How to cite

Lasarte López, Jesús; Ronzon, T.; Tamošiūnas, Saulius; González Hermoso, Hugo; M'barek, Robert (2025): Socioeconomic indicators for the bioeconomy-relevant sectors. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC) [Dataset] PID: https://data.jrc.ec.europa.eu/dataset/8e14e57c-e5d6-4f0d-b710-295b07467579

Main methodological references

• Ronzon, T. et al. An output-based measurement of EU bioeconomy services: Marrying statistics with policy insight. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics. 2022, 60, 290-301.
• Ronzon, T.; M'Barek, R. Socioeconomic Indicators to Monitor the EU's Bioeconomy in Transition. Sustainability 2018, 10, 1745.

Related documents and data sources

• Lasarte-López, Jesús; González-Hermoso, Hugo; Tamosiunas, Saulius; Porc, Olaf; Poranki, Narendar; M'barek, Robert. Jobs and wealth in the EU bioeconomy. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC) [Dataset], 2025.
• Lasarte-López, J., M’barek, R. The EU bioeconomy at a glance: Focus on economic value added, employment and innovation. European Commission, Seville, 2025, JRC143759.
• Lasarte-López, J., González-Hermoso, H., M’barek, R. The Life Sciences sectors in the UE: drivers of economic growth and innovation. European Commission, Seville, 2025, JRC142396.
• Ronzon, T., Gurria, P., Carus, M., Cingiz, K., El-Meligi, A., Hark, N., Iost, S., M’Barek, R., Philippidis, G., van Leeuwen, M., & Wesseler, J. Assessing the bioeconomy’s contribution to evidence-based policy: A comparative analysis of value added measurements. Bio-Based and Applied Economics. 2024, 13(4), 317–331.
• Lasarte-Lopez, J., Mbarek, R., Ronzon, T., & Tamosiunas, S. (2023). EU Bioeconomy Monitoring System indicators update. Jobs and value added in the bioeconomy.
• Ronzon, T. et al. Developments of Economic Growth and Employment in Bioeconomy Sectors across the EU. Sustainability. 2020, 12 (11), 4507.
• Ronzon, T. et al. A systematic approach to understanding and quantifying the EU's bioeconomy. Bio-based and Applied Economics. 2017, 6(1), 1-17.

Criteria for delimiting bioeconomy-relevant sectors

The methodological framework proposed by Ronzon et al. (2017), Ronzon and M’barek (2018) and Ronzon et al. (2022) defines the bioeconomy-relevant sectors following an output-based approach, i.e., depending on the bio-based nature of the production of an economic activity. A review of different approaches to delimit and measure the sector scope of the bioeconomy-relevant activities is provided by Ronzon et al. (2024). The list of sectors is detailed in the List of sectors and bio-based shares section.

1. Biomass production and manufacturing (Ronzon and M’barek, 2018)
The biomass-producing and converting activities are defined using an output-based criterion. This includes sectors that only produce or process biomass (e.g. agriculture or food manufacturing), as well as those sectors whose production is only partially bio-based (e.g. chemicals or furniture manufacturing). The sectors covered are primary production (agriculture, forestry and fishing) as well as bio-based manufacturing activities (e.g. food manufacturing or bio-based chemicals) the production of bioenergy, waste treatment and remediation activities, or bio-based construction among others.

2. Bioeconomy-related services (Ronzon et al. (2022)

The criteria to define the list bioeconomy-related services is provided by Ronzon et al. (2022). This study also follows an output-based approach, meaning it evaluates whether a service counts as part of the bioeconomy based on the biological (bio-based) nature of its outputs, not on the biological content of its inputs. This aligns with the definition of the bioeconomy provided by the EU Bioeconomy Strategy—including services—even when they may not inherently use biomass as an input. This covers the activities under NACE divisions from G to T. In general, four main categories of bioeconomy-related services may be identified:

1. Services linked to tangible bio-based goods, such as distribution, trade, and food services;
2. Natural environment-related services, including rural tourism, recreation, and landscape management;
3. Knowledge-based services, covering research, technical consultancy, veterinary care, and education;
4. Bioeconomy support services, which promote or regulate bio-based markets through activities like market research, membership organizations, and public administration.

