Abstract:

Bioeconomy, despite its many applications, has not yet entered the public consciousness as an exciting solution to address societal challenges (Sakellaris G. (2021) Bioeconomy Education. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-64969-2_22). Raising overall awareness and understanding of the societal, economic and environmental impacts of bio-based products and processes and the bioeconomy at large is of utmost importance for the future development of a smart, sustainable and inclusive bioeconomy and to educate to a more sustainable consumption and lifestyle patterns.

In the last years, several European funded projects have embarked on a new voyage on raising awareness and communicating the role of bioeconomy in responding to environmental, climate-neutral and socio-economic challenges. Nevertheless reaching the critical mass needed to drive the change is complex, especially considering the limited resources available in the context of EU Funded projects.

This article explains how the BIOVOICES (https://www.biovoices.eu/) and Transition2Bio (https://www.transition2bio.eu/), projects experimented successfully the engagement of testimonials to multiply the educational effect, by leveraging existing trusted relations they have with their followers.

To that end, the projects involved two famous Italian TV presenters, already known as sensitive to environmental issues: Syusy Blady and her daughter Zoe. Their social media channels reach 750.000 followers and they are well-known as unconventional travellers in primary TV formats.

The idea was to show and explain, in a very simple and inspirational way, the circular bioeconomy in everyday life. In 10 video shorts called “Lo sai che?” (Do you know that?), Syusy and Zoe, engage a funny competition to show one each other, in a playful banter, who knows more about bioeconomy in a generational mother and daughter rapid word exchange.

Before getting in contact with the projects, they never heard about bioeconomy. Therefore, the first step was to inspire them presenting several stories on how waste can become a resource (e.g. apple skin can become leather, leftovers from winemaking can become cosmetics, etc.), to raise their enthusiasm and interest. Once inspired, the next step was to empower them with solid knowledge as well as bio-based products and curiosities, and create a series of stories, each one addressing an application field of the bioeconomy.

Finally, after the video shooting and editing, a contents check was performed, to prevent misleading communication. In this phase, insights like prices of bio-based products, communication messages and data were provided in a nice graphical format.

The videos were distributed through social media channels as a weekly appointment with the bioeconomy, targeting the Italian public (including mature audiences, as planned), reaching nearly 900.000 views in several profiles.

After the great success the production company decide to use the knowledge acquired to create new contents for a new TV show “Slow Tour Padano”, where a curious tourist, riding an electric motorcycle, explores the north of Italy, meeting examples of sustainable living, producing and consuming. The EU funded projects were involved to provide materials and suggest “bioeconomy stories” from companies and researchers, to be told in the episodes. The TV series is scheduling now and reaches 150.000 spectators per weekly episode.

Keywords:

Info-education, bioeconomy.