Germany and all the countries in the international community face enormous challenges with regard to the issues of global population growth, dwindling fossil fuel resources, and the ever-advancing climate change. The central task will be to provide a growing world population with adequate food, energy and raw materials, while taking care not to impact the natural environment, and to actively reduce climate-damaging greenhouse gases. To these ends, it will be necessary to develop intelligent solutions that are in keeping with a resource-efficient and sustainable economy. Having set out these objectives, biorefinery concepts – as central elements of a bio-based economy, and promising largely waste-free use of biomass, efficient conversion routes, and pathways for the energetic and material use of biomass – could play an important role for a future bioeconomy in the utilisation and conversion of biogenic raw materials and residues.