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Sustainability of the
forest-based Bio-economy
Bart MUYSDiv. Forest, Nature & Landscape, KU Leuven
EFIMED
ERA-NET Sumforest Conference
Barcelona, 17-18 October 2017
2
The current “empty world” model
affecting biosphere integrity
Source: Costanza et al. (1997)
3
The “full world” model considering the
whole social-ecological system
Source: Costanza et al. (1997)
ECOSYSTEM
RenewableNatural Capital
BiodiversityEcosystemfunctions
Market and non-market
values-
Prosperity andwell-being
SOCIETY
Sustainable management for multiple ecosystem services
Provisioningservices
Ecosystemservices
Regulatingservices
Culturalservices
Circular Bioeconomy: more than bioeconomy or circular economy
Biomass
ChemicalsMaterials
BioenergyBiofuels
FoodFeed
Bioproducts for- Construction
- Packaging- Textiles, etc.
MaintainRedistiribute
ReuseShare
-climate regulation- flood control- water supply
- disease regulation etc.
-aesthetic- spiritual
- educational- recreational
- etc.
From EFI FSTP5, in press
IDEA 1
Forest-based bio-economy has
intrinsic sustainability assets, as
it contributes to a full-world
economic model, including
natural capital and ecosystem
services
The ecocrisis
Trespassing
the safe
operating
space for
humanity for
key factors of
planetary
stability
Steffen et al. (2015) Science
From PILLAR to NESTED modelG
riggs e
t al. (2
013) N
atu
re
• Economy is at the service of societal well-being, and societies can prosper
within the possibilities and limits offered by the natural environment.
• Things have to be ecologically sound to be economically viable (Piketty)
• Increasingly influential, as feasible alternative for the pillar model, which is
failing to keep society within planetary boundaries (Rockström et al. 2009
Nature; Steffen et al. 2015 Science)
Large potential of circular bioeconomy to
serve sustainability transition
Categories after De Haes et al. (1999) Int. J. LCA.
INPUT-RELATED IMPACT
CATEGORIES
OUTPUT-RELATED IMPACT
CATEGORIES
Extraction of abiotic resources Climate Change
Extraction of biotic resources Stratospheric ozone depletion
Land Use:
- Increase of land competition
- Degradation of ecosystem
functions
- Biodiversity loss
Acidification
Eutrophication
Toxicology
NegativePositive Depends
IDEA 2
Bioeconomy with its nature based
solutions has much potential and
should take up a leading position in
sustainability transition
Environmental Assessment Tools
The best fits between information demand on sustainable timber and
methods to answer (Baelemans & Muys, 1998)
POL MAN INV CON NGO
C&I -0,20 0,42 -0.66 0,36 -0,02
LCA 0.18 -0.36 0,66 -0,14 -0.20
DSS -0,56 0,62 -0.43 0,17 0,01
sEIA 0,36 -0,07 -0.11 -0.30 0,65
CBA 0.10 -0.56 0,34 0,26 -0.49
POL sEIA (not significant)
MAN DSS (significant)
IND LCA (significant)
CON C&I (not significant)
NGO sEIA (significant)
DESIGN
From
pan-European
Indicators
of SFM to
Sustainable
Bioeconomy
Indicators
Wolfslehner et al. (2016)
EFI FSTP4
12
Global meta-analysis of sustainability in
bioenergy systems
Robledo et al. (2016) GCBBioenergy
institutional
social
environ-
mental
economic
techno-
logical
SUSTAINABILITY ISSUES OF THE BIO-ECONOMY
In a EU context many social and economic issues are
taken care of in a wider non-forest context
Effective environmental safeguards needed
Forest
Europe
FSC EU liquid
biofuels
Forest biomass
(Fritsche et al. 2013)
Environmental dimension Biodiversity
Global Carbon
Cycles
Health & Vitality
High conservation
value forests
Biodiversity
Environmental impact
Resources
Landscapes
Primary forest
Protected areas
High diversity
grasslands
GHG emission
savings
Biodiversity
Soils, Water, Hydrology
GHG reduction
Social dimension Protective
function
Socio-economic
function
Law compliance
Tenure & Use rights
Indigenous peoples
rights
Workers rights
Community relations
Land use rights
Labour conventions
Legal timber
Economic dimension Production
function
Long term benefits Effect on food prices
Institutional dimension Management plan
Monitoring
Existing standards:
SUSTAINABILITY ASPECTS OF THE BIO-ECONOMY
• Climate mitigation and adaptation
• Sustained yield
• Water
• Biodiversity
• Integration/Synergies
SUSTAINABLE YIELD = maintenance of long-term
site productivity
It is good practice to minimize extraction of nutrients and to
compensate losses where needed
Overall limitation and site specific prohibition on stump and
harvesting residues extraction
Gobin et al. 2011 Soil Organic
Matter management across
the EU, DG ENV
SUSTAINED YIELD
Transition to biobased economy will lead to scarcer
and more valuable biomass
From a historical perspective biobased economies are
a threat to forest growing stocks
Sustained yields in and outside Europe will be at stake
and yield regulation will become a policy and
management challenge.
