BDO Zone Summit 2025: Bridging Community Readiness and Developer Success

On June 17, 2025, the BDO Zone Initiative hosted the second BDO Zone Summit, bringing together over 400 stakeholders from across North America’s biobased economy. The 90-minute virtual event focused on a central theme in today’s biobased landscape: Bridging Community Readiness and Developer Success.

Featuring insights from developers spearheading billion-dollar sustainable aviation fuel projects and economic leaders attracting multi-million-dollar investments in BDO Zone-rated communities, the Summit showcased how the BDO Zone Initiative is fostering alignment between project siting, investment strategies, and regional development capacity.

Jordan Solomon, Chairman of the BDO Zone Initiative, opened the event with a strategic outlook on the Initiative’s accelerating growth and national momentum, reflecting on how far the program has come in just two years and on the core challenges still facing the biobased industry. Jordan set the stage for the panels that followed, establishing BDO Zone Ratings as a critical tool for de-risking investment, aligning stakeholders, and accelerating biobased development across North America.

“I think back to two years ago, about 600 days ago, there were six or seven [BDO Zones], and now there are 61 BDO Zones. The progress and the industry uptake have been great and dramatic… The problem is a problem of fragmentation, and what BDO Zones do, simply, is provide a Rolodex of great places to build plants.”

Jack Morgan, Associate Director at the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO), spoke to the pivotal role regional development organizations play in preparing rural communities to compete in the modern bioeconomy. Highlighting the importance of both strategic storytelling and credible data, Jack emphasized how BDO Zone Ratings equip rural communities with the third-party validation they need to engage developers and compete for long-term investment.

“Data makes you credible, stories make you memorable. It’s essential to have credible data that you can access from the BDO Zones.”

The Project Developer Panel on Risk Mitigation and Strategic Siting, underscored how BDO Zone Ratings are directly shaping siting and capital-raising decisions. Nick Andrews (CEO, USA BioEnergy), Douglas Cole (CEO, Azure Sustainable Fuels), and Matt Boeger (COO, Regen BioFuels) revealed how the transparent, third-party validation provided by BDO Ratings gives investors and project teams the confidence they need to move faster and smarter. The discussion made clear that today’s developers are looking well beyond maps, they need project locations that are vetted, validated, and visibly ready.

The Community Panel on Ratings to Results: Economic Development Perspectives from BDO Zone Communities opened with real-world success stories from the ground. Leaders from Sarnia-Lambton (Ontario), Lewis County (Washington), North Iowa Corridor (Iowa), and the Greenspring Bioinnovation Hub (Nova Scotia) shared how their communities leveraged BDO Zone Ratings to rise above the noise, gain visibility with developers, and catalyze local momentum. The panel was expertly moderated by Meaghan Seagrave, Executive Director of Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC), a national leader in industrial bioproduct commercialization and regional clean growth strategy. From feedstock readiness assessments to infrastructure alignment, panelists demonstrated how BDO Zone designations are translating into concrete development outcomes, including multi-million-dollar investment attraction and long-term economic impact.

“100%, it’s helping economic development and site selectors, and folks looking to build these types of facilities to find us. We can do all the outreach we want, but the value is definitely in getting the BDO Zone designation out there. I’ve had more than 20 companies reach out simply because they found us through the BDO Zone. These are companies that didn’t even know our region existed before. Leveraging the network the BDO Zone gave us has been absolutely tremendous.” – Shauna Carr, Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership.

As the Summit wrapped, a key theme emerged: bridging the gap between community readiness and developer requirements is no longer optional, it’s essential for accelerating biobased investment. Building on its growing footprint and proven impact, the BDO Zone Initiative is emerging as the go-to platform for aligning capital, projects, and communities in the modern biobased economy.

