COP28- a place to scale up circular agrifood & biomass business opportunities
December 13, 2023
During the COP28 in Dubai, Holland Circular Hotspot, together with Foodvalley NL, the Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, the Netherland Enterprise Agency, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management and Topsector Agri & Food represented the Netherlands and took center stage in the Food System Pavillon. During this session that took place on Saturday, December 9th, they hosted an engaging and interactive session focused on agrifood and biomass.
By going circular, we can halve the public emissions in the sector. But we need to scale solutions together between the public, private, and knowledge industry, and in alignment with local citizens and consumers. Only this way, we can develop and implement more and better circular solutions locally and worldwide
Freek van Eijk (Director of HCH and session moderator)
Toward a food system based on circularity
Currently, a noticeable surge in competition for materials, chemistry, and energy is evident among food, feed, and biomass sectors globally. The insightful session, featuring presentations, discussions, and exemplary best practices, aimed to inspire the international community to escalate circular agrifood and biomass business opportunities, aligning with the shared goals of achieving climate neutrality and biodiversity.
Furthermore, during the session, the speakers made an overview of today’s challenges and solutions in the field of circular agrifood and biomass, showing how a circular approach can create concrete socio-environmental value and positively contribute to a climate neutral world. Following, building on the recently released brochure “Circular agrifood & biomass: Food & materials for a sustainable future”, speakers were able to showcase Dutch innovations and best practices, varying from food waste measurements, liquid coating of fruits, community led farming, upcycling of side streams in agrifood, circular feed, algae, insect breeding, and alternative proteins.
The guest speakers, through a series of impactful presentations and discussions, provided concrete examples of best practices in the food system. Through showcases they presented the different possibilities to successfully support everyone’s goals to provide healthy, safe and tasty food for 9 billion of people within the planetary boundaries. Their goal was in fact, to encourage the global community to embrace circular solutions in agrifood and biomass, while emphasizing the role that these initiatives can play in addressing climate change and biodiversity preservation, if working collaboratively across sectors and borders.
The session concluded with appreciation extended to the organizers for orchestrating a lively and informative event. Special thanks were also extended to the exceptional speakers who shared their expertise and insights on the circular agrifood and biomass industry.
As the global community continues to seek sustainable solutions, events like these play a crucial role in fostering collaboration and inspiring actionable change towards a more circular and environmentally conscious future.