Measuring the employment generation possibilities in the value chain of biogas in the Southern Region of Brazil

MARÍA PRISCILA RAMOS; CARLOS A. ROMERO; GUSTAVO FERRO

Buenos Aires

Workshop; Workshop sobre Energías Sostenibles en el Escenario Post Covid 19: Impacto Ambiental y Socioeconómico.; 2023

This study measures the potential incremental production and employment in the biogas value chain in the threeSouthern states of Brazil (Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul). Biogas is generated from substratesprevenient from cattle, agroindustry (slaughterhouses, flour, and sugar mills mainly), urban solid waste, andsewerage treatment. We offer two contributions: first, a hybrid input-output methodology to cope with the problemof disparate or inexistent information, both on monetary and physical units; second, we provide quantitative resultsof output and job creation. Our method calibrates input-output matrices of the three states, with compatibilizedsector entries, opening new ones for those non included in official statistics (secondary data) from primary specificdata from surveys. Once the baseline is established, three scenarios are considered: demand-pull which achieves fullcapacity utilization, supply push which addresses new investments in the sector assuming guaranteed demand, anduse of the whole potential of substrate generated for biogas production. For the three states our estimates of GrossValue of Production are US dollars 85 million, Value Added reaches US dollars 14 million, direct employment is 3,494workers, and indirect and induced employment is 7,261 jobs in the baseline. In the demand-pull scenario, all jobcreation is 8,840 workers, while in the case of duplication of current capacity (assuming its full utilization) jobs createdare 33,255. On the other hand, in the highly hypothetical case of full use of all substrates currently generated toproduce biogas, the job creation reaches 283,637 workers. Employment multipliers are in line with literaturereporting from other parts of the world in comparative activities.