Providing Sustainable Solutions - The North European Forestry Nordic-Baltic research organisations' network PROFOR workshop 10th of December 2019, Brussels

1. Photo: Bruce Talbot
The Role of
Forests in a
Circular
Bioeconomy

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Credit: Vostok ice core data/J.R. Petit et al.; NOAA Mauna Loa CO2 record

4. www.fao.org
Forests, the most important biological infrastructure

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Source: Gert-Jan Nabuurs, Philippe Delacote, David Ellison, Marc Hanewinkel,
Marcus Lindner, Martin Nesbit, Markku Ollikainen and Annalisa Savaresi 2015. A
new role for forests and the forest sector in the EU post-2020 climate targets.

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Illustration of circular bieoconomy flows. Source: EFI

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Examples of growing bioeconomy products
12.12.2019 712.12.2019 712.12.2019SSoSource: EFI 7
Polymer
s
Increasing demand
in textile markets to
replace e.g. cotton
and synthetic fibres
Increasing demand
in many consumer
and industry sectors
Increasing
demand in
building
sector
Forest biomass
Textiles
Bioplastics
Wood
construction

8. WOOD CONSTRUCTION
• For each ton of wood products
used instead concrete, there
could be an emission reduction of
2 tons of CO2.
• When assuming 100% market
share of all buildings in Europe
with 50% share of wood of
building mass, this implies a 3.5%
reduction of total EU CO2
emissions.
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Source: EFI

9. (SELECTED) TAKE HOME MESSAGES
– Circular bioeconomy has the potential to integrate natural capital in an
economic model to decouple economic growth from environmental
degradation.
– There is a need to design policies to support all dimension of sustainability
– Provide enabeling environment and the right regulatory framework (i.e.
carbon tax, ETS, public procurement…)
– Develop common standards and regulations.
– Make use of the opportunities that forests provide.
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10. www.nibio.no
www.efi.int