Enhancing Social Inclusion in Bioeconomy Solutions

Increasing impacts due to multiple crises related to climate change, COVID pandemic and increasing ecosystem degradation have pushed back over 71 million people into extreme poverty only in 2020. Unemployment reduced the income of more than 1.5 billion vulnerable workers by over 60% especially affecting those already in the informal economy. In this context of crises, Bioeconomy solutions, often ignored pathways to emission reduction, provide an opportunity to find common ground for supporting global societal debates and decisions around issues of production, land use, diets and emissions. Bio-based economy solutions are based on a low carbon economy, draw on innovations in biomass production and processing involving trees, forestry and agroforestry. Bioeconomy solutions provide many opportunities to develop hidden pathways, replace fossil raw materials and products and support decision-making on the implications of trends in increasing demands for enhancing sustainability. However, in practice, most bioeconomy strategies developed so far focus on technological and economic aspects leaving aside or taking for granted social sustainability issues, in particular those required to promote inclusive and equitable processes. Assessing synergies and tradeoffs around existing solutions, in particular defining how social groups, and in particular forest-dependent communities, women, Indigenous Peoples and youth are involved in the implementation of Bioeconomy solutions is key to advancing SDG goals without risking further marginalization of historically marginalized groups as initiatives are designed and implemented.
This session will promote the discussion of social inclusion approaches in the implementation of forest bioeconomy solutions that lead to transformational change. The session specifically contributes to the goals of adapting to protect communities, in particular those more vulnerable to climate change as well as strengthening partnerships and mobilizing together to deliver.