Strategic context
Recent shift in global trade patterns driven by geopolitical fragmentation, volatility in fossil fuel markets and related supply chains, tightening climate policy, and renewed industrial policy activism are reshaping the basis of competitiveness in global markets. These have exposed the fragility of fossil and mineral-dependent value chains while opening a strategic window for bio-based and less centralised alternatives to move from niche to mainstream markets.
Equally, there is growing recognition that, for the meaningful implementation of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), biodiversity must be integrated into production and trade systems as reflected in Target 14 on mainstreaming biodiversity into decision-making and financial flows across government and business, Target 10 on sustainable management of agriculture, fisheries and forestry, and Targets 5 and 9 on the sustainable use and trade of wild species. This is echoed nationally in Goal 5 of Brazil's NBSAP on sustainable use and trade and reinforced by Principle 7 of the G20's Ten High-Level Principles on Bioeconomy, which calls for policy frameworks that foster trade for bioeconomy products and services, sustainable business models and local value creation.
This creates a timely opportunity to better align trade, climate, and biodiversity agendas through the development of competitive and scalable sustainable bioeconomy markets. Anchored in local ecosystems, decentralised processing, and regional and international markets, biodiversity-based value chains can enhance economic resilience and adaptive capacity. By diversifying production sources and reducing exposure to imported fossil-based inputs, and strengthening local value retention, they can also significantly reduce vulnerability to external economic and supply disruptions.
The current moment therefore presents not only a sustainability imperative, but a competitiveness opportunity: to deliberately build bioeconomy markets that are more resilient and resource efficient, supported by considerations of circularity, inclusiveness, and regional integration, than the extractive systems they can replace. Yet this transition is not automatic. Despite rising climate ambition and biodiversity commitments, biobased products continue to compete on structurally unequal terms in global markets.
At the same time, advanced economies play a decisive role in shaping bioeconomy markets, not only as major consuming markets, but also as standard setters, regulators, and providers of public and private finance and investment. Aligning demand-side policies in these markets with biodiversity and climate objectives--through approaches such as public procurement, regulatory incentives, sustainability standards and investment frameworks —will be essential to unlocking scalable, inclusive and equitable bio-based trade.
Realizing this potential requires enabling market frameworks that reward biodiversity-based production and facilitate participation in international trade. Beyond technology, competitiveness depends on the rules and incentives shaping markets, including regulatory policies, fiscal incentives, procurement systems, standards, and finance and investment frameworks. Well-designed policies can reduce compliance and transaction costs, strengthen market access, and create stronger incentives for sustainable production. This is especially important in the current network of global supply chains which disadvantage heavily producers in biodiversity-rich economies, particularly SMEs and community-based enterprises, that face high compliance costs and limited capacity to navigate complex market access requirements.
This proposed side event convenes at a pivotal moment. The Bioeconomy Challenge Markets Development and Trade Working Group (WG3), led by UNCTAD and supported by NatureFinance, is building practical policy pathways and frameworks to address exactly these challenges. Its work focuses on improving competitiveness, reducing compliance and trade costs, and mobilising demand through public and private procurement, anchoring buyers, and piloting trade facilitation mechanisms. The CBD COP17 provides a critical platform to test these frameworks with a high-level, diverse audience, to connect them to emerging national and regional priorities and advance a shared agenda for scaling biodiversity-based trade.
The gap & challenge this event addresses
While constraints vary across regions, they reflect a structurally imbalanced system in which production risks are concentrated in the Global South, while market shaping power, including regulatory frameworks, standards, demand and investment capacity remains largely in advanced economies.
As a result, these dynamics create systemic risks rather than market-based and/or collaborative opportunities: biodiversity based producers struggle to achieve cost competitiveness, scale, and predictable market access, despite delivering global public goods for climate, biodiversity, and sustainable development. These dynamics are reinforced by policy and market failures across both producing and consuming economies. Key structural constraints include:
- Misaligned incentives and trade-distorting support regimes: Industrial policies, including subsidies and tariff and tax structures, in many jurisdictions continue to favour fossil based and extractive systems, placing sustainable bio-based alternatives at a structural disadvantage in the absence of equivalent policy support or price stabilisation mechanisms.
- Fragmented compliance landscape: Rapidly evolving sustainability standards – while playing an increasingly important role in promoting sustainable production and consumption – remain fragmented and may impose disproportionately high compliance costs, particularly for SMEs and other small holder producers. Emerging due diligence requirements add further compliance obligations. Many of these systems are not designed for small-scale or community-based producers, limiting participation in export markets, particularly in jurisdictions with stringent import requirements.
