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Circular economy and bioeconomy – concepts and implications for
the forest sector
Vancouver, 6 November 2018
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Prof. Pekka Leskinen
Head of Bioeconomy Programme
European Forest Institute
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Presentation outline
1. Concepts
2. Global problems and potential solutions
3. Three examples
4. Role of circularity in bioeconomy
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Green, Bio, or Circular?
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ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS
ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS THEORIES
CONCEPTS
APPROACHES
ASSESSMENT TOOLS
INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY &CIRCULAR ECONOMY
CLEANER PRODUCTION
INDUSTRIAL SYMBIOSIS
RESOURCEEFFICIENCY
WASTE HIERARCHYAPPROACH
ECODESIGN
RECYCLINGREUSEREPAIRRECOVERY
GREEN INFRASTR.
…
…
…
BIOMIMICRY
BIO-TECHNOLOGY
Environmental benefits
• Improvement in economic growth, productivity and
competitiveness• Accelerated innovation, through
correction of market failures in knowledge
• Reduction of env. induced health problems and risks
•Increased resilience to natural disasters, commodity price
volatility economic crises
•Job creation and poverty reduction• Improved regional
equality
•Improved access to environmental services & amenities
Economic benefitsSocial
benefits
RENEWABLE RESOURCE
PRODUCT RENTING, SHARING, POLLING
PAY Per SERVICE UNIT
PSSNATURE BASED
SOLUTIONS
• Climate change mitigation• Improvement of resource efficiency•
Reduction in fossil fuel dependency•Reduction of air and water
emissions• Reduction in loss of biodiversity
BIO-ECONOMY
“Generic framework showing the different layers of the green
economy concept” (E. Loiseau et al. Journal of Cleaner Production
139 (2016) 361-371).
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Decoupling (UNEP’s International Resource Panel)
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Emission pathway consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5
degrees by 2100 (Rockström et al. 2017):
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Forests, our most important biological infrastructure
• Covering 43% of EU land
• Key for biodiversity, water and soil
• Climate change mitigation effect equivalent to 13% of
CO2emissions
• Main source of non-food, non-feed renewable biological
resources
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Climate Smart Forestry (CSF)
• Use triple S impacts – sink, substitution and storage.
• Country differences: tailoring policies and incentives at the
regional level – one sizedoes not fit all.
• Finding synergies between climate and other benefits (e.g.,
bioeconomy,biodiversity, recreation).
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What CSF could contribute
• Current annual mitigation effect from EU forests via
contributions to the forest sink, material substitution and energy
substitution is estimated to be 569 Mt CO2/yr(i.e. 13% of total EU
emissions).
• According to Nabuurs et al., it would be possible to achieve
an additional mitigation impact through CSF of 442 Mt CO2/yr by
2050.
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Substitution and circular economy
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The emissions of a product depend on all life cycle stages:
• Production: emissions during the production stage of
wood-based products and functionally equivalent non-wood
products.
• Use: emissions during the use and maintenance stages of wood
and non-wood products.
• Cascading: effects of recovery of materials from end-of-life
products.
• End-of-life: impacts of end-of-life management of wood and
non-wood products.
All life cycle stages can be important and should be taken into
account!
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3 examples of transformational potential of forest
bioeconomy
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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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Wood-based fibres for a sustainable textile industry
• Global production of textile fibres: • 93 Mt (2016)• 250 Mt
(2050)
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• Carbon footprint from wood-based textile fibres can be
significantly lower than synthetic ones
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• Global production of plastics: 311 Mt• Resulting in 390 Mt CO2
and 8 Mt of
plastics to the ocean every year
• By 2050, demand for plastics 400% higher: • 20% of oil
consumption
• 15% of CO2 emissions
• More plastic than fish in oceans
The plastics economy: an inconvenient truth?
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Our view of Circular Bioeconomy: How does it look?
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Circular bioeconomy is not an end itself,but a necessary tool to
achieve the global targets
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Role of circularity in bioeconomy: Case textiles (Lauri
Hetemäki)
➢ Bioeconomy alone is not enough, but the recycling and
circularity has to be built already at the design states of new
products and businesses
➢ Textile industry is a big sector, in which recycling is in a
bad shape, or it does not even exist
➢ Circular bioeconomy requires that those businesses, like
forest industry, which areentering the sector, have to start to
establish recycling institution, together with customers and policy
makers (c.f. paper recycling)
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Policy objective: seek to maximize synergies and minimize
trade-offs between bioproducts and other ecosystem services
Source: Hetemäki, L., Hanewinkel, M., Muys, B., Ollikainen, M.,
Palahí, M. and Trasobares, A. 2017. Leading the way to a European
circular bioeconomy strategy. From Science to Policy 5. European
Forest Institute.
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Units of ecosystem service
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Frontier in 2015 Frontier
in 2030
This requires max. synergiesand min. trade-offs!
Units of bioproduct
e.g. biodiversity or carbon sink
e.g. wood products or bioenergy
trade-offs
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Substitution
• Climate substitution impacts of wood-based products compared
to alternative materials?
• Textiles, plastics, wood construction, …
• Update of e.g. Sathre & O’Connor (2010) review.
• Displacement Factors (DF) into policy context:
• Trade-offs/synergies with other tools in mitigation?
• ThinkForest event 4 December (Brussels).
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Thank you!For more information:
Pekka Leskinen
Yliopistokatu 6, 80100 Joensuu, Finland
+358 50 337 2562
[email protected]
