There is broad agreement that a global transition towards a sustainable and circular bioeconomy requires policies and governance approaches at local, national, and international scale to be coherently aligned. Bioeconomy governance includes both enabling and regulatory dimensions. Enabling governance is needed to promote sustainable technological and institutional innovation processes, whereas regulatory governance is required to steer bioeconomy towards desired outcomes in economic, social, and environmental dimensions and to minimize sustainability tradeoffs. As the global bioeconomy increasingly relies on international trade and innovation transfer, existing national governance mechanisms may be insufficiently prepared to address these challenges.
This workshop focuses on identifying bio- and circular economy governance gaps at various scales of governance, including the international level, and discusses potential tools and approaches to address these gaps. Specifically, the workshop is organized around the following three thematic threads:
- Clarifying the governance concept – what needs to be governed in bio-/circular economy and towards which outcomes?
- What are the governance needs/gaps at local, national, and international scale?
- What tools and actions are needed to address governance needs/gaps especially at the international level?