Abstract
The European forestry sector is a potential driver of transformation towards a sustainable bioeconomy. Forest products are increasingly used in high-tech and high-value-added industries, e.g., chemicals and the automotive industry. So far, however, research on the European bioeconomy has largely focused on agriculture as a provider of food, feed, fuel, and fiber to bio-based industries. Here we assess the potential impacts of a stronger reliance on forestry sector inputs to the European Union (EU28) bioeconomy on output, prices, final demand, and land use. Specifically, we run a sensitivity analysis of a 1% increase of input use of forest products in the EU28 economy in a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) framework accounting for land use by Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZ) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at high regional and sectoral resolution. We find that such a shift to a more forest-based bioeconomy would provoke small indirect land use effects globally due to existing international trade linkages and land market effects. Simulated increases in planted forest cover are associated with net GHG emission savings, but our scenario analysis also points to higher imports of forest products from countries with vulnerable tropical forest biomes, such as Brazil and Indonesia.
Highlights
Responding to global concerns about climate change and natural resource depletion driven by population and economic growth, many countries are designing policy strategies to shift from a fossil-based to a more bio-based economy [1,2,3]
Simulation results suggest that a 1% increase in intermediate inputs from the forestry sector to
Similar to the results from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Standard plus GTAP-Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZ) model, we find that a 1% increase in the intermediate demand for forest inputs lets managed forests expand in all regions, but especially in Europe
Summary
Responding to global concerns about climate change and natural resource depletion driven by population and economic growth, many countries are designing policy strategies to shift from a fossil-based to a more bio-based economy [1,2,3]. Forests 2019, 10, 52 various agricultural, environmental, energy and Research and Development (R&D) policy frameworks. These include the Life Sciences and Biotechnology Strategy [7], which aims to promote the role of life science and biotechnology in building a knowledge-based economy in Europe, the Thematic Strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste [8], which encourages the re-use of waste for better resource efficiency, and the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) [9], which sets a minimum 20% target of the EU’s final energy consumption stemming from renewable resources by 2020. The concept of bioeconomy has entered the EU policy discussions since the middle of 2000s, leading to the “EU Bioeconomy Strategy”
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