Sustainable Future for Bioenergy and Renewable Products

Venice, 21 September 2007 – With the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stating the need to reduce the anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels and the directive of the European Community calling for biofuels to meet 5.75 percent of European transport needs by 2010, and 10 percent by 2020, an urgent need for action in plant sciences arises to obtain an economically viable and sustainable production of biofuels, renewable chemicals and materials. While other countries already attribute significant research money to this field (e.g. more than $800 million in recent projects on biofuels in the USA), Europe still lacks concerted action. In response, EPSO, the European Plant Science Organisation, has established a set of recommendations for how Europe can meet this challenge and provide a basis for integrated approaches towards a future bio-economy. EPSO represents more then 140 academic institutions from 25 European countries with over 20 000 people in plant research.