To view the Summit, please click below:

Summary of Presenter Remarks

Jordan Solomon, Chairman, BDO Zone Initiative, and President/CEO, Ecostrat:

• “I think back to two years ago, about 600 days ago, there were six or seven [BDO Zones], and now there are 61 BDO Zones. The progress and the industry uptake have been great and dramatic… The problem is a problem of fragmentation, and what BDO Zones do, simply, is provide a Rolodex of great places to build plants.”
• “[BDO Zones] are downloaded by project developers and investors on average 850 times.”
• “The plants you all are building, and the biomass, which is underutilized in so many locations across the continent, is an asset. When they’re connected to those like you who are building the plants, those underutilized assets become an engine for economic development. Without these project developers, they’re nothing, just trees in the forest, just corn stover that’s getting plowed back into the fields. When we put them together with economic developers, then all of a sudden we create something out of something that just wasn’t there before.”

Jack Morgan, Associate Director, National Association of Development Organizations (NADO):

• “Data makes you credible, stories make you memorable. It’s essential to have credible data that you can access from the BDO Zones.“

Meaghan Seagrave, Executive Director, Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC):

• “I’m a fan of BDO Zones because our resources are foundational, not just for regional growth, but as a requirement in this global economy that needs to take circularity and the environment into perspective.”
• “The assets that we have in these regions are what set us apart, and they represent the inputs that many of the new technologies are using to transform our industries, making them more productive and globally competitive. If you don’t know what you have to offer, what are you selling?”
• “BDO Zones put you on the map and validate the assets in your backyard, meaning there’s less due diligence necessary for project developers.”

Shauna Carr, Economic Development Officer, Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership (Ontario):

• “100%, it’s helping economic development and site selectors, and folks looking to build these types of facilities, to find us. We can do all the outreach we want, but the value is definitely in getting the BDO Zone designation out there. I’ve had more than 20 companies reach out simply because they found us through the BDO Zone. These are companies that didn’t even know our region existed before. Leveraging the network the BDO Zone gave us has been absolutely tremendous.”

Rod Badcock, Executive Director, Greenspring Bioinnovation Hub (Nova Scotia):

• “We already had a fair volume of data, but the BDO Zone allowed us to put a different lens on it, which is the lens of investment-grade data. What we now do is provide that information to our clients who are looking at building those projects.”
• “We already had a really good pipeline of projects in Nova Scotia. We were looking to do two things with the BDO Zone. One is uncover any rocks that we hadn’t already looked under and attract potentially new projects. But the second was to use it as another tool in our economic development toolbox to help the businesses we were working with, who were looking to launch growth here, with the investment case for why they should do that. The BDO Zone has worked great for both purposes.”
• “We’re quite happy to get several new inquiries, and also quite happy to use the information to help build the business case of clients we are already working with.”
• “When you go through that transition of a sector that’s in decline, you’re left with an industry that is a little bit beaten up. To receive an ‘A’ rating for Southwestern Nova Scotia was a little bit of a light for the forest industry in that area.”

Bob Russel, Retired Paper Mill Engineer, Lewis County (Washington):

• “The DNA of the Pacific Northwest is in wood, and has been since we were discovered.”
• ” As markets change, the wood basket distribution changes. We had one paper mill shut down, and that crippled the pulp market out here. A lot of our friends could no longer sell pulp. Having grown up in the pulp and paper industry, we recognize that problem here in Lewis County.”
• “I’ve lived 30 years in forest products, but now I have a working group of 20 people. What we find ourselves doing, as a community, is vetting calls from developers interested in products and residuals lumber companies were giving away. A rising tide is raising all ships, and we are really seeing that in the Lewis County BDO Zone.”

Todd Chaput, Initiative’s Program Manager, Economic Alliance of Lewis County (Washington):

• “As soon as the rating was released and open to the public, we immediately began to receive calls from across the US.”
• “It’s exciting to be able to go out to these small communities with realistic opportunities that could really bring industrial investment to towns that would have never seen it before.”
• “We’ve now found a better way to utilize this wood waste. We’re working with a company right now that is looking at doing something in one of our smaller communities to bring in some black, high-quality carbon, directly as a result of the BDO Zone.”

