In 2018, bioeconomy in Italy has shown a production potential amounting to 345 billion euro, equal to approximately 10% of the total value of national production, employing approximately 2 million people. Italy is in third position at EU level. Germany is first with a production worth €414 billion and France second with €359 billion. Spain is fourth (€237 billion) followed by the UK (€223 billion). In these five countries, the bioeconomy is worth €1.568 trillion.
The Intesa Sanpaolo Research Department (Intesa Sanpaolo is one of the major banking group in Europe) presented last week – in a online workshop organized by the bank together with the Italian Cluster of Green Chemistry SPRING and Assobiotec, the Italian Association for the development of biotechnology – the Sixth Edition of the Report on Bioeconomy in Europe (Download the Executive Summary), which, in line with the definition of the European Commission, was defined as the set of activities using renewable natural resources to produce goods and energy, generating great advantages in terms of sustainability.
In Italy, bioeconomy has significant prospects of growth in the next few years, thanks to the presence of a core team of players in the downstream supply chain of bioindustry. On the basis of existing technologies, the chemical productions that can potentially be converted into bio-based ones are just under 40%, in Italy.
Developing an economy that grows while respecting the environment and reducing dependence on non-renewable resources, such as fossil fuels, is regarded as a priority for Europe in the frame of the Green New Deal. It is, therefore, important to understand the economic potential of bioeconomy, that is the set of activities that produce and use natural raw materials from agriculture, to food industry, to timber and paper industry, to a part of the chemical industry.
IL BIOECONOMISTA 