€2.1 trillion revenues and 18.3M jobs: The European bioeconomy, demystified

In the EU, the European bioeconomy is generating 18.3 million jobs and driving €2.1 trillion in annual revenue in the E28, says nova-insitut, in a report for the Bio-based Industries Consortium just now released.

What is the bioeconomy, again?

The bioeconomy comprises those parts of the economy that use renewable biological resources from land and sea – such as crops, forests, fish, animals and micro-organisms – to produce food, materials and energy.

Roughly half of the revenue is accounted for by the food and beverages sector, almost a quarter is created by the primary sectors, agriculture and forestry. The other quarter is created by the bio-based industrial sector, such as chemicals and plastics, pharmaceuticals, paper and paper products, forest-based industries, textile sector, biofuels and bioenergy.

Eurostat was used as the main source of data for all sectors of the bioeconomy. Some sectors, such as the forest-based industry, are fully bio-based and thus fully accounted to the bioeconomy. For other sectors such as the chemical industry, the bio-based shares were estimated and included in the data.

Primary production vs value-add

Primary biomass production, mainly agriculture plus forestry and fishery, generates a lot of employment (58%) but low turnover (21%). The data show clear differences between groups of Member States: e.g. the Eastern European countries Poland, Romania and Bulgaria apparently are stronger in less value added sectors of the bio-based economy that generate a lot of employment. In comparison, Western and Northern European countries generate much higher turnover compared to the employment generated. The countries with the highest ratio between turnover and employment are Ireland, Finland and Belgium.

An increasing share of EU GDP

The data show an overall slight increase in the bio-based share of the chemical industry in the EU-28 from 5% in 2008 to 6% in 2013. The raw materials used by the chemical industry are about 50% organic (fossil and bio-based) and about 50% inorganic (minerals, metals).

Only taking the organic part into account, the overall bio-based share increased from 10% in 2008 to 12% in 2013. Denmark stands out as the one Member State with the highest bio-based share in the chemical industry in 2013, which is mainly due to the high production of enzymes. Latvia and Sweden follow primarily due to a large production volume of charcoal and tall oil.

With regard to investments, the last annual survey from the end of 2014 showed that BIC members intended to invest 1.1 billion EUR during 2014 to 2015 in bio-based industries – mainly demo and flagship projects, of which more than 820 million EUR were pure private investment. Private investments in the amount of more than 2.1 billion EUR are in the pipelines of those same BIC members for the time between 2014 and 2020. Most of the short-term investments will take place in the lignocellulosic and forestry based value chains.

Reaction from nova-institute

“Of particular interest,” so Michael Carus, Managing Director of nova-Institute, “are the often underrated bio-based industries, such as chemicals and plastics, pharmaceuticals, paper and paper products, forest-based industries, textile sector, biofuels and bioenergy. This sector shows considerable turnover of 600 billion EUR and 3.2 million employees in 2013 for EU-28.”

The complete report can be viewed here, or can be downloaded here.