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A key aim of BE-Rural is to increase awareness and understanding of bioeconomy, sustainability and circular economy through education. This report includes a variety of educational resources that can be used by teachers. It is possible to envisage that geography, biology, environmental studies, technology and/or business classes could integrate some of these resources as part of their teaching, but it is up to the teachers to decide how they are best used. The bioeconomy is the production of goods, services or energy using biological material as the main resource, instead of the use of fossil resources. As the bioeconomy uses renewable and biodegradable resources, it can avoid the depletion of resources and waste is often completely designed out of the system. The European Union is taking steps towards a sustainable bioeconomy and has a strategy to promote the bioeconomy and to avoid reaching ecological limits. The sustainability implications of the bioeconomy, and of specific bio-based products, permeates all the learning materials and explicit reference is often made to the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The material covered in this report is mostly aimed at teachers of high school pupils (in the 12-18 age range) in Bulgaria, Latvia, North Macedonia, Poland and Romania to help them teach their pupils on bioeconomy, circular economy and sustainability. To facilitate this, the material in this report is translated into Bulgarian, Latvian, Macedonian, Polish and Romanian. The educational materials in this report also aim to promote the participation in the development of regional bioeconomy strategies, which is the overall aspiration of BE-Rural. The educational resources build upon a "strong sustainability" approach, with avoidance of trade-offs between social, economic and environmental issues. This fits with the ecological limits advocated by the European bioeconomy strategy. This report presents the four main outputs in terms of high school education ...

More countries are now using Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) than ever before. This timely and comprehensive Handbook describes the implementation of SEA in 18 countries around the world, as well as a critical analysis of different SEA methodologies. The Handbook starts by introducing key SEA principles and the legal requirements of the new European SEA Directive (which became law in 2004). It then describes the implementation of SEA in 11 European Union countries, as well as the USA, Canada and New Zealand. This is contrasted with SEA requirements of four developing countries. The Ha

Small islands provide an opportunity to influence the debate on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) towards sustainability, due to their specific natural and human features. The research goal was to understand how sustainability might be advanced through SEA in small islands, supported by the development of a conceptual framework and recommendations for its implementation. The framework developed provides for the identification of clusters of concepts linking SEA with sustainability in small islands, identified as being key actors, island cooperation and information exchange networks, and small islands SEA-specific issues. These clusters of concepts are interlinked through the actors in a continuous loop of learning and improvement process. The implementation of the framework is recommended based on different key factors, which derived from the conceptual framework: awareness for decision-makers; empowerment and ownership of practitioners and intermediate decision-makers; small islands cooperation and exchange networks; SEA specific issues for small islands; and, small islands specific stakeholders' engagement (local knowledge). The application of the framework developed was conceptualized for the Azores and Orkney archipelagos due to their well-established SEA systems, with similar legal background – the European Union SEA Directive (Directive 2001/42/EC). In the Azores, the SEA system may promote an easier transition towards new models of thinking, but more challenges are expected for Orkney practitioners and decision supporters which may need to use creative solutions to overcome them. Overall, this research concludes that a mind-set changing capacity is needed, enhancing future practice and influencing different stakeholders for the need of specific small islands approaches. The proposed framework should be adopted as a dynamic tool and adjusted iteratively with practice.