- Demand uncertainty: Without predictable offtake conditions, such as through sustainable public procurement mandates in major markets, blending or eco-design requirements, or anchor buyer commitments, bio-based producers cannot de-risk investment or achieve the scale needed to reduce unit costs.
- Market intelligence gaps: Limited access to timely market data, buyer requirements, and competitiveness benchmarks constrains export readiness and strategic positioning, particularly for producers in emerging and biodiversity‑rich markets.
Core objectives
The convening will bring together senior representatives from governments, development finance institutions, international organizations, research institutions, civil society and the private sector to:
- Position the bioeconomy, when grounded in and implemented through sustainable, regenerative and circular approaches, and aligned with internationally recognised principles including the G20 Bioeconomy Principles and aligned with the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) and climate goals, as a strategic instrument for delivering on these agendas, rather than a niche sustainability concern.
- Identify concrete opportunities to strengthen market access for biodiversity-based products, including through alignment with regulatory and procurement policies in major markets, standards interoperability, mutual recognition of certification, and traceability systems — advancing KMGBF Targets 5, 9 and 14 on sustainable trade, use of wild species, and mainstreaming biodiversity into business and government decision-making.
- Explore how regional, South–South, and North–South trade cooperation can de-risk early movers, accelerate policy learning, and support the development of integrated and resilient bio‑based value chains.
- Generate actionable policy recommendations to realign trade, investment, and industrial policy covering production, consumption, and the value chains in between in favour of competitive, resilient and sustainable nature-positive markets and bio-resource systems, consistent with KMGBF Target 14 on mainstreaming biodiversity into financial and sectoral policy.
Thematic Focus:
The workshop is structured around four interlocking themes drawn directly from Bioeconomy Challenge Market Development and Trade WG’s mandate and deliverable portfolio:
- Competitiveness and domestic policy reform
Focus on value-added products and services, innovation platforms, and domestic policy reforms that strengthen the competitiveness of biodiversity-based sectors while preserving comparative advantages and promoting local and community-based bio-resource innovation zones.
- Value chain development, small producers, and SME inclusion
Evidence from SME and community-led BioTrade models (including UNCTAD BioTrade cases), highlighting compliance, financing, and market access barriers—and policy interventions that have successfully addressed them.
- Standards, certification, and traceability
Focus on interoperability, mutual recognition pathways, and digital traceability systems that simultaneously support domestic policy objectives and access to international markets.
- Market development, demand creation and trade cooperation
Focus on how integrated market intelligence covering bioeconomy market outlooks, buyer requirements, trade flows, and competitiveness benchmarking can support export readiness and guide investment decisions across biodiversity-based value chains; alongside mechanisms to stimulate demand through public and private procurement, domestic market development, and anchor buyer partnerships that de-risk production and enable scale-up; and the role of regional and South–South cooperation (e.g. AfCFTA, ASEAN, Mercosur, EUDR-related alignment, Brasilia Consensus, GSTP) in enabling demand aggregation, standards alignment, and regional value chain integration.
Strategic Alignment
The workshop is positioned at the intersection of biodiversity, climate, trade, and finance, where policy misalignment and priorities currently constrain bioeconomy competitiveness, but where coordinated reform and regional cooperation could rapidly unlock new market opportunities and biodiversity-economy-climate synergies. In the context of COP17 and the implementation of the KMGBF, there is growing recognition that global, regional and national frameworks on their own are insufficient to resolve structural market barriers. Regional cooperation offers a more immediate and practical pathway for aligning standards, building markets, and testing solutions.
While many countries have developed national bioeconomy strategies, the regional layer remains relatively underdeveloped despite being the level at which cultural relationships, trade rules, standards recognition, procurement frameworks, and value chain integration converge. Also, synergies with the parallel circular economy transition remain largely untapped. Emerging regional bioeconomy collaboration and strategies (especially in East Africa and the EU) demonstrate the potential of regional platforms as engines of scale, policy coherence, and collective competitiveness. The format is designed to generate concrete, actionable outcomes, including:
- Policy recommendations that strengthen the integration of the bioeconomy into national and regional development trade and investment frameworks (standards recognition, procurement, trade facilitation).
- Partnership frameworks linking research, policy, and private sector actors.
