The Basque Alliance for Bioeconomy (AVB) is born to diversify the economy of the Basque Country and contribute to a sustainable development

The public-private alliance starts with the participation of 10 projects and opens its doors to all companies that have an initiative in bioeconomics.

The Basque Government believes that the Basque Country has the natural resources and technological capabilities needed to explore new opportunities in this economic model.

The Department of Economic Development and Infrastructures reinforces its support for this initiative with an exclusive aid programme amounting to 1,000,000 euros.

The companies and institutions of the Alliance are committed to collaborate and share their experiences to intensify the bioeconomy model in all economic sectors.

The Basque Country will take over the European Bio Regions office in spring 2020 and will hold the International Summit on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Bio-economics.

The Department of Economic Development and Infrastructures of the Basque Government has promoted the constitution of the Basque Alliance for Bioeconomy, with the initial participation of 10 private companies and representatives of the public entities SPRI Group, the Basque Energy Agency, the NEIKER Technology Centre and the HAZI Foundation, which will assume the functions of Technical Secretariat.

This Alliance is open to the integration of all those companies and agents that have bioeconomy projects, either under development or in the market, and that show interest in collaborating and participating actively in making this economic model, which is increasingly widespread in Europe and has an unquestionable potential in the economic diversification of the Basque Country, visible.

Objective

The objective of the AVB will be to generate a network of business agents that will contribute to strengthening this economic model of generating products based on biological resources and to establish a structured collaboration between institutions, technology centres and companies, in order to make this mode of production and generation of economy grow.

Configuration

The AVB will have as many members as companies join from January 2020. It will be run by the Department of Economic Development and Infrastructures of the Basque Government and will have an advisory committee made up of local and international professionals.

10 initial companies with 10 real projects

The companies selected for the constitution of the AVB come from very diverse sectors such as the automotive, energy, construction, textile and cosmetics sectors, among others. The bioeconomy projects that guarantee the initial presence of these companies are based mainly on the resource of wood, although there are cases of products based on other types of resources.

The companies are: BIOTERMIAK | CIKAUTXO | EGOIN | GLOBAL EFFICIENCY ARANGUREN- GLEFARAN | LANA | MAIER | MARIA DUOL | PAPRESA | SKFK | SMURFIT KAPPA

Membership: www.euskadi.eus/bioeconomia

Aid Programme to promote the Bioeconomy

Since 2018, the Basque Government has allocated 600,000 euros, 300,000 per year, to promote the creation of pilot innovation projects in the field of forest bioeconomy. Within the framework of this aid, six projects have been approved, ranging from the use of wood by-products to generate urban furniture to the production of textile fibre from recycled cellulose paste mixtures. In 2020, to continue with the development of the bio-economy strategy and to reinforce this line of aid, an additional 1,000,000 euros will be invested.