SCDI's 2030 Blueprint for Scotland's economy - recognition for IB & bioeconomy
SCDI - the Scottish Council for Development and Industry - have launched their 2030 Blueprint for Scotland’s economy, which seeks to create a better future through better decisions now.
The 10-year vision described in Making a Good Living identifies challenges and opportunities, and makes recommendations to address: the transition to net-zero carbon emissions; an aging society and slow population growth; technological change; slow growth and low productivity; and, social inequalities.
IBioIC contributed to the report alongside the many stakeholders of SCDI.
The report has lots of support for the industrial biotech offer and for growing a bioeconomy, which is mentioned throughout the document.
The below excerpt is from the chapter on ‘A Living lab for innovations’ on the section looking at ‘Productivity (incl. Foundational Economy; Industry 4.0 and Clean Growth)’.
From pages 63-64 of the report on the section ‘Bioeconomy’:
“The bioeconomy is the production of renewable biological resources from land and sea and the conversion of these resources and waste streams into valued-added food, feed, products and energy. Developing the bioeconomy can stimulate rural economy supply chains, increase innovation in rural areas and create good jobs, while addressing climate change, sustainable food production and fossil fuel dependency.
A significant challenge will be to transition away from petrochemicals as the key means or ingredients to manufacture chemicals, pharmaceuticals, fuels and everyday consumer goods.
Grangemouth, centred on a major petrochemicals plant and Scotland’s only crude oil refinery, is Scotland’s largest and the UK’s third largest industrial cluster, supporting thousands of direct and indirect jobs. The cluster also contributes 30% of Scotland’s total industrial emissions.
Industrial biotechnology offer solutions to transform petrochemical-based industries along with CCUS. New biofuels can be developed from agricultural crops, while waste from local value chains can be used as feedstock. This will be a growth opportunity for Scotland due to the expertise, experience and infrastructure of its energy, life sciences and manufacturing sectors.
Scotland’s National Plan for Industrial Biotechnology has set a £900m turnover target to be achieved by 2025180. The global market is projected to reach $577bn by 2026.
The transformation of the Grangemouth petrochemicals site into a biorefinery would be the key enabler, accelerator and cornerstone of an internationally significant Scottish bioeconomy. Private and public investment will be needed to pilot, demonstrate and scale-up facilities, with incentives, innovation support and a focus on addressing the UK’s relatively high energy costs.
Industry should build sectoral and cross-sectoral partnerships to develop new supply chains for reuse materials or repairs, share best practice and pool and share resources or risks. Waste or by-products from one sector can be valuable resources for reuse in another sector. Public bodies can play an intermediary role to identify potential opportunities for collaboration.”