European Bioplastic also supports the European Commission's Competitiveness Compass

The Competitiveness Compass presented by the European Commission, the first major initiative of this mandate, providing a strategic and clear framework to steer its work. The Compass sets a path for Europe to become the place where future technologies, services, and clean products are invented, manufactured, and put on the market, while being the first continent to become climate neutral.

This orientation was also welcomed by European Bioplastics, which firmly believes that biobased, biodegradable and compostable plastics are conducive to achieving the goals of sustainable competitiveness set by the Competitive Compass.

“The average share of biobased chemical products in the overall chemical market is more than 3% and generated € 65 billion of value added in 2019, ensuring 500,000 jobs. These numbers prove a significant potential for growth, considering that SMEs constitute most economic players in the biobased, biodegradable and compostable plastics value chain”, said Hasso von Pogrell, Managing Director at European Bioplastics.

In this context, it will be necessary to come up with a clear policy framework, such as an Industrial Action Plan on biopolymers setting up a level playing field for biobased, biodegradable, and compostable plastics, beyond standards and labels. Market incentives, such as the ones recently introduced in the US, are sorely needed in Europe to keep the return on public and private investment from being harvested elsewhere.