The role of forests in boosting innovation and the bioeconomy by Managing Director Johan Elvnert from Forest-based Sector Technology Platform at Value of Wood Forum, an event organised in Brussels on 21 March 2017 in the context of the Forest City Project 2017 campaign, on the International Day of Forests.

1. ©CTP
From toothpicks to paper electronics
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AMAZING FOREST-BASED INNOVATIONS
Discussion 2:Wood, innovation and the Bioeconomy
Johan Elvnert, Managing Director
The Forest-based Sector Technology Platform

2. FTP is the European hub for research and
innovation in the forest-based bioeconomy
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3. Forest innovations in everyday products
There’s an ingenious
process behind the
most unassuming
uses of wood!
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GerwinSturmCCBY-SA2.0
1. Wood log is mounted and debarked
2. Unravelling (like rolls of paper)
3. Punching (into individual sticks)
4. Drying and hardening
5. Polishing (final, smooth shape)
6. Sifter (removing damaged picks)
7. Packaging into boxes
1 birch 1.000.000 toothpicks

4. The Forest-City: Tradition meets Innovation
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✓ Low embodied energy
✓ low weight
✓ high thermal insulation
New wood-based
buildings and cities!
©EstonianTimber/Õigusedpiiratud
The best strategy to
immediately fulfil the Paris
COP21 Climate Agreement is to
build with wood!

5. Enabling the
Circular
Economy…
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• Electronic waste is
challenging to recycle
• This indirectly
motivated the Circular
Economy strategy
…or making
it obsolete?
• Paper electronics is half
a century behind the
development of silicon
• But paper electronics
could be made to be
biodegradable

6. Forests - a resource for human creativity
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A knowledge-based
society, sustained in
every way by growing
European forests
©SödraSkogsägarna/Sjöbo,Åsenhöga.

7. Vision Targets 2030
“…. Bearing in mind the full range of demand and
production constraints*, harvesting possibilities in
Europe have increased by 30% (until 2030), enabling
forest owners to manage their forests more efficiently
and sustainably.”
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#2
* In many regions specific forest growth is increasing and management is optimised for additional harvesting
possibilities. In other regions, especially in the Mediterranean area, where the impact of climate change is predicted to
be severe, creating resilient, stress-tolerant forest is particularly important. In some landscapes the main aim is nature
conservation and providing ecosystem services.

8. Vision Targets 2030
“Wood-based construction in Europe has tripled
its market share, from the 2010 level…”
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#8
This equals 1 years’ CO2-emissions
from 10.000 EU-citizens
>60% reduction of CO2 emissions
if the European Parliament had
been built with wood
Translation for policymakers

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Website: www.forestplatform.org
Twitter: @ForestETP
Email: johan.elvnert@forestplatform.org
The hub for research & innovation
in the EU forest-based bioeconomy