Correspondence to: Bart Muys, KU Leuven, Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape, Celestijnenlaan 200E, box 2411,

BE-3001 Leuven, bart.muys@ees.kuleuven.be

Feature
2013 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 359
Sustainable wood mobilization
for EU renewable energy targets
Bart Muys Professor of Forest Ecology & Management, University of Leuven
Lauri Hetemki Head of Foresight & Policy Support Programme at the European Forest Institute (EFI);
Professor at the School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland
Marc Palahi Deputy Director at the European Forest Institute (EFI) 2013 Society of Chemical
Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
View online at Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.1421
Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 7:359360 (2013)
T
he National Renewable Energy Action Plans (NREAPs)
of EU member countries are heavily reliant on for-
est biomass. Tere is heated debate, however, over
whether binding sustainability criteria for energy use from
forest biomass are actually needed. Tis Feature highlights
the fndings of a recent TinkForest event in the European
Parliament which discussed the feasibility and sustainability
of forest biomass as a renewable energy source (RES).
Under current market and price trends, increasing mobi-
lization of wood from the European forest is not evident,
considering a decreasing trend in wood demand by the pulp
and paper sector, which has energy wood as an important
by-product. Increasing imports of energy wood can be
expected. A coherent policy on sustainable forest manage-
ment practice should require the same criteria for any wood
product, whether from import or domestic source.
Sustainability must focus on diferent issues. Sustained
yield is currently well ensured in the EU domestic forest
sector, considering the current large stocks and low har-
vesting rates, but some stress tests on the control tools in
each country would be useful. Sustainable forest site quality
proved to be an issue and, depending on site conditions,
residue harvesting needs limitations. Wood mobilization
needs to be accompanied by strictly implemented biodiver-
sity safeguards, while increased mobilization may also have
biodiversity, fre prevention, and climate change resilience
benefts. Carbon neutrality seems an absolute minimum
requirement for a subsidized fossil fuel alternative, but a
standardized science-based approach considering the com-
plex time-and-space issues related to the greenhouse gas
balance of the forest value chain is due. A strong recom-
mendation of the meeting was that EU renewable energy
policy should be essentially backed by energy ef ciency and
product cascading policies. Under these conditions, energy
from forest biomass can become a sustainable option.
More than a third of Europes binding RES target of
20% by 2020 will come from solid biomass for electric-
ity, heating, and cooling, according to the NREAPs
submitted by European member states to the European
Commission (EC). Tis implies a strong emphasis on for-
est biomass, which is not really surprising considering the
costly investments involved in solar and wind options,
and the large quantities of available biomass accumulated
in European forests since World War II. But is it feasible
and common sense to mobilize forest resources for this
purpose? According to Te Economist of 6 April 2013, this
policy is environmental lunacy.
A TinkForest event (www.thinkforest.ef.int) on 11
April 2013 in the European Parliament brought scientists
together with members of the European Parliament, EC
civil servants, forestry sector representatives, and environ-
mental NGOs to refect on the issue, and fnd an answer
to the following questions: (1) Can EU forests supply the
woody biomass needed to meet the NREAPs (the sus-
tained yield question); (2) What are the long-term efects
of intensive biomass extraction on forest productivity
(the sustainable yield question); and (3) Is there a need for
legally binding sustainability criteria and thresholds for
forest biomass for energy (the sustainability question)?
360 2013 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 7:359360 (2013); DOI: 10.1002/bbb
B Muys, L Hetemki, M Palahi Feature: Sustainable wood mobilization for EU renewable energy targets
unsolved methodological issue, where the outcome is very
dependent on the chosen reference system. Concerning the
time reference for example, many consider that increasing
the harvesting rate of European forest causes a carbon debt
to be paid back by later regrowth. But it is also possible that
anticipation of the increased future use of wood for bioen-
ergy leads to increased tree planting and forest manage-
ment, which would sequester carbon before being released
by later biomass energy utilization.
6
In addition to these, many attendants agreed that the
European renewable energy policy needs accompanying
measures to maximize cascading and ef ciency. Cascading
means that the forest-wood value chain is optimized in
added value, in greenhouse gas reduction, or in both. In a
cascading approach, logs from the forest would seldom be
directly used for bioenergy, but rather end up in long-lived
products or biorefneries for chemicals and materials, and
energy use would then form the end of life. Increasing ef -
ciency of energy production and consumption processes is
another major factor contributing to the sustainable use of
the woodfuel resource.
Energy from woody biomass is not a single entity, but
hides a large variety of sources and qualities, conversion
technologies, end products, and markets. As a consequence,
the technological and economic ef ciencies as well as the
carbon impacts will vary greatly. In summary, it seems that
if accompanied by a package of measures to promote cas-
cading and energy ef ciency and to ensure biodiversity safe-
guards and positive carbon balance, the energy use of solid
biomass from the forest sector is not lunacy but is likely to
make economic and environmental sense in many cases.
References
1. Forest Europe, State of Europes Forests 2011. Status and
trends in sustainable forest management in Europe. Ministerial
Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe, Oslo (2011).
2. UNECE-FAO, The European forest sector outlook study II
2010-2030. UNECE and FAO, Geneva (2011).
3. Hetemki L, Hnninen R and Moiseyev A, Markets and Market
Forces for Pulp and Paper Products. In: Hansen E, Vlosky
R and Panwar R (eds). Global Forest Products: Trends,
Management, and Sustainability. Taylor and Francis Publishers
USA, Boca Raton (in press).
4. Gobin A, Campling P, Janssen L, Desmet N, van Delden H,
Hurkens J et al., Soil organic matter management across the
EU best practices, constraints and trade-offs. Final Report
for the European Commissions DG Environment (2011).
5. Verstraeten G, Baeten L, Van den Broeck T, De Frenne P,
Demey A, Tack W et al., Temporal changes in forest plant
communities at different site types. Applied Vegetation
Science 16:237247 (2013).
6. Sedjo R, Carbon neutrality and bioenergy. A zero-sum game?
Resources for the Future Discussion Paper 11-15, Washington
DC, USA (2011).
For the sustained yield question the forestry sector devel-
oped sophisticated yield regulation and monitoring tools
including forest management plans, certifcation schemes,
and national inventories, but their operational strength and
implementation is quite unequal among regions and coun-
tries. Some stress test evaluating how they would function
in periods of increased mobilization seems useful. But cur-
rent increment rates of European forests are 50% above the
harvesting rates.
1
So the challenge today is rather how to
mobilize this forest biomass, which will essentially depend
on trends in prices and market opportunities. In this con-
text, the forest industry is going through major structural
changes with important implications for the demand of
woody biomass, as well as for the production of bioenergy.
2

