A new study commissioned by the Renewable Carbon Initiative (RCI) and the Biobased Industries Consortium (BIC) reveals that meeting 20% of the total global carbon demand of the chemicals and derived materials sector by 2050 from biomass is achievable and sustainable. This key finding highlights the potential for defossilising the industry, which currently relies on fossil resources for over 90% of its carbon needs.

The chemicals and derived materials industry is heavily dependent on carbon, with more than 90% of this embedded carbon today coming from fossil resources such as oil, natural gas, and coal, which are major contributors to climate change. To achieve climate neutrality by 2050, the embedded carbon in chemicals and materials must be defossilised and replaced with renewable alternatives from biogenic carbon, carbon from CO2, and recycling. Various reports estimate the share of biomass to be around 20%. However, there is scepticism about how much biomass is actually available in addition to food and feed needs.

RCI and BIC commissioned a study to address the core question: Can agricultural and woody biomass together provide enough biomass to sustainably meet 20% of the future carbon demand of the chemical and derived materials industries in 2050, up from 5.5% (EU27) and 10% (global) in 2023? The study was carried out by nova-Institute (DE) in collaboration with EuroCARE Agricultural Policy Research (DE) and the Thünen Institute of Forestry (TI-WF, DE).

To investigate this question in an objective, scientific manner, the study established a baseline of current biomass use and developed different future scenarios to model a range of possible developments. These scenarios consist of one Business-as-usual (BAU), two Green Low Resource Depletion (LRD) and three Green High Technology (HT) scenarios. Together with EuroCare and Ti-WF, the developments of biomass availability were then analysed for these scenarios, both for agriculture and for forestry.

The key result of the study: Yes – meeting 20% of total global carbon demand of the chemicals and derived materials sector in 2050 from biomass is achievable and sustainable. Under the moderate HT scenario, which is the most likely development, the 20% share can be delivered without compromising food and feed supplies and biofuel demand. Providing much more than 20% of carbon demand from biomass would be unreasonable under existing biofuel policies and only a moderately high-tech agricultural system; stronger high-tech scenarios could provide up to 40%.