Structural patterns of the bio-economy

The concept of the bio-economy is gathering momentum in EU policy circles as a sustainable model of growth to reconcile the goals of continued wealth generation and employment with bio-based sustainable resource usage. Unfortunately, an economy-wide quantitative assessment covering the full diversity of this sector is, hitherto, constrained by relatively poor data availability for disaggregated bio-based activities. This research takes a first step in addressing this issue by employing social accounting matrices (SAMs) for each EU27 member encompassing a highly disaggregated treatment of traditional bio-based agricultural and food sectors, in addition to identifiable bio-economic activities from the national accounts data. Employing backward-linkage (BL), forward-linkage (FL) and employment multipliers, the aim is to profile and assess comparative structural patterns both across bio-economic sectors and EU Member States. The results indicate six clusters of EU member countries with homogeneous bio-economy structures. Within cluster statistical tests reveal a high tendency toward 'backward orientation' or demand driven wealth generation, whilst inter-cluster statistical comparisons across each bio-based sector show only a moderate degree of heterogeneous BL wealth generation and, with the exception of only two sectors, a uniformly homogeneous degree of FL wealth generation.