The European Green Deal, launched in December 2019, aims to drive the transition to a fair, resource-efficient, competitive and prosperous society and economy in Europe. The EU Green Deal works to continue modernising the EU’s economy with circular and biobased solutions in line with the targets set out in the Paris Climate Agreement.

The linear way in which production and consumption is largely organised today is increasingly exceeding planetary boundaries and putting significant pressure on ecosystems and natural resources. To redesign and reshape our economic and consumption model from linear to circular, all societal stakeholders – spanning policy to research, industry and civil society – need to be brought on board this transition.

National, regional and local authorities can play a crucial and multifaceted role here as enablers of the transition, by defining strategies and goals for reducing, reusing and recycling waste, as well as promoting circular product design, and the uptake of bio-based products and lifestyles among residents.

In the BIOVOICES project, ICLEI has engaged in a series of multi-actor 'mobilisation and mutual learning' (MML) workshops to identify steps to support cities and national to local authorities to further embed the circular bioeconomy, and raise awareness of its key benefits, challenges and opportunities.

The outcomes, key messages, case studies and experiences of these stakeholder engagement events and activities conducted by ICLEI Europe and other BIOVOICES partners are captured in four Policy Briefs that support the implementation of the bioeconomy.

For more information on BIOVOICES MML events and concepts, how to design such events, educational materials, as well as the project's results and findings, click here.