The methodology from Ronzon et al. (2022) provides interval estimates (min-max) for employment and value added in the bioeconomy-related services, due to the higher uncertainty in quantifying their contribution to the bioeconomy.

Variable definition

Three economic indicators have been estimated for the selected sectors in this document: Number of persons employed, Value Added (million Euro) and Turnover (million Euro).

Number of persons employed
The number of persons employed is defined as the total number of persons who work in the observation unit (inclusive of working proprietors, partners working regularly in the unit and unpaid family workers working regularly in the unit), as well as persons who work outside the unit who belong to it and are paid by it (e.g. sales representatives, delivery personnel, repair and maintenance teams). It includes persons absent for a short period (e.g. sick leave, paid leave or special leave), and also those on strike, but not those absent for an indefinite period. It also includes part-time workers who are regarded as such under the laws of the country concerned and who are on the pay-roll, as well as seasonal workers, apprentices and home workers on the pay-roll.

Value added (Million euros)
Value added refers to the value added at factor costs. It is the gross income from operating activities after adjusting for operating subsidies and indirect taxes. Value adjustments (such as depreciation) are not subtracted.

Turnover (Million euros)
Turnover comprises the totals invoiced by the observation unit during the reference period, and this corresponds to market sales of goods or services supplied to third parties.

Data sources

The data on value added, and employment is primarily retrieved from Structural Business Statistics (SBS) in Eurostat. Data up to 2020 is extracted from the following databases: sbs_na_ind_r2 for Industry, sbs_na_con_r2 for Construction, and sbs_na_1a_se_r2 for Services. For data from 2021 onwards, the sbs_ovw_dataset is used. Additionally, National Accounts databases from Eurostat (nama_10_a64 and nama_10_a64_e) are utilized for sectors not covered by SBS, such as primary production activities. To address missing data, the procedure outlined in Lasarte-López et al. (2023) is applied.

Calculating bio-based employment and value added

1. Biomass-producing and converting sectors

The figures for biomass-producing and converting sectors were prepared using the methodology proposed by Ronzon et al. (2017) and Ronzon and M’barek (2018). While values from fully bio-based sectors are reported as provided by Eurostat (imputing missing data if needed), the values for partially bio-based sectors are combined with sector-level bio-based shares to derive the contribution from bio-based activities to employment, value added and R&D investment.

The applied bio-based shares inform on the proportion of production by sector which is made of biomass. These shares are initially prepared at the product level through a survey of sector experts, who determine the bio-based content of each item from the PRODCOM product classification. These shares are applied to production values and aggregated by NACE sector and country to calculate the sector-level bio-based shares.

2. Bioeconomy-related services
In addition to delimiting the bioeconomy-related services, Ronzon et al. (2022) also provides criteria to derive bio-based shares for each service activity, as well as the manufacturing activities not covered in the main bioeconomy dataset due to lack of information. In general, if a category is fully bio-based by definition (e.g. food services or veterinary activities), the bio-based share is set at 100%. Otherwise, criteria or proxies are applied to approximate the bio-based share—for instance, the number of students in bioeconomy-related fields is used as a proxy for education, or the number of overnight stays in rural accommodation is used for tourism. Because of the higher uncertainty surrounding services, the proposed criteria often yield interval estimates rather than single point values. The resulting bio-based shares are then applied to Eurostat statistics on value added and employment, thereby isolating the portion of services attributable to the bioeconomy. Details on the applied shares by sector are provided in the List of sectors and bio-based shares section.

List of sectors

The Table below details the activities that are considered under each category, including also their associated codes from the Statistical classification of economic activities – NACE Rev. 2 (NACE hereinafter) codes.