Webinar: Co-designing Policy Mix and Business Models for Marginal Lands Value Chains

Good crops and good markets are not enough on their own. Marginal-land value chains also need the right policies and business models to scale up. The third session of the MarginUp! Webinar Series looks at the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of these value chains, shares results from two European use cases, and explores how policy makers and businesses can design the conditions for success together.

MarginUp! is a European research project that cultivates biodiversity-friendly non-food crops on marginal lands for bio-based products, from bioenergy and organic fertilisers to construction materials and cosmetics. Its five full-scale use cases in Germany, Greece, Hungary, Spain and Sweden, together with case studies in Argentina and South Africa, offer real-world lessons on balancing productivity with ecosystem services.

In this session, project partners will present results from the Spanish and Hungarian use cases. They will also discuss the policy barriers that hold back sustainable use of marginal land, and introduce next-generation business models developed with the NEXRUR project.

📅 Thursday 19 November 2026 | 🕚 11:00–12:30 CET | 💻 Online on Zoom

Agenda

• Introduction by the moderator (10 min)
• Environmental and socioeconomic impacts: Charalambos Panayiotou, ATLANTIS (10 min)
• Learnings from the Spanish use case: Jerónimo González Cortés, CICYTEX (10 min)
• Learnings from the Hungarian use case: Adrienn Nagy, PILZE NAGY (10 min)
• Q&A (10 min)
• Policy barriers to sustainable marginal land use and co-designing the policy mix: Hyunjin Park, ATB (10 min)
• Co-designing next-generation business models for marginal lands value chains and beyond (NEXRUR Project): Philipp Grundmann, ATB (10 min)
• Q&A (20 min)

Who should attend?

The session is designed for the MarginUp! Replication Network: researchers and academia, farmers, bio-based industries, civil society, education and training providers, and, in particular, policy makers who shape the future of land use and the bioeconomy.

Be part of the conversation!

This webinar is about co-design, so your perspective matters. Join us to share your experience, put your questions to the speakers, and help shape policies and business models that make marginal lands work for people, the economy and biodiversity. Participation is free, but registration is required.

👉 Register here

The MarginUp! Webinar Series is organised by Greenovate! Europe. For questions, contact Patrick Rembe at p.rembe@greenovate-europe.eu.