21st century biobased economy must demonstrate the
effectiveness of its sustained yield control tools
We propose a stress test on the existing control tools
in every European country
Beyond carbon:
forests for global ecosystem services
• Trees, forests and water: Cool insights for a hot world (Ellison et al. 2017, Global Environmental Change)
• Joint efforts between conventions
IDEA 3Several SD evaluation tools exist
with each its strengths &
weaknesses.
C&I and LCA are promising to
guide the circular bioeconomy
IDEA 4Sustainability evaluation needs
consideration of the
whole chain from cradle to cradle,
includes both services as impacts,
and all aspects of sustainability
Beware of LCA studies involving
“purchased science”
Climate mitigation options
Nabuurs et al., 2016, EFI FSTP2
Forests play key role in mitigation targets
• PARIS AGREEMENT: ¼ of anticipated global emission
reductions by 2030 (INDCs) in LULUCF(Grassi et al., 2017, Nature CC)
• LULUCF crucial to stay within 1.5°C
Rockström et al. 2017 “A roadmap for rapid decarbonization”, Science
Climate mitigation in the forest sector
To manage or not to manage: that’s the question
LULUCF regulation? Solid bioenergy regulation?
The breakthrough: TiSpa LCA
UNFCCC accounting LCA Classic TiSpa LCA (Cardellini
et al., subm.)
Background IPCC reporting guidelines Product impact evaluation Research
Functional unit Unit of land Unit of product or service Any
Fluxes included Simplified, often upstream
and downstream fluxes
omitted
Including all fluxes; high
level of detail
All fluxes
Output ACCOUNTING - Budget of
CO2 per year and per
country
IMPACT - GWP (radiative
forcing, including all GHG
but with static atmospheric
lifetime)
IMPACT - Any
characterization
Time Dynamic (starting in
reference year, e.g. 1990)
Static (time integrated) Dynamic
Reference Dynamic baseline scenario Functional unit of product Multiple references (any
counterfactual)
Space Not spatially explicit, done
for a forest stand, a country
No, done for an average
product
Spatially explicit
TiSpa LCA: CONCEPT and SOFTWARE
Eliassen et al. 2011
TIM
ES
PA
CE
SOFTWARE
TEMPORALIS:
new LCA Software in
Brightway2
(Cardellini, Mutel et
al., subm.)
Eliassen et al. 2011
ACCOUNTING LCA
CLASSIC LCA
Impact For 1 m3, all
impact assumed
today
TISPA LCA
Real Time
Impact of all
emissions from
stand or
landscape, and
their products
over time
GWP of scenarios by region
PRELIMINARY RESULTS FOR
EUROPEAN FORESTS
Carbon storage in wood
• EU-POOL: 9t C for every ha
of productive forest
(Germany 22tC/ha, doubled
over the last 20 years) (Brunet
Navarro 2017, PhD KU Leuven, CASTLE Marie
Curie Training Network)
• CURRENT EU-SINK: about
10% of forest carbon sink
• SHORT TERM: maintaining
sink only at the expense of
forest C (Pili et al. 2015, Carbon Balance &
Management)
• LONG TERM: maintaining
sink by generalising CLT in
construction and cascading
Tollefson, 2017 “The wooden skyscrapers that could help to cool
the planet” Nature
Cascading
Move away from eternal recycling loops to realistic cascading scenarios.
Substitution• Move away from hybrid calculation between carbon accounting and GWP
calculation
• Use improved, dynamic displacement factors
• Do not consider all wood supply as substitution, but consider effective
substitution by marginal approach
PhD works Pau Brunet and Giuseppe Cardellini
Cascading and substitution
• Mitigation effect of EU wood sector: effects of carbon stock change
(dashed lines) and overall mitigation effect with substitution (full lines) for
different scenarios (Brunet Navarro, 2017, PhD KU Leuven, CASTLE Marie Curie Training Network)
• Effect in 2030 compared to EU target for 2030 (2,272 Mt CO2):
BaU sc. 47.97 Mt CO2 (1.4%); Material sc. 94.91 Mt CO2 (2.8 %); Energy sc. 14.76 Mt CO2 (0.4 %);
Engineered wood sc. 59.99 Mt CO2 (1.8 %)
IDEA 5The climate mitigation potential of
forests is large but uncertain. The
climate mitigation potential of
wood products is smaller and
requires large transition efforts.
