The Baltic Sea Bioenergy Promotion Project

There are two key issues for the region: A) there are huge biomaterial resources and only a fraction utilised so far and B) there is an increasing interest for the resources, and as they are (after all) limited, the use has to be sustainable and the competition between the use for Food, Fibre and Fuel has to be balanced. The project aims at strengthening the development towards a sustainable, competitive and territorially integrated Baltic Sea Region in the field of sustainable use of bio-energy. The organisations participating are key actors in their areas in order to facilitate the outputs considered in the project - from all countries + Belarus and Russia. The project will serve as the major BSR wide platform for cross-sectoral and transnational networking to facilitate information and knowledge exchange, coordinated policy development and design and application of bio-energy promoting instruments, as well as regional development. This will be facilitated by:(1) Policy development will be brought forward by cross-sectoral and transnational networking of key players and integration of the results from the analyses and pilot cases. In this is also included BSR wide data collection, analyses and indicator development that would contribute to, amongst others, the development and/or implementation of national and regional Biomass Action Plans. (2) The sub-regional development dimension of increased bio-energy supplies, production and use (including trade possibilities) will be assessed and highlighted by bringing the experience of demonstration cases and areas throughout the BSR. Information dissemination actions will be included to ensure regional collaboration cross-nationally. (3) Business development will be highlighted and used as a tool for reaching national/regional/EU policy and objectives. Best practices for sustainable economies will be collected and project facilitation looked upon.The ultimate aim of this work will incorporate investment speed enhancement and technology transfer through market actor (especially technology providers) collaboration. Information dissemination actions will be included to ensure meetings between market actors making business co-operation possible. (4) BSR and EU wide dissemination of information will be enhanced by the creation of a major BSR bio-energy web-portal and organisation of dissemination events via a wide range of bio-energy networks. Ministries as well as Bioenergy Associations around the BSR support the project, somthing that strongly visualise the importance of the project and enhance the transferability of results. Key ouputs are: - Policy guidelines for sustainable biomass strategy development in the BSR (covering nBAP/RES Action Plans), - Sub-regional strategic management plans, - BSR portal on bioenergy, including database and Virtual Project/Business Brokerage Platform, - Feasibility studies for plant investments.