For example, the production of paper grades for communi-
cation is likely to decline in the EU in the coming decades,
as it did already during the last decade.
3
Tis will cause the
pulpwood demand in the EU to decline, possibly aggra-
vated by increasing pulp imports from South America. But
the pulp industry is a signifcant producer of bioenergy as
a by-product, which causes new challenges for reaching the
EU RES targets with domestic wood. In general, the RES
target is triggering increasing woody biomass imports for
bioenergy purposes in the EU. It is clear that these imports
should meet the same sustainability standards as that
which comes from domestic sources.
Concerning the sustainable yield question, intensive
extraction of harvest residues and tree stumps can lead
to nutrient depletion in the long term, but this risk needs
site-specifc consideration.
4
As to the aspect of sustainability, the issues of main con-
cern are biodiversity conservation and carbon neutrality.
In general, the audience agreed that sustainable practice
is required, but that rules should apply to any forest use
and not specifcally to energy use. Biodiversity issues can
be partially addressed by imposing no go in high diversity
forests and deadwood quantity thresholds. But, on the
other hand, there are indications that European forests
can sufer biodiversity loss due to a lack of harvesting.
5
As
a consequence, increased wood mobilization might ofer
opportunities for biodiversity conservation, with additional
benefts in terms of fre prevention and climate change
resilience, especially in southern regions. Concerning the
carbon neutrality issue there was agreement that carbon
balances for subsidized energy use of forest biomass should
always be positive, when evaluated over suf ciently large
time-and-space windows, and including the land use and
the product phases of the life cycle. It was recognized that
calculating the carbon balance of forestry systems with a
long time lapse between carbon uptake and release is an