It is a great honour for me to welcome you in Marseille for the 32nd edition of the European Biomass Conference and Exhibition.

We planned to meet in 2020 but it was postponed! The situation in Europe and the world is not the same as it was 4 years ago. A number of events and changes have shown that we need stability and energy security.

On 11 December 2019, Ursula von der Leyen announced the European Green Deal. The COVID crisis forced Europe to accompany it with the “Next Generation EU” recovery plan. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the “Fit for 55” package was accompanied by the “RePowerEU” plan, which aims to save energy and diversify our supply at an affordable price. The “Farm to fork strategy”, the “Nature protection package”, the “law to fight global deforestation and forest degradation”, the “Net-Zero Industry Act”, the “Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism” and the “Refuel EU Aviation and Maritime” are just some of the Green Deal measures that have been put in place over the last four years.

And Carbon circularity and biomass are at the heart of all these legislative and regulatory mechanisms.

Remember: “carbon is not the enemy”. Carbon is present at every level of our societies, in food, materials, chemicals and energy. Our concern now is to close the carbon cycle that has been open for 150 years, with the use of fossil fuels. We should also remember that biomass is the only renewable carbon source that contains energy. It is therefore a key factor in achieving Europe’s climate goals.

We already know that the use of biomass is not the only answer. To become self-sufficient, Europe will need sobriety, efficiency, electrification, hydrogen and CO2 recycling. Biomass remains at the heart of our concerns because it is the link between the earth and mankind. Ecosystems must therefore be preserved. And to meet the challenge of defossilising our societies, we will need several pillars, which are the challenges ahead.

Scientific and technological challenges: Although the scientific and technical barriers have largely been overcome, there is still a long way to go. A large number of technologies are ready and available for several applications (heat, fuels, molecules and materials) and we now know how to produce them. But technologies need to be improved, living conditions need to be better understood, best practices need to be disseminated and the impacts and consequences of societal choices still need to be studied. The European Union’s framework programme for research and innovation, “Horizon Europe”, is an important tool for achieving this.

Dear Member of Biomass Community,

I am pleased to to invite you to the 32nd edition of the European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, EUBCE 2024, in Marseille, France, between 22nd and 27th June 2024. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre continues to provide scientific support to this event and its scientific programme coordination.
Under the European Green Deal, renewable energy is a central pillar of the clean energy transition. The European Union is already a global leader on renewables when it comes to technology development and deployment. Toward the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, three important steps forward have been made recently through the adoption of the revised Renewable Energy Directive, the ReFuelEU Aviation Regulation and the FuelEU Maritime Regulation, putting EU on track to achieve the 2050 goals. With the adoption of these legal acts, the EU now has legally binding climate targets covering all key sectors of the economy.

As we phase out fossil fuels, biomass will also have a role to play in the decarbonisation of the economy. Solutions are available for biomass to produce energy, sustainable fuels and biobased materials and chemicals. Industry reports that several technologies have reached maturity and are ready to prove commercial viability. 

EUBCE will provide again the occasion to show now the best solutions that can contribute to our societal needs and address the major challenges.

The 2024 programme is structured in horizontal themes dealing with resources; sustainability, impacts and policies and biomass integration, as well as vertical themes addressing technologies for biomass conversion to bioenergy, sustainable biofuels; and biobased products and chemicals. EUBCE hosts a variety of Plenary, Oral, Visual Presentation Sessions and Parallel Events and Industry Sessions, designed to give a holistic overview on international developments from all dimensions. As usual, scientific work will receive recognition through the Linneborn Prize, as well as the excellence in biomass industrial deployment through Giuliano Grassi Prize and young scientists for exceptional work.
We aim to further increase the number of conference papers that may be put forward for publication in special issues of peer-reviewed journals. We continue with the agreements in place to facilitate publishing a selection of our best papers in special issues in Energy Sustainability, Biomass and Bioenergy and BioFPR- Biofuels, Bioproducts & Biorefining.

We encourage you all, working in the broad range of fields covered by our technical programme from all around the globe, to be part of this Conference and take advantage of this truly global setting in Marseille. Your work is absolutely important to help Europe and the world to achieve climate-neutrality in the long-term, while respecting the principles of environmental, social and economic sustainability in the widest sense.

Join us in Marseille at EUBCE 2024!

Dear Biomass Stakeholder,

Since the EUBCE at Marseille key legislative actions have been adopted by the European Institutions in the Framework of Fit for 55 package. In particular the RefuelEU aviation initiative rests the obligation on the aviation fuel suppliers to ensure that all fuel made available to aircraft operators at EU airports contains a minimum share of SAF from 2025 and, from 2030, a minimum share of synthetic fuels, with both shares increasing progressively until 2050. Fuel suppliers will have to incorporate 2% SAF in 2025, 6% in 2030 and 70% in 2050. From 2030, 1,2% of fuels must also be synthetic fuels, rising to 35% in 2050. The targets are very ambitious especially for 2025 which is just one year and a half away.

To achieve these targets, and other such as those of RED III, the onus is placed on the industry to deliver huge volumes of advanced biofuels and synthetic fuels in an unprecedented manner and speed.

The size of the required investments entailed in such accelerated deployment is equally unheard of while at the same time investors are shy due to the ever-changing legislative European landscape. Innovative value chains will have to be established to provide the biomass resources needed in a reliable manner.

During the 32^nd EUBCE, the Industry Track will focus in particular in the above topics aiming to bring to the forefront the hurdles that the industry will have to address to deliver the required volumes and how these can be overcome in such a relative very short time.

If you wish to stay well informed on how the industry will respond to this extraordinary challenge, join us in Marseille where you can follow the Industry Track sessions and panel discussions and engage with senior representatives of the industry.

The EUBCE 2024 is the place to be!

Engage with your peers and showcase your own innovative technologies and stay abreast of the developments in the exploding deployment arena of advanced biofuels and synthetic fuels.

France is very pleased and honoured to be hosting the EUBCE 2024 and would like to welcome you to the radiant city of Marseille.

In Europe and in France, bioenergy is the most widely used renewable energy. It makes a significant contribution to defossilising the energy mix. Although it is mainly used to produce heat and electricity, biomass has great potential for other applications such as biofuels, biogas and biomolecules.

European policies and those of a number of countries, including France, are showing that there is a great deal in the field of biomass, both for its uses and for its carbon storage properties: food, materials, molecules, energy and negative emissions.

Call it ‘Biomass’, ‘Biomass and Waste’ or ‘Bio-resources’! Whether it is lignocellulosic, agricultural, residues or waste, or whether it’s dry or wet, it remains an energy and carbon resource with a strong potential for carbon neutrality.

At a time when a greater number of technologies have reached technological maturity and industrial and demonstration projects have demonstrated the feasibility of the processes, new questions are arising: political, regulatory and economic.

• How can we develop the best uses for biomass in sectors that need to be decarbonised, but are difficult or impossible to do so?
• How can we harmonise the approaches and interests of the various research, industrial and economic communities at European and national level?
• What legislation should be put in place to ensure that the increase in future uses will respect ecosystems and biodiversity and comply with LULUCF issues?

It’s time to show clearly that biomass has its place in Europe’s energy future, even if it’s not enough to cover all needs.

It’s time to show that biomass can be advantageously combined with other decarbonised energy sources and vectors (electricity, heat, hydrogen).

It’s time to show that the circular carbon economy is a concept for the future, applicable to the uses of biomass, as it is to those of CO2. […]