Abstract

Abstract In forest management, the sustainability of a multitude of economic, ecological and socio-economic impacts and services is assessed. The role of forests in the global carbon (C) cycle is almost exclusively assessed through an ecosystem approach that relates emissions from timber harvesting and removals through biomass growth and C sequestration. While harvested wood leads to a reduction in the C-stock in forest C-pools, the use of wood for energy and production of wood-based materials results in significant emission reductions by substituting in place of greenhouse gas (GHG) intensive fuels and energy-intensive non-wood materials respectively. We present a new indicator approach for the assessment of sustainable forest management that includes the entire emissions and removals associated with the harvested wood along the wood product value chain and thus represents represents C-sustainability with respect to emissions and removals. The indicator is implemented in two variants. If information available on wood use and the carbon offsets associated with it is sufficient, the indicator can be derived by presenting emissions from wood harvesting and removals from wood use in the form of a carbon balance (C-balance indicator). If the balance is even or if removals predominate, forest management fulfills the requirement of C-sustainability. If the information is insufficient, the emissions from the wood harvest and possible wood processing losses are summed up, and the necessary displacement factor (DF) is calculated, which is necessary to compensate the corresponding emissions by carbon offsets of the wood use (DF-indicator). A comparison of the necessary displacement factor with common carbon offsets of typical wood uses allows an assessment of C-sustainability. The effectiveness of the C-indicator for assessing sustainable forest management is illustrated by two case studies. We found that in order to achieve carbon neutrality, substitution factors between 1.9 (lignite) and 2.5 (gas) are necessary, depending on the fossil fuel substituted. If no energetic substitution is assumed, the DF increases to a value of 3.3. In situations with high harvest losses, the necessary DFs well exceed values that can be achieved even under very positive assumptions; C-sustainability is therefore not met. Both approaches allow an assessment of C-sustainability beyond forest boundaries by giving appropriate weight to the importance of wood use in the carbon cycle. In addition to the implication of the indicator to evaluate SFM, we claim that this indicator is responsive to the emerging global forest related international processes and their reporting requirements such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) as well as nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NDCs, Low Emission Development Strategy).

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