Rogaland County Council
Circ-NSR Pilot Region Rogaland County (RCC)
The Rogaland pilot in Circ-NSR is all about implementing the regional “Strategy for bioeconomy in Rogaland 2018–2030”. The main goal is to increase the level of circular economy in the region, especially in the bioeconomic industries. The three main priorities of the strategy are:
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Development and production of feed and feed resources for both agricultural and aquaculture sectors
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Increased use of waste and biproducts in a circular economy
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Increased local processing of locally produced feedstock from agricultural and aquaculture sectors
To implement the goals and measures of the strategy Rogaland County Council is cooperating with more than 50 stakeholders involved in the Bio Advisory Board and seven resource groups. These are mostly private companies, but also research institutes, the region´s university and the County governor. The involved stakeholders represent many different industries, and their participation secures that activities and projects are relevant for the participants and likely to increase value creation through a greener and more sustainable production.
The resource groups cover feed and feed resources, from waste to resource, seafood, agriculture, forestry, greenhouse production and bioeconomic research and education. The overall goals to be reached are:
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Increased value and job creation based on the production of renewable biological resources and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
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By 2030 biomass production from land and sea will increase by at least 20 %. The biomass should primarily be high in protein or contain carbohydrates for protein production for human food and feed resources for aquaculture and agriculture.
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By 2030 Rogaland will produce raw material for feed to cover at least 30 % of the need of the agricultural and aquaculture industries in Rogaland.
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By 2030 Rogaland will be a bioeconomy hub with considerable expertise in combining biology and technology in the production of biomass and the transformation of biomass into new products.
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By 2030 Rogaland will be an internationally recognized center of competence for bioeconomic research.
We think that participation in the Circ-NSR project will strengthen the implementation of the strategy and help our region to make use of circular economy as the preferred instrument for value creation in the future.
Update: new food strategy replacing the "Strategy for bioeconomy in Rogaland 2018–2030"
From the outset of this project the County Council had a new strategy on its table. “Strategy for bioeconomy in Rogaland 2018–2030”. The main goal was to increase the level of circular economy in the region, especially in the bioeconomic industries.
The implementation of this strategy was carried out under the umbrella of Circ-NSR and was regarded as a timely paper that included many of the local actors into the work of the strategy. This was at the same time an exercise of governance that fitted well into the idea of Circ-NSR. In the program of using the strategy the county council used many stakeholders in various industries to take part. This was evaluated as a smart way to include many of the local actors who all felt their participation in the various working groups valued and at the same time a smart way to involve with regional authorities.
From 2022 the county council has chosen to leave the bio economy strategy, mostly because it has shown to be a rather demanding way of working. The strategy will be replaced by a strategy for food from January 2023.
The Food Strategy has been developed in close cooperation with various actors from the region. Individual meeting was organised, this was partly during the covid situation, but the learning of online events from that period turned out to a useful lesson. Online meetings of 90 minutes showed to be rather effective and allowed even the fishermen to take mart on the travel to/from fields.
The food strategy has taken learning from the work with bio economy, it’s main focus are on areas where the county council has direct influence, and the focus is narrower. This means we does not set goals for production or employment in the strategy the county council as such does not have any means to influence this.
In the photo: IverJan Leren, project manager
