Climate change and environmental problems are becoming more complex, uncertain and multi-scalar, affecting a variety of actors and agencies. Therefore calling for a variety of knowledge’s and values in decision making processes. New forms of government and governance are being implemented and in the same time public participation in decision making processes is pointed out as a democratic right by as well environmentalist and pressure groups as in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe 1998 (Reed, 2008). Further collaboration between more actors than in earlier innovation systems is pointed out as important in as well innovation policys concerning smart specialization strategies as well as in the development of a European bio economy. In the latter context the European 2012 Bio Economy Communication Strategy lifts the importance of engaging society in the transition, thereby creating a link between society and policy makers in decision making processes. Thereby, this article mainly takes its departure in the broadening field of literature around regional innovation systems and the concepts of quadruple and quintuple helix in a forestry bio economy in Sweden. More specifically it aims to examine the preconditions of a possible transition into a forestry based bio economy by the move from a triple helix to a quadruple helix system in the region of Värmland in Sweden. Which actors are involved in the current innovation system and how is environment included in the transition?

One point of departure is where the European Commission in 2012 established a strategy for the development of a European bio economy; Innovating for sustainable growth: A bio economy for Europe, aiming to transform the European economy into becoming more sustainable by the: production of renewable biological resources and the conversion of these resources and waste streams into value added products, such as food, feed, bio-based products and bioenergy (The European Commission, 2012:3). The European Union thereby sees the bio economy as one possible way of transforming society into becoming fossil free, creating a more sustainable European economy. Further the European Commission’s imposition on European regions to develop smart specialization strategies so called RIS3 – Research and innovation smart specialization strategies (Aranguren & Wilson 2013), have led to an extension of earlier regional innovation systems. Regions around Europe now develop smart specialization strategies to draw on their own unique resources to withhold funds from the European structural funds (Aranguren & Wilson 2013; Carayannis & Rakhmatullin 2014).