Online Workshop on Sustainable Biomass Availability and Mobilisation --- June 17, 2026 --- ONLINE

IEA Bioenergy is organising an online workshop on “Sustainable Biomass Availability and Mobilisation”, which will be held on 17 June at two different times, to accommodate participants from different parts of the world. The objective of this workshop is to explore how to secure sufficient biomass availability and how to organise (upstream) mobilisation under sustainable conditions, taking into account other functions that have to be met with biogenic resources, e.g., securing – or strengthening – human food and animal feed security, biodiversity, soil quality, closing nutrient cycles, and social systems.

Sustainable availability of biomass for energy and materials – whether being from forestry, agriculture, or wastes and residues from industry or municipalities – is often questioned as it is considered a limited resource. At the same time, also sustainable mobilisation is viewed as complex, as biomass is often dispersed available, both in location and in time during the seasons, and the various end use applications also required specific characteristics for the input feedstock, that requires different handling, logistics and possible pretreatment steps. Securing sustainable biomass mobilisation is elementary for the permanency of operations, while at the same time economic focus needs to be considered as well.

Yet, currently, and also projected for the near future, biomass is and will be an important contributing energy source to the increase of renewable energy deployment, next to other renewable energy sources such as wind energy, solar energy, hydro power and geothermal energy. On top of that, in non-energy end-use functions biobased materials are foreseen to replace fossil carbon-based products or energy intense materials, while enabling long term storage of carbon in materials.

The IEA International Energy Agency in its 2025 World Energy Outlook, in the Stated Policies Scenario sketched that the deployment of modern bioenergy might increase from ~40 EJ in 2024 to ~75 EJ by 2050. Current world energy demand is above 500 EJ, and expected to grow to 700-750, depending on the scenario’s IEA explored, for 2035 and beyond.

The objective of this workshop is to explore how to secure sufficient biomass availability and how to organise (upstream) mobilisation under sustainable conditions, taking into account other functions that have to be met with biogenic resources, such as securing – or strengthening – at the same time human food and animal feed security, biodiversity, soil quality, closing nutrient cycles, and social systems.

As these aspects might be viewed from different perspectives due to regional differences we organise the workshop two times on the same day, with interactive moments, enabling participants from different parts of the world to join the workshop.