- Identification of investment-ready bioeconomy pipelines, particularly in biodiversity-based value chains
Target Audience
The workshop is designed for a mixed audience of stakeholders, combining targeted outreach to policymakers and practitioners whose engagement will be essential to scaling competitive and inclusive bioeconomy markets. Target constituencies include:
- Trade, environment, and biodiversity policymakers (Countries NBASP implementers), including CBD negotiators and ministries from countries with active bioeconomy strategies or strong potential as Bioeconomy Challenge Market Development and Trade WG pilot countries
- Policymakers from major importing markets (including the EU, US, and other OECD economies), particularly those shaping demand-side regulation, standards, and market access conditions
- Procurement and industrial policy officials with decision-making authority over mandates, incentives, and blending requirements
- Development finance institutions and MDB programme officers working on bioeconomy, green industrialisation, and trade facilitation
- Private sector actors across bio-based value chains, including anchor buyers, corporate procurers, and retailers engaged in demand creation and market development
- SME and community-based enterprise representatives, particularly from biodiversity-rich regions, whose experience of compliance and market-access barriers should inform WG3 design and priorities
- Sustainability standards bodies and certification scheme managers, especially those exploring interoperability, mutual recognition, and traceability solutions
- Research organisations and think tanks working at the trade–climate–bioeconomy nexus. Regional and international organisations advancing cooperation on trade facilitation, standards alignment, and regional market integration
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BioTrade Principles and Criteria | UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
principles-and-criteria
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BioTrade
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Trade in biodiversity-based products
Biodiversity is at the centre of many economic activities and directly supports the livelihoods of nearly half the world’s population, with many of the world’s most vulnerable being directly dependent on it to satisfy their subsistence needs.1 Biodiversity-based resources are also widely traded globally with approximately half of the world’s GDP dependant on nature to some extent.2 The Trade and Biodiversity (TraBio) database, which contains information on global trade flows of biodiversity-based products, provides access for all to consistent and complete data on imports and exports of biodiversity-based products and other relevant indicators. It thus aims to contribute to establish a harmonized and internationally accepted statistical framework for biodiversity-related trade.
Biotrade.html
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TraBio, Trade and Biodiversity, Biotrade, Biodiversity-based trade
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Trade and BioTrade’s contribution to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and synergies with the other Sustainable Development Goals
This paper explores how trade can support biodiversity objectives in the KMGBF and the SDGs
tcsditcinf2025d3_en.pdf
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BioTrade, Trade, SDGs
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Voluntary sustainability standards and sustainable development due diligence
International trade, particularly trade through global value chains (GVCs), is increasingly associated with significant sustainability issues such as deforestation, climate change, and labour and human rights violations. To address sustainability issues in GVCs, many voluntary governance instruments have been developed, such as voluntary sustainability standards (VSS). Such VSS have been at the forefront of sustainable GVCs governance for the past two decades. However, these voluntary instruments have overall fallen short of generating large-scale transformative changes, partly due to a relatively limited uptake. As a result, many sustainability concerns remain.
In response, a shift towards mandatory approaches towards sustainable trade governance has been observed in recent years, such as the emergence and proliferation of due diligence regulatory initiatives, which aim to tackle the adverse sustainability impacts of business operations along GVCs.
Sustainability due diligence: Sustainability due diligence is a process through which companies need to identify, address, cease, prevent and/or mitigate actual or potential risks of contributing to any adverse sustainability impacts associated with their activities or sourcing decisions, as well as keep track of and communicate their actions to address these risks.
These regulatory developments mark a shift for international trade and sustainability governance in GVCs, and discussions are now turning to the implementation of such due diligence regulations. In particular, questions are being raised about the potential role of existing governance instruments such as VSS in supporting due diligence implementation, with important concerns arising about the impact of due diligence initiatives for developing countries. Developing countries have been relatively distanced from the discourse around due diligence, which is more prevalent in developed countries. While they are on the frontline of due diligence implementation, these requirements are likely to be highly challenging for them.
This report is based on current ongoing work and discussions from both academic researchers and policymakers. It takes stock of current questions and concerns about due diligence developments and their implications for international trade, for the role of VSS in GVCs sustainability governance, and for developing countries.
voluntary-sustainability-standards-and-sustainable-development-due-diligence
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Global Value Chains (GVCs), Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS), Sustainable Trade
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The future of sustainable trade
The governance of sustainable trade is undergoing a major transformation. New due diligence measures are placing stricter requirements on businesses to ensure their supply chains do not harm people or the planet. These legally binding rules require companies to identify risks, take steps to prevent issues like deforestation or labor exploitation, and demonstrate compliance through audits and reporting.
