On Thursday 29th Jan in Brussels, our partners from Joutsenten Reitti LAG had a valuable meeting with Ms Minna Huttunen from the DG Research and Innovation, who presented the new EU bioeconomy strategy to us.
Published on 27 November 2025, the new EU Bioeconomy Strategy replaces the 2018 framework, aiming to accelerate the transition to a sustainable, circular, and competitive economy by 2030. It focuses on scaling up bio-based industrial innovations, creating new markets for sustainable materials, ensuring secure biomass supply, and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
The delegation consisted of the government appointed, minister lead Finnish Rural Policy council, and our partner, Petri Rinne, had a chance to present our project HarWASTing to the Secretary General, Ms. Antonia Husberg, who promised to publish an article in the council web page about our innovative transnational cooperation covering the different climate zones in the EU. Furthermore, the chief editor of the Finnish forest professionals’ magazine, Ms. Tiina Eklund, promised to publish another article in Luonnon Varassa (https://www.luva.fi/luonnon-varassa-lehti/).
Recently the big Finnish multi-national forest industry companies have been losing hundreads of jobs in sawmilling as well as cellulose and paper production, as the result of the fluctuating world market. They must look for alternative products and higher added value, where circular economy may be one of the solutions.
Author: Petri Rinne, Joutsenten Reitti.
