Bioeconomy and resilience to economic shocks: insights from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020

From Firenze University Press Journal: Bio-based and Applied Economics (BAE)

Jesús Lasarte-López, European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC)

Nicola Grassano, Department of Economics, Universidad Loyola Andalucía

Robert M’barek, European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC)

Tévécia Ronzon, European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC)

The bioeconomy is composed by all those economic activities that depend on the use of biological resources. This definition includes not only all biomass-producing and processing sectors, but also related services (European Commission, 2018). The launch of the EU’s Bioeconomy Strategy in 2012, along with its update in 2018 positioned the bioeconomy as both a key enabler and a result of transitioning to a green and fair economy in the EU. As a result, synergies have been identified with the overarching European Green Deal strategy, which aims to address climate and environ-mental challenges. Specifically, the Bioeconomy Strategy can help evaluate and address trade-offs between policy objectives and competing resource uses, promoting both environmental sustainability and socioeconomic gains and resilience (European Commission, 2022).The significance of the bioeconomy in enhanc-ing resilience to external economic shocks has gained considerable attention in both academic and policy debates, particularly in light of recent major events. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic strained global supply chains under stress, due to shifts in demand and labour shortages (OECD, 2020; Ozdemir et al., 2022; Galanakis et al., 2022). More recently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine led to price increases in basic resources like food and energy products (Ramanauske et al., 2022). In this context, the strategic importance of the bioeconomy has become evident in its potential to create shorter and more circular bio-based value chains, thus reducing dependence on imported basic resources (Farcas et al., 2020; Galanakis et al. 2022; European Commission, 2022). An additional step in this direction is the Coun-cil of the European Union’s Conclusions on the oppor-tunities of the bioeconomy, approved on April 25, 2023. These conclusions emphasize the potential of the bioeconomy to address challenges such as climate change, fossil fuel dependency and food security, as well as contributing to increased resilience.Despite its recognized strategic importance, the literature examining the role and economic performance of the bioeconomy under the aforementioned events is still scarce and inconclusive. Some studies provided qualitative insights into the economic impact of these events on the bioeconomy (see Fritsche et al., 2021; Galanakis et al., 2022; Kulisic et al, 2021 or Woźniak & Tyczewska, 2021). An ex-ante quantitative assessment was also provided by González-Martínez et al. (2020). How-ever, to the extent of our knowledge, an ex-post analysis on the impact of these events on the bioeconomy is still missing in the academic literature. In June 2023, the EU-Bioeconomy Monitoring System (EU-BMS, hereinafter) was updated with data on employment and value added in the bioeconomy sector for 2020. This fact opens the possibility of analysing the performance of the bioeconomy during the pandemic. Therefore, this article aims to fill the gap in the literature by using the latest release of the EU-BMS to answer the following research questions:

— What was the impact of the pandemic on the bioeconomy in the EU and its Member States?

– Did the bioeconomy sectors exhibit greater resilience compared to the overall economy and other sectors?

– Are there any drivers or common sectoral patterns explaining the performance of the bioeconomy across countries in 2020?

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/bae-14827

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