Bioeconomy could add US$ 284 billion per year to industrial revenue by 2050

At the current exchange rate for the dollar, above R$5, this is close to R$1.5 trillion, equivalent to 15.1% of Brazil’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) recorded last year. In practice, the survey points out that, if the country does its “homework”, the industry will be able to earn more than R$ 40 trillion over the next 27 years with the bioeconomy alone.

“This study evaluated a scenario where you had biomass as a primary energy source, considering that Brazil is a major producer of biomass. And then we created another scenario with the use of technologies to generate products with high added value. So , this is not a forecast, but a scenario analysis. If Brazil does its homework, it has the perspective of generating all this development”, explains Thiago Falda, executive president of the Brazilian Association of Industrial Biotechnology (ABBI) .

Coordinated by professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and PhD in energy policy, Roberto Schaffer, the study involved Embrapa, the National Laboratory of Biorenewables of the National Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM), the Center for Economics Energy and Environmental (Cenergia) and the Senai Innovation Institute.

According to the survey, the country’s preparation requires the adoption of measures to reduce the emission of gases that potentiate the greenhouse effect, the consolidation of the role of biomass in the electrical and energy matrix and the intensification of biorenewable technologies.

Jorge Nogueira, professor of economics with an emphasis on the environment and natural resources at the University of Brasília (UnB), says that there are a series of elements in nature that, with the intensive use of research, science and technology allied to a well-balanced production chain, organized, can generate products of high value in the market. “The Amazon has immense biodiversity. Does it have bioeconomy potential, to take products from nature and transform them into useful products for human beings? It does. What does it need? Point one: research, research and research”.

For the additional billing to actually occur, according to the survey, investments of around US$ 45 billion would be necessary until 2050, something around R$ 236 billion.

“It will only be real values ​​if we invest today. We only have wealth in the future if we invest in the present. This requires training and qualification of human resources, good laboratories, good salaries, a greater number of researchers, that this be a priority. And that does not It costs zero. You come with a potential of US$ 250 billion, but to reach that, today, over the next ten years, we need to invest from US$ 20 billion to US$ 25 billion”, points out the expert.

Opportunity

According to the National Confederation of Industry (CNI), Brazil has the greatest biodiversity in the world, with about a fifth of all known species. Such potential gives the country the opportunity to lead the world in the bioeconomy agenda, explains Thiago Falda.

“No industry has been developed in Brazil. The world is undergoing an industrial revolution and Brazil is on an equal footing. It is not often that a developing country has the opportunity to participate on an equal footing in an industrial revolution.”

According to ABBI, “the bioeconomy encompasses the entire value chain that is guided by advanced scientific knowledge and the search for technological innovations in the application of biological and renewable resources in industrial processes to generate circular economic activity and collective social and environmental benefit”.

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