Bioeconomy Event Finland shares success stories A recap from the Scaling Up Bio 2024 Conference By Andrew Snook maintain forest regenerative capacity and sustainability. “That is a pre-condition for the sustain -able scale-up of this industry,” Essayah said. Finland has had a national bioeconom -ic strategy since 2014. The country’s cur -rent strategy moves away from a focus on increasing the use of biomass to creating more value from the bioeconomy. “In other words, creating more from less, which I believe is also very relevant to viewpoint for today’s discussions. Fin -land’s vision is to double the value of the bioeconomy by 2035,” Essayah said. The minister discussed five areas of focus for growing the bioeconomy policy. The first one was attracting more skilled labour to the industry. “This is one challenge and concern, at least in Europe. It applies to both primary production and industry,” Essayah said. While stating that some labour shortag -es in production operations will likely be solved via automation, the minister add -ed that “we need to pay more attention to make this sector attractive today.” The second area of focus is the suc -cessful scale-up of businesses based on high-quality research and decision making. “Bioeconomy is at different stages in different countries. What we all share is the need to continue investing in research and development. The bioeconomy still has a lot of untapped innovation potential for products and services, and we still don’t know all products that we can make in the future,” Essayah said. The ability to measure and monitor the bioeconomy to steer it in the right direction was the third area of focus. The minister stated that being able to measure and mon -WINTER 2025 overnment decision makers, biomass and bioenergy industry experts, in -vestors, scientists and researchers, flocked to Ottawa by the hundreds to take part in the Scaling Up Bio 2024 Confer -ence, which took place this past November at the Fairmont Château Laurier. The keynote speaker for the event was the Government of Finland’s Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Sari Essayah, who shared her country’s successes and ambitions for growing the bioeconomy in Finland. “It’s really a great pleasure to be here in Canada today and talking to you about scale-up of sustainable bioeconomy. This is this is also one of the priorities for the Finn -ish government and in the EU,” Essayah told the crowd. She said the bioeconomy is an econom -ic concept that holds very promising poten -tial in addressing major global challenges and in supporting local economies and livelihoods. “We should remind ourselves that it is also a concept that holds a strong intergen -G Government of Finland Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Sari Essayah shares her country’s successes at the Scaling Up Bio 2024 Conference in Ottawa. | Photo: Andrew Snook. erational element. The young must be able to believe in sustainable development, that bioeconomy will always be part of. That should be one of our priorities,” Essayah said. In Finland, the forestry sector is the leader of its bioeconomy, representing one-third of the total value added to the Finnish bioeconomy. Some of the other significant contributing sectors to the country’s bio -economy include construction, food and beverage, and energy. “In Finland, forest policy is relatively high on the national political agenda, and from the culture, you can understand why,” Essayah said. “Finland is the most forest -ed country in the European Union, and roughly 75 per cent of Finland’s land area is covered in forests. Of those forests, over 60 per cent are owned by private families and around one-third by the state. Over 10 per cent of our citizens are forest owners.” The minster stated that the forest-based bioeconomy has great potential in creating well-being and products for consumers, but that we also need to work continuously to 20 Canadian BIOMASS
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