Chad Schreck, President/CEO, North Iowa Corridor EDC (Iowa):

• “We’ve been trying to target that next-generation cellulosic ethanol, SAF, things of that nature. When we were introduced to the people at Ecostrat, it just made perfect sense.”
• “As soon as our rating went out — the press release, the website, the video content — we started getting calls. I even got calls from people in Iowa that didn’t know what we had up here.”
• “The level of assistance that [Ecostrat] provides is really phenomenal. In addition to that, I think it’s really been great in the way that it’s helped us in responding to project proposals. We have this information just ready to go, plug in, and show what we’ve got.”

Doug Cole, Vice-Chairman, Azure Sustainable Fuels:

• “The real challenge is raising the capital to build and to get through this front-end engineering work. To that end, bringing in Ecostrat and developing a BDO Zone really helped us get the independent verification of a suitable feedstock supply for the project.”
• “In our initial facility, it would probably put somewhere around 700 million a year additional soybean oil or canola oil demand on the continent. Being Canadian, we’re seeing a lot of uncertainty particularly thrown into project development today with the on-again, off-again tariffs and trade actions, not just between Canada and the US, but Canada and China as well. I think strategically for our agricultural industries, and our forest industries, being able to create these infrastructure-scale facilities that bring value-add and keep that value-add here within our respective counties is going to be strategic to our countries going forward.”

Nick Andrews, CEO, USA BioEnergy:

• “As far as the total amount of construction jobs for these infrastructure-sized projects, there’s a thousand people who are going to be working on the construction side for the first two to three years, which is not a small undertaking. Then, for permanent jobs, we’re anticipating 200, and it’s hard to calculate how many indirect jobs, but I’ll give you a couple of statistics. We’re anticipating spending $90 million annually on forest purchasing activity, and none of those are considered direct jobs, so I would say that over a thousand indirect jobs are going to be created.”
• “We did an economic study back when we were able to get this property approved for $150 million in incentives, which are largely property tax abatement and job training reimbursement. I believe we’re going to generate over $500 million in revenue to the local taxing district over the first 20 years of operation.”
• “These kids, when they leave, they don’t have a way to come home because there’s no jobs waiting for them when they come back from school. So this gives them a chance to go get educated, then come back to their hometown, which is very important to these rural communities.”

Matt Boeger, COO, Regen BioFuels:

• “I have a University of California study that was done on economic impacts for a project very similar to what we’re building. The study showed induced rural economic activity of $154 million, 1,400 direct rural jobs, and 1,000 indirect rural jobs — so total rural jobs at 2,400 per facility.”
• “This is significant, especially in these communities we’re targeting, which are often agricultural communities that struggle to keep the young workers there, and the community working, so it creates a lot of additional opportunities there.”

To access more information about the BDO Zone Summit 2025, click here.

About The BDO Zone Initiative

The Biofuel Development Opportunity (BDO) Zone Initiative certifies ‘regional readiness’ for bio-manufacturing, creates global connections and ignites an influx of new energy opportunities for farmers, economic developers, and rural businesses. A BDO Zone rating is an internationally recognized, standards-based technical risk assessment of a region’s feedstock, supply chain, and infrastructure risk with respect to the development potential for new biofuel plants. BDO Zone ratings are site location bullseyes for bio-project development. Investment grade ratings are force-multipliers for attracting new manufacturing plants to the areas where they are most likely to succeed, drive investment and create jobs.

For more information on the BDO Zone Initiative, contact info@bdozone.org. To view all BDO Zone ratings, visit www.bdozone.org. Check out the BDO Zone LinkedIn page for news and updates.

Ecostrat is the North American leader in biomass due diligence for biofuels, renewable chemicals, biogas, and bio-product project development and finance. Jordan Solomon (jordan.solomon@ecostrat.com) is Chairman of the BDO Zone Initiative and President of Ecostrat (www.ecostrat.com).