Bioenergy Europe brings sustainability policy insights to the European Biocarbon Summit 2025
Bioenergy Europe’s Irene di Padua and Manolis Karampinis brought an EU policy perspective to the European Biocarbon Summit 2025 in Amsterdam, connecting sustainability regulation with real-world biocarbon projects.
The Hawkins Wright’s European Biocarbon Summit 2025 gathered leading players from heavy industry, transport, finance and the bioenergy sector in Amsterdam on 9–10 December, to explore how biomass, biocarbon and BECCS can accelerate industrial defossilisation.
This year, Bioenergy Europe added a strong EU policy dimension to the discussion, with Irene di Padua, Policy Director, delivering a dedicated update on EU sustainability regulations, and Manolis Karampinis, Membership & Business Development Director, moderating the closing panel on “Biomass to SAF”.
Connecting EU sustainability rules with biocarbon market realities
Speaking in the session on “Biomass Sustainability and EU Regulation”, Irene di Padua provided participants with a strategic overview of the fast-evolving EU policy landscape for biomass and biocarbon.
Without going into the full technical detail of her slides, she highlighted three main files that will shape investment decisions and long-term contracts in the biocarbon value chain:
Renewable Energy Directive (REDIII): di Padua outlined the main changes relevant for bioenergy and biocarbon projects, including stricter sustainability criteria, updated greenhouse gas (GHG) savings thresholds and the lower applicability threshold, as well as the new 2030 renewable energy target. She also stressed the importance of timely and coherent national implementation, noting that delays and divergent approaches across Member States risk creating uncertainty for project developers and off takers.
New EU Bioeconomy Strategy: di Padua shared how the new Strategy has moved towards a more systemic, efficiency-based view of biomass use, recognising the role of bioenergy within circular, cascading value chains and acknowledging the importance of biogenic carbon and Bio-CCUS for EU industrial leadership. This more balanced framing, and the emphasis on regional diversity and local conditions, broadly reflects Bioenergy Europe’s long-standing advocacy on the efficient use of residues and secondary streams.
EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR): With operators preparing for the new compliance date and ongoing political discussions on simplification, Irene pointed to forthcoming changes that matter for the biocarbon sector, particularly around responsibilities along the supply chain and the treatment of residues. She underlined Bioenergy Europe’s call for a more proportionate approach, especially for low-risk value chains and downstream products made from residues, which are central to Europe’s circular bioeconomy but do not drive deforestation.
Across these files, her core message to the audience was clear: regulatory stability, coherence and proportionality will be decisive for scaling sustainable biocarbon supply and integrating it credibly into industrial and transport defossilisation pathways.
Biomass to SAF: Karampinis moderates the closing debate
In the final session on “Biomass to SAF”, Manolis Karampinis moderated a high-level panel bringing together project developers and technology leaders working on biomass-based sustainable aviation fuels and biorefinery concepts.
The discussion explored a wide-range of topics, including:
- Procurement strategies for ligno-cellulosic biomass to SAF projects and
- Interaction between SAF mandates and carbon removal policies
- Technological maturity of biomass to SAF projects and risk mitigation strategies
Why Bioenergy Europe’s presence at the Biocarbon Summit matters
The European Biocarbon Summit has quickly become a reference point for companies looking at biomass, biocoal and biocarbon as tools to defossilise steel, cement, lime, chemicals, shipping and aviation.
Bioenergy Europe’s contribution this year ensured that:
- industrial users and investors heard first-hand how EU rules on REDIII, the Bioeconomy Strategy and EUDR are evolving, and what this means for their projects;
- the debate on carbon removals and Bio-CCUS was linked back to the wider EU climate framework, including the 2040 climate target and the emerging carbon management architecture;
- the voice of sustainable bioenergy was present in discussions on hard-to-abate sectors and new markets such as SAF.
As the EU moves from target-setting to implementation, events like the European Biocarbon Summit will be essential to align policy, markets and technology. Bioenergy Europe will continue to engage in these conversations, helping ensure that the regulatory framework enables credible, sustainable biocarbon solutions to scale across Europe’s energy-intensive industries and transport sectors.
