Products

Forest management and wood products for a sustainable bioeconomy

In this task, CLIMB-FOREST team is working to better understand how wood products and forest management practices can contribute to a sustainable bioeconomy.

First, we are looking at current and future trends in wood-based products and to what extent they are more sustainable than their non-wood alternatives. We’ll be conducting a life cycle analysis taking account of factors such as carbon emissions and recyclability.

Consumer choice experiments, which present consumers with a series of wood products and characteristics and ask which they prefer, will help us better understand consumer demand for wood products and we will also test how these preferences change when consumers are presented with information on the environmental impact of different wood products.

We will also explore the role alternative forest management practices can play in contributing to a sustainable bioeconomy. We’ll work closely with forest managers and owners to assess the feasibility of adopting certain management practices and to what extent value the additional ecosystem services these practices provide. Finally, we’ll explore the potential of a scheme of payments for forest ecosystem services and report on our recommendations.