By Jen Vanderhoven, CEO of the BBIA and the BioRevolution Coalition.
Every day, we use products that depend on fossil resources without giving it much thought. The ingredients in our cleaning products. The materials used to package food. The chemicals that go into cosmetics, clothing and medicines. For decades, oil and gas have been our default source of carbon. But carbon does not have to come from underground.
Plants, agricultural waste, algae, microorganisms and other biological resources can provide the building blocks for many of the products we rely on. With the right technology, those resources can be transformed into bio-based chemicals and materials that are biodegradable, compostable or renewable.
This is the promise of the bioeconomy, and the UK could lead it. Our parliamentary petition sets out how.
The technology already exists
Across the UK, companies are already developing and scaling alternatives to fossil-derived materials. Woolcool, for example, uses sheep’s wool instead of polystyrene to insulate packaging for chilled food and medicines: a renewable, biodegradable fibre doing the same job.
AgriFoodX is taking a different approach, biorefining agricultural and food processing waste into functional ingredients and materials, including cellulose fibres that strengthen recycled paper packaging.
These businesses show that the UK’s challenge is not a lack of scientific capability or entrepreneurial ambition. It is whether we can create the conditions for those innovations to scale here.
From scientific success to commercial success
The UK’s bioeconomy, from farming and pharmaceuticals to engineering biology and bio-based materials and fuels, is already Europe’s fourth-largest by value added, generating around £325 billion and supporting 6.4 million jobs. As the global bioeconomy grows into a potential multi-trillion-pound market, the UK has the expertise and talent to capture a meaningful share.
There is also a resilience argument. Recent energy shocks have shown how exposed the UK can be when essential resources and supply chains depend on decisions made elsewhere. Domestic biological feedstocks and manufacturing could reduce that vulnerability.
A stronger bioeconomy could mean new skilled jobs, investment across the UK, including outside London and the South East, more resilient supply chains and progress towards net zero. But we are in danger of developing the science here and commercialising it somewhere else.
The missing link is policy
The Government has recognised the potential of biotechnology, and significant public money is being invested in research and development. The problem comes when companies try to move from promising technology to commercial production.
Bio-based products can face regulatory, tax and procurement systems designed around fossil-based alternatives. Responsibility for the bioeconomy is also spread across government, making it difficult for businesses to know where ownership and accountability sit. Sometimes, policy actively undermines the innovation it was meant to support.
If a bio-based material is assessed using carbon accounting and assumptions developed around fossil products, its environmental benefits can be obscured. If the tax system rewards one form of carbon but ignores renewable carbon, businesses are being told that the government’s priorities and its market incentives are two different things.
Companies deciding where to build a factory need confidence that the market will still exist once a product is ready to go to market. Without it, investment will go elsewhere.
Five practical steps
This is why the BioRevolution Coalition is calling for practical changes through our parliamentary petition.
- First, the UK needs clear ministerial ownership of the bioeconomy, giving businesses a single route into government.
- Second, we need to remove policy and tax barriers that disadvantage bio-based products compared with fossil-derived alternatives.
- Third, carbon accounting needs to properly recognise renewable carbon and allow like-for-like comparisons.
- Fourth, the Government should use its purchasing power, including through the NHS, to create early markets and give British companies the confidence to scale. Finally, we need targeted support for first-of-a-kind commercial facilities. Building a pilot plant is one thing; financing the first full-scale facility is another. This is often where promising UK technologies struggle to secure the capital needed to become industries.
None of this means compromising on safety or environmental standards. It simply stops the rules unintentionally favouring the fossil-based status quo.
A choice about the economy we want
The UK has spent years building world-class expertise in biotechnology, chemistry and materials science. We now have a choice. We can keep funding brilliant research, then watch the resulting companies move their manufacturing, investment and intellectual property overseas. Or we can create the policy environment that allows them to grow here.
A successful bioeconomy is not just about replacing one material with another. It is about building a more resilient industrial base, creating skilled employment, reducing our dependence on fossil resources and establishing a genuinely circular economy. That is what our petition is calling for. And if we get it right, the next generation of bio-based businesses won’t just be invented in Britain. They’ll be built here, scaled here and create value here.
