INCREASING SUSTAINABILITY AND RESILIENCE OF EUROPEAN FORESTS AND RELATED VALUE CHAINS  – CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS IN TIMES OF CLIMATE CHANGE

A policy brief based on the results from ForestValue projects

Executive Summary

ForestValue – Innovating forest-based bioeconomy (ForestValue) is a public-public partnership under the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme established to promote increased innovation and competitiveness of the forest-based sector in Europe and to support its transformation from a resource-intensive to a knowledge-based, productive, resource-efficient and resilient sector.

In the policy brief, we draw from a set of insights and lessons learnt that are based on recent ForestValue projects around innovative sustainable management of multifunctional forests and innovative industrial production and processing technologies, products, concepts and services. The main solutions offered from the projects range from (among others) forest management and logistics solutions to wood construction material innovations and guidelines, and more. All this aims to contribute to ongoing challenges in Europe around maintaining and increasing sustainability and resilience of European forests and related value chains in times of climate change.

The contributors represent a multidisciplinary set of scholars, researchers and practitioners involved in either implementing forest-based solutions, researching forest policy and governance, or finding technological solutions to support the forestry and forest-based industries in remaining competitive and efficient providers of sustainable bio-products and services.

One of the main challenges identified in this policy brief is that of intensifