On the 28th of February 2019, SEI Tallinn in cooperation with Estonian Private Forest Centre, Nordic Council of Ministers’ office in Tallinn and Estonian University of Life Sciences, organized a conference which brought together stakeholders from academia, business and the public sector to discuss the development of bioeconomy and its sustainability in a changing world.

The conference comprised of several keynote presentations by top specialists in the field of bioeconomy from around Europe. Dr Joachim Kreysa from the European Commission explained the expected impact of the revised EU Bioeconomy Strategy, while Dr Evelin Loit from Estonian University of Life Sciences summarised key results from extensive value chain analysis.

The conference brought together three panel sessions: for bioeconomy technologies and innovations, for smart consumers and for policy coherence, in which representatives of Estonian political parties discussed how to assure the sustainable growth of bioeconomy in Estonia.

Alongside the conference, there was a designated expo area where various products of innovative bioeconomy were displayed. Among the exhibition, there were examples from the food and feed sector and various bio-based consumables. As an example, the conference participants got the chance to taste baked goods made of powdered insects, inspect materials made of local algae, and take home drinking straws made of local reed as a souvenir.

In total, there were 130 participants in the conference, out of which 10 were international guests.

Recording of the live stream and photos of the event can be found at SEI website:

https://www.sei.org/events/bioeconomy-creativity-sustainability/