Despite the travel restrictions and the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, this week the global biomass community demonstrated all its liveliness, creativity, and commitment, with "outstanding participation" in the eEUBCE 2020 – the 28th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition (EUBCE).
According to the organisers, more than 1 550 experts from research, industry and institutions spread across 87 countries, contributed to the four-day success of the first-ever fully virtual biomass conference and exhibition, providing more than 540 presentations and moderating 65 webinar sessions in total.
Just like it was for all the EUBCE events in the past, the conference sessions and the exhibition were always animated by participants from near and far, in some cases even from opposite sides of the world and time zones, speaking and listening to live presentations, watching slideshows, asking and replying questions through their screens at the same time.
The live-streamed virtual opening session on July 6, 2020, totalled over 1 530 attendees, the virtual exhibition scored 1 784 visitors on one day. European policymakers rated the conference as highly relevant for the current European political agenda. Economic recovery and climate policy are both top priorities for them, and this year’s EUBCE has been dedicated to it.
Claudes Turmes, Minister for Energy of Luxembourg, recorded his video message for the conference from a forest, underlining how important the bioeconomy is for European citizens. He places bioeconomy as a cornerstone for making Europe more resilient and points out how climate urgency requires us to not lose time.
Maria Gracia Carvalho, former Minister of Energy of Portugal and currently Member of the European Parliament, welcomed the conference, which she chaired last year, as a wonderful contribution for creating the vision for a real Green Deal, by integrating the first time the aspects of bioeconomy in the conference. (watch video)
During the closing session, Nicolae Scarlat, Conference Technical Programme Chair, resumed the key take-home messages from the conference: the European Green Deal and the Recovery Plan represent a great opportunity to recognize a key role to sustainable bioenergy as an essential contributor to achieving the climate target. Ensuring the sustainability of biomass supply and a stable long-term policy framework are necessary to boost investments for the deployment of bioenergy.
We missed the feeling of the physical conference just as much as you all missed your colleagues and friends, such as the applauses after each speech, the chatting during coffee breaks, the hugs and handshakes. Nevertheless we succeeded in giving as much human touch as possible and never left anyone alone behind their screens., said Heinz Ossenbrink, EUBCE ExCo Member and facilitator of the e-EUBCE addressing the attendees,
The 29th edition of EUBCE will hopefully go back to its in real-life (IRL) physical format, in Marseille, France during April 26-29, 2021. In the meantime, the eEUBCE interactive platform and all its multimedia content will be available for viewing until September 2020.
