Biomass use and its implications for bioeconomy development: A resource efficiency perspective for the European countries

Increasing population and economic growth in Europe and the world are leading to growing demand for food, livestock feed, and energy, and consequently to growing negative impacts on the environment and climate change. Tensions and price fluctuations in international material supply chains have recently become an even greater challenge. As for biomass, its availability is limited due to land, water, human, and financial resources as well as the environmental boundaries. Therefore, efficiency of biomass use is becoming increasingly important; it is crucial to develop and apply integrated assessment frameworks for tracking progress in resource use efficiency that would allow comparing the efficiency of biomass and non-biomass use. This paper embarks on the analysis of biomass and non-biomass resource use in selected European countries over 2010-2019. The index decom-position analysis model is set up to decompose the changes in biomass consumption with respect to intensive and extensive drivers. Resource use efficiency is then assessed via the non-parametric frontier, taking into account the other inputs (labour and capital). The results suggest that biomass efficiency is higher than that of non -biomass materials. The efficiency scores suggest that further decoupling of domestic material consumption and economic growth is needed.

Automated summary

Increasing population and economic growth have resulted in higher demand for food, livestock feed, and energy, leading to negative impacts on the environment and climate change. Tensions and price fluctuations in international material supply chains are posing challenges. Limited availability of biomass requires increasing efficiency in its use and comparing it with non-biomass resources. This study analyzes the use of biomass and non-biomass resources in selected European countries, finding higher efficiency in biomass use and the need for decoupling material consumption and economic growth.