Introduction

In Northern Europe, the use of wood biomass for bioenergy is a story of success. In Denmark, Finland and Sweden, bioenergy has become the most used renewable energy, and its use has increased exponentially in the last decades, surpassing in some cases the use of fossil fuels like oil or coal. This entails a large amount of wood biomass for annual consumption, surpassing 50 Mm3, in industrial settings which utilizes side streams of the wood processing industry, thinnings, and logging residues. At the same time, many other segments of the economy are increasingly looking to biomass as a sustainable supply for low-carbon construction materials, chemicals, and fibres, to replace fossils with renewable feedstocks to mitigate global climate changes.

However, in recent years forest bioenergy use has been the focus of criticism, concerning its overall sustainability and beneficial effects concerning climate. For example, it has been suggested that forest bioenergy cannot be  considered C neutral even at large time frames, and its use decreases soil C and nutrient stocks compromising future forest growth. In parallel, studies assessing the net emissions of the forest sector suggest that increased harvest intensity leads to higher net emissions, i.e., the avoided fossil emissions through substitution do not fully compensate for the loss of carbon in forest in the middle term, suggesting trade-offs between short- (substitution) and long-term (net sink of forests) climate effects, especially if the expanding bioeconomy leads to intensification  and to additional harvest volumes.

Trade-offs and synergies between biomass production from resource-efficient forestry and agriculture systems and environmental externalities need to be considered to achieve net-zero, or negative, greenhouse gas emissions. Sustainability requirements have been developed (e.g. RED – Directive (EU) 2018/2001) and implemented to ensure rational priorities for biomass supply and use. This puts pressure onto all parts of the biomass chain, e.g. for policy makers to “choose right” when promoting policies for certain biomass for energy systems or any other use in the broader bioeconomy; for biomass producers when choosing production systems and management options; for decision makers when deciding what is sustainable, e.g. relative to other bioenergy systems, other production systems, other energy systems etc. To sustainably support the repositioning of biomass supply for bioenergy within the broader bioeconomy, significant advances in methods, technologies and systems deployed for biomass production, supply and logistics are needed. The provision of available biomass will need to increase through improved production and mobilisation systems, greater and more efficient use of residue streams, better overall recovery of available biomass, resource efficiency in all sectors, and aligned to the coproduction of other essential Ecosystem Services (ES) to enable additional environmental, and thus societal, value  to the use of biomass within the bioeconomy.

Objectives

The general aim of the proposed project is to enhance the sustainable production of wood biomass, interlinking current research efforts started in partnering Nordic and Baltic countries. Three main goals are considered: i)  identify and assess the main environmental effects of the intensified use of biomass resources in the Nordic area,  ii) evaluate and propose alternatives that can align the co-production of biomass production to complementary ES  and iii) seek ways to fully implement and realize the resulting strategies and alternatives in existing biomass production practices and supply chains. These aims build on existing research and datasets among the partner institutions, and involve creation and sharing of experiences and knowledge, research results and existing data and  trials concerning biomass production systems along the Nordic area, as the basis of further developing current and future research efforts.

Financing

Total budget: 2 652 320 SEK, from which SNS funding: 828 641 SEK.