BIS to set up steering committee to oversee bioeconomy, including waste

0
73

A new steering committee is to be created by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) to coordinate the development and stimulation of a bioeconomy – and waste will form an important part of this.

The Minister for Business and Energy, currently Michael Fallon, will champion the role of the bioeconomy and ensure there are clear, coherent and aligned activities on resource use and management.

Advertisement

BIS will involve industry and key stakeholders, including Defra, in the steering group.

This has been revealed in the BIS response to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report Waste or Resource? Stimulating a bioeconomy.

In the report, the committee called for a long-term 15 year plan to develop a high-value waste-based bioeconomy.

The streering group and ministerial champion will be the way that BIS responds to this suggestion and it also intends to develop a long term plan for delivering and supporting a growing bioeconomy by early 2015.

In its response, the Government recognised that waste would play an important part as a potential feedstock in growing the bioeconomy, but it also considers non-food crops such as algae, agricultural residues and forestry residues to be important.

By developing a bioeconomy, the UK would benefit from enhanced industrial biotechnology, biofuels production, energy from waste and anaerobic digestion.

The idea of the bioeconomy is that high value applications can be found to create new products and energy from renewable biological resources.

For the full Government response, visit http://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-committees/science-technology/wasteandbioeconomy/Waste-Bioeconomy-Govt-Response.pdf