandemic recovery with regard to impacts and possible responses are currently being discussed by many institutions and initiatives, even though there is currently limited data on the impact of the pandemic on the bioeconomy. This report presents preliminary results based on initial analysis from the authors on knowledge synthesis on the EU bioeconomy system, trends, and perspectives of the future development towards 2030 and 2050