Following months of anticipation from the sector, the UK
Government has finally published its Bioeconomy Strategy. This follows a
consultation opened in late 2016, and is a collaborative effort from both the
department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), and
stakeholders in the bioeconomy itself. The document aims to outline how the
UK’s bioeconomy will develop between now and 2030, and sets several ambitious
targets. Unfortunately, the strategy is very vague on how those targets are to be
achieved.
According to the Strategy document, the UK’s bioeconomy is
worth over £200billion, and the central aim touted throughout is to double that
value by 2030. The Strategy repeatedly states that the UK wishes to become a
“world leader” in biobased industry, but there will be many who read this and
are sceptical of just how effective this published Strategy will be in
translating this ambition into development.
Chief among the concerns of members of the sector will be a
lack of concrete policy proposals. The Strategy outlines clear goals for the
bioeconomy: utilising the UK’s world-leading R&D infrastructure to drive
development, maximising productivity from the UK’s available biological
resources, and creating a market environment that favours bioeconomy
development; however, many of the “Actions for Change” included in the Strategy
simply consist of future collaborations with industry or academia to determine
appropriate actions. Thus, this Strategy may almost be seen as a “stop-gap” on
the way to future change. All concrete mentions of policy and investment in the
Strategy refer to already existing examples, such as the Industrial Strategy
Challenge Fund, and some that no-longer exist, such as the mothballed IB
Catalyst. There is also repeated mention of how policies outlined in 2017’s
Industrial Strategy and Clean Growth Strategy will benefit the bioeconomy, but as previously pointed out by NNFCC, the bioeconomy is scarcely mentioned ineither document. Thus, as has been the case for some time with the bioeconomy
and UK policy, the situation appears to be “wait and see”.
In a statement given to Bio-Based World News, Dr Adrian
Higson, NNFCC’s Lead Consultant for Biobased Products, said: “We welcome the publication of the strategy
which represents two years of stakeholder consultation and development.
However, it is disappointing that the strategy is limited on concrete policy
actions and in many ways fails to give the UK bio-economy a much-needed boost.
“The recent closure of
key ethanol assets and the cessation of the successful IB Catalyst innovation
programme (R&D industrial biotechnology programme) are disappointing; with
stronger government ambition and support these closures could have been
avoided. There’s now a lot work required to the turn the Strategy’s aspirations
into real actions, this includes immediate action to secure the Bioeconomy
Sector Deal necessary to reach the target of doubling the value of the UK’s
bio-economy by 2030.”
As for the bioeconomy, and the 5.2 million people in the UK
who work in it, we must patiently await the outcomes of this Strategy’s
promised determination of the best next steps to take, as it offers little by
way of these in itself.