While these measures aim to make trade more ethical and sustainable, they pose significant challenges for small producers and exporters in developing countries. Without the resources needed to meet these requirements, many risk losing access to global markets.
This report examines this regulatory transformation, focusing on the intersection between voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) and emerging due diligence requirements. It serves as a guide for policymakers, businesses and researchers navigating the evolving landscape of sustainable trade. By understanding and addressing the challenges of this shift, stakeholders can help shape a trade system that balances sustainability goals with inclusive economic growth.
future-sustainable-trade
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Sustainable Trade, Due Diligence, Voluntary Sustainability Standards
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The state of the bioeconomy in East Africa: 2024
In 2022, the East African Science and Technology Commission (EASTECO), the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (Icipe) through the BioInnovate Africa Programme developed the first Eastern Africa bioeconomy status report, State of the Bioeconomy in Eastern Africa: 2022. That first report provided the baseline data on the state of the bioeconomy in all six East African Community (EAC) member countries and Ethiopia, with an overview of the bioeconomy in Eastern Africa and the availability and use of bioresources in the region. Emerging opportunities for bioeconomy development and examples of new successful bioeconomy entrepreneurs were also presented. The new State of the Bioeconomy in Eastern Africa: 2024 report builds on the first status report in 2022. While the first status report was broad, encompassing all the focus areas in the Regional Bioeconomy strategy, the new report focuses on food security and sustainable agriculture.
There will be a series of three additional EAC bioeconomy status reports, one every second year, for the period of the current EAC Regional Bioeconomy Strategy, each with a focus on one of the strategic areas in the regional strategy. These status reports will form the basis for monitoring bioeconomy progress in the region, highlighting key pathways for bioeconomy development and suggesting actions for mobilizing key actors to move forward in developing a vibrant bioeconomy for the region, contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030, the EAC Vision 2050 and the Africa.
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Bioeconomy, Eastern Africa, East African Community (EAC)
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Advancing bioeconomy development in Kenya: The state of bioeconomy in Kenya (2025)
This report offers the first comprehensive national assessment of Kenya's bioeconomy, positioning it as a key pathway to sustainable, inclusive, and innovation-driven growth, built on the country's biodiversity, agricultural base, scientific capacity, and entrepreneurial ecosystem. It maps progress and opportunity across core value chains (agro-processing, aquaculture and the blue economy, natural products, bioenergy, biopackaging, and biopharma) showcasing enterprises like Limbua Avocado Oil Factory, Giraffe Bioenergy, Hydro Victoria Africa, and HyaPak Ecotech as proof points of circular, inclusive, value-adding production already underway, generating jobs and opportunities for youth, women, farmers, and MSMEs. While Kenya has built policy foundations through Vision 2030, BETA, the STI Act, the Climate Change Act, and the Sustainable Waste Management Act, aligned regionally with the EAC Bioeconomy Strategy and AU priorities, the report identifies persistent gaps: fragmented coordination and regulation, no dedicated national bioeconomy strategy, inadequate financing for early-stage and rural enterprises, limited bioprocessing infrastructure and research commercialization, an underdeveloped skills pipeline, immature standards and certification systems, and insufficient protection of indigenous knowledge. The report calls for a national bioeconomy strategy, coordinated governance, expanded innovation and bioprocessing hubs, stronger standards, blended finance for MSMEs/youth/women-led enterprises, and investment in skills and indigenous knowledge protection. Arguing these choices will determine whether Kenya's bioeconomy becomes a defining pillar of national development or remains an aspiration.
status-of-bioeconomy-in-kenya-compressed.pdf
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Kenya, Bioeconomy, Agro-processing, Sustainable Waste Management, MSMEs, EAC, Africa Union
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Financing a sustainable global bioeconomy
Financing a Sustainable Global Bioeconomy, released September 12, 2024, is a landscape analysis of the current and prospective interplay between finance and the bioeconomy, authored by NatureFinance and the World Bioeconomy Forum, with the support of dozens of civil society organisations. It builds on two key pieces of work that informed the G20 Bioeconomy Initiative, created by the Brazilian G20 Presidency earlier that year, work that went on to directly inform the Ten High-Level Principles on Bioeconomy subsequently adopted by the G20. The growing recognition of the bioeconomy's importance is exemplified by Brazil's decision to establish the G20 Initiative on Bioeconomy during its Presidency, and the prioritisation of finance and the bioeconomy set out by the Colombian Presidency of COP16 to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
FinancingASustainableGlobalBioeconomy_NatureFinance.pdf
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Finance, Bioeconomy, Climate, Biodiversity, Nature
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Growing a sustainable bioeconomy through trade and international cooperation
This report sets out practical pathways for designing innovative trade and finance mechanisms that scale the global bioeconomy while driving an equitable, sustainable economic transformation.
