Canadian Biomass • Fall 2024 • Canada sleeping on $4-tillion bioeconomy

Canada lags its G7 partners, competitors in establishing a clear path for bioeconomic growth

Jeff Passmore, founder and chair of Scaling Up, is still waiting for Canada to develop an actionable national bioeconomy strategy after more than three decades in the renewable energy sector.

“It’s counterintuitive that Canada would not have a bioeconomy strategy,” said Passmore, noting the country’s massive forests, which need to be better managed to mitigate wildfire risk, its expansive agriculture lands, which produce crop residues, and municipalities, which are landfilling waste when that organic material could also be used as a feedstock.

Passmore, also CEO for Passmore Group, a consultancy focused on helping clients rapidly develop projects in the bioeconomy and cleantech space, is preparing to host the ninth edition of his influential conference this November.

It brings together leaders from across the country and bioeconomy to discuss how to propel the sector forward.

“Canada has this huge blind spot where the bioeconomy is concerned,” he said.

To be fair, Passmore clarified the federal government does have a Forest Bioeconomy Framework, but it doesn’t mention bioenergy outside of the forest sector and leaves something to be desired when it comes to concrete action.

The same can be said for Canada’s Bioeconomy Strategy, which the federal government spent $200,000 to help Bioindustrial Innovation Canada develop in consultation with more than 400 industry representatives in 2019.

The report recommends creating new regulation and policy, including developing a national strategy to fully advance Canada’s bioeconomy.

“Certainty is the mother of investment,” said Passmore. He said companies are advancing Canadian bio-projects, but the sector won’t attract foreign investment without the country sending a “clear signal” to market it’s “serious” about the bioeconomy.

Concrete action and clear signals look like actioning programs similar to the United States’s BioPreferred Program. Created in 2002, the BioPreferred Program mandates federal departments to buy biobased products, and includes a voluntary certification program for businesses to label their biobased products so consumers can make informed purchases.

Passmore said most of Canada’s G7 partners and competitors have national bioeconomy strategies. He said it’s sleeping on the opportunity the market presents.

A 2020 report by multi-national consultancy, McKinsey and Company, suggests the “bio-revolution,” including innovation in health, food, consumer products, materials, chemicals and energy, could have a direct economic impact of US$2- to $4 trillion globally per year by mid-century.

Bio-materials, -chemicals and -energy, could have a global impact between US$200- to $300-billion annually in the next two decades.

“Four-trillion-dollars a year — that’s twice the size of Canada’s GDP. Canada’s GDP was (around) US$2 trillion a year,” said Passmore. He said there’s no reason Canada couldn’t secure a sizable slice of the bioeconomy with its resources. He added sources today estimate the potential of the bioeconomy at closer to US$30 trillion a year.

“I think we are spoiled by the vast natural resources we have,” said Passmore. “We are so blessed… we’ve been able to rest on our laurels and the Canadian economy has been driven in large part by oil and gas revenues.”

Passmore said the bioeconomy touches on so many departments, from forestry to agriculture to health and more. Government needs to get behind a strategy that brings together all its departments.

“One of the reasons for the conference is we are trying to help solve this problem… move the bioeconomy in Canada forward further and faster,” said Passmore. “And if we don’t go faster and further we will certainly not meet our net-zero targets.”