“Bio-economy – More Overexploitation or Future Economic Model?” This was the title of this year’s DBU symposium, which took place on 19 /20 October 2016 in the Environmental Education Center at Schloss Wiesenfelden. According to DBU General Secretary Dr. Heinrich Bottermann, the DBU wanted to use this event to create the proper environment for a discourse on controversial subjects surrounding bio-economy. Such open discussions are helpful to the DBU as a foundation with regard to the realization of its broad social task, Bottermann said. Foundation work also means being bound to certain principles. The DBU bases its orientation on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and strives in its funding work to remain within planetary boundaries and to return to secure areas of action. This includes discussing the risks of transformation strategies such as bio-economy. In Bottermann’s view, the subject “bio-economy” must also be addressed in more depth in public communication, as one of the building blocks in the necessary transformation.
