€2.1 Trillion Revenues and 18.3M Jobs: The European Bioeconomy, Demystified

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) 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 report for the Bio-based Industries Consortium just now released.

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 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.

“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.” READ MORE / MORE (8-Slide Guide) and MORE (nova-Institute) Download report