Key Details
UNCTAD’s October 2026 Global Trade Update examines both the scale of biodiversity-based trade and the conditions that determine who benefits from it. Its figures cover products of biological origin, not exclusively products certified as sustainable.
Global exports: Nearly $3.8 trillion in 2024, or 17.3% of merchandise trade, across about 1,800 biodiversity-based products.
Export shares: Developing countries accounted for about 35% of the total; Europe accounted for 49%, Asia 24%, Latin America and the Caribbean 11%, and Africa 3%. These are regional figures, not India estimates.
Market barriers: Selected natural alternatives to plastics, including jute, cotton, hemp and paper products, face average import tariffs of up to 16.1%, sometimes comparable to or higher than those on plastic products.
Cost of standards: In analyses cited by UNCTAD, producers alone bore implementation costs for 51 of 87sustainability standards examined and certification costs for 45 of 89.
Sustainable trade activity: Companies and producer associations applying UNCTAD’s BioTrade Principles and Criteria reported $50.5 billion in sales in 2024. This includes domestic sales, so it is not directly comparable with the global export figure.
Biological Resources Do Not Guarantee Higher Export Earnings
Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean hold roughly two-thirds of global biodiversity, yet accounted for 14% of biodiversity-based exports combined in 2024. UNCTAD’s point is not simply that these regions should export more raw materials. Greater development value can come from processing, product development and retaining more activity locally, provided production remains sustainable and benefits are shared fairly with resource-providing communities.
Gum arabic illustrates the issue. Africa is a major producer, while much of its processing and downstream value addition occurs elsewhere. UNCTAD reports that African exports to high-income economies averaged $2.28 per kilogram in 2024, against $6.50 per kilogram for imports from those markets. The difference highlights where value may be captured along the chain; it is not, by itself, a measure of processing profit.
Trade Rules Can Make Sustainable Products Harder to Sell
Moving beyond raw-material supply requires equipment, finance and access to markets. Tariffs can put some natural substitutes for plastics at a disadvantage. Exporters may also have to meet testing, plant-health, traceability and certification requirements. These can serve legitimate environmental and consumer-protection purposes, but their cost weighs more heavily on small producers—especially when buyers and other firms in the supply chain do not share it.
UNCTAD also sees opportunities in using biological residues rather than expanding the land needed for production. A Kenya pilot turned discarded pineapple leaves into textile-grade fibre and compost. Such projects need assessment of their full environmental effects: replacing a material or reusing a residue is not automatically a biodiversity gain.
Biodiversity Goals Now Have a Trade Dimension
Countries will review progress under the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework at the October 2026 UN Biodiversity Conference. UNCTAD argues that trade policy can support its goals through sustainable production, legal access to biological resources and fair benefit-sharing, alongside better market access. The aim is to earn more from biodiversity without increasing pressure on it.
What Is BioTrade?
BioTrade is UNCTAD’s approach to collecting, producing, processing and selling biodiversity-derived goods and services under environmental, social and economic sustainability criteria. It is a sustainability-oriented part of the much broader biodiversity-based market — not another name for all trade in biological products.
Policy Relevance
The update does not measure India’s share of biodiversity-based exports or assess whether Indian producers capture more value from them. Its mechanisms are nevertheless relevant to Indian sectors using jute, coir, other natural fibres and biological residues.
For trade and industry policy, the opportunity lies in making processing and product development viable alongside raw-material supply. For smaller firms and producers, affordable testing, certification and finance affect whether they can enter higher-value markets. Biodiversity policy supplies the necessary boundary: commercial gains depend on sustainable use and fair treatment of the communities providing biological resources. Those considerations need to be assessed together, rather than treating export growth alone as success.
Follow the Full Report Here: UNCTAD, Global Trade Update (October 2026): Can Developing Countries Unlock the Potential of Biodiversity?