Prepared by NatureFinance as knowledge partner to South Africa's 2025 G20 Presidency, at the request of South Africa's Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, this report was developed as a contribution to the G20 Initiative on Bioeconomy (GIB), building on discussions at the GIB's second meeting in Mbombela in May 2025, where trade was identified as a key enabler of bioeconomy growth. Its findings and recommendations remain directly relevant to the trade, finance and bioeconomy discussions now continuing under COP17. The report argues that climate goals cannot be met through energy transition alone. They require harnessing the economic potential of nature itself. Current estimates put the bioeconomy's value at roughly US$4 trillion today, with projections reaching US$30 trillion by 2050, around a third of global GDP. Trade is positioned as the critical lever for realizing this scale: biodiversity-based trade already makes up a substantial share of global trade and GDP, with dramatically higher shares in many emerging economies. Left unmanaged, however, this trade risks deepening biodiversity loss and disadvantaging bio-based products against conventional, fossil-based alternatives, particularly given persistent technological gaps between developed and developing countries.
The report finds the bioeconomy could deliver a significant share of the emissions reductions needed to stay within 1.5°C, alongside adaptation and resilience benefits. It identifies six priority areas for scaling this potential: integrating bioeconomy strategy with circular-economy and climate policy; building trade infrastructure such as preferential arrangements and digital customs verification; strengthening regional cooperation and cross-border financing (citing the African Bioeconomy Finance Hub as an example); harmonising data and standards, including through Codex Alimentarius and national DSI capacity; redirecting subsidies and procurement toward bio-based goods; and deploying time-bound market incentives to help new technologies reach commercial viability.
Growing-a-Sustainable-Bioeconomy-Through-Trade-and-International-Cooperation_FINAL-1.pdf
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Sustainable Trade, Trade, Bioeconomy, Regional Value Chains, Climate, G20, Sustainable Economy, Finance, G20 Initiative on Bioeconomy (GIB), Bio-Based Goods
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Unlocking Finance for Nature
This visual was developed in partnership with the G20 South African Presidency to illustrate different perspectives of the evolving bioeconomy and its potential to drive transformative change.
Unlocking-finance-for-nature.pdf
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Finance, Bioeconomy, Nature
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Circular by nature: a policy agenda for bio-based materials in a circular economy
This paper intends to shed new light on the application of the circular economy framework to bio-based materials, a subject that has, to date, received less attention than the analysis of circular models applied to finite materials. It finds that better aligning policy agendas on circular economy and bio-based materials presents a concrete opportunity for value creation with wide-ranging socioeconomic and environmental benefits. Many countries could see this as a key opportunity in the development of bio-based sectors within
global value chains. It could also help to distribute value more fairly across all actors involved
circular-by-nature-a-policy-agenda-for-bio-based-materials-in-a-circular-economy
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Circular Economy, Bio-based, Socioeconomic, Nature, Latin America, Caribbean, Trade
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Harnessing the bioeconomy-climate nexus for sustainable development
In a rapidly changing world, the bioeconomy offers a transformative pathway for climate adaptation, nature-positive growth and fiscal resilience. Currently valued at an estimated US$4–5 trillion, the bioeconomy has the potential to expand to US$30 trillion by 2050 – if strategic action is taken now. Unlocking this potential will require comprehensive policies, targeted investments and global collaboration to scale bioeconomy solutions that can withstand the growing pressures of extreme weather events and biodiversity loss. This report, released by NatureFinance and the Inter-American Development Bank, identifies key opportunities for governments, the private sector, development banks and other international financial institutions to scale up strategic investment in bioeconomy solutions—across ecosystems, livelihoods, and infrastructure—to drive a more resilient and inclusive global financial system. The report also highlights how the 2025 NDC process offers a critical window to embed bioeconomy strategies into national climate plans, ensuring nature is integrated into the green economic transition.
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Finance, Bioeconomy, Nature, Infrastructure, Development, NDC, Climate Adaptation, Nature-Positive
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Harnessing the bioeconomy-climate nexus for sustainable development
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Nature, Climate, Bioeconomy, Sustainable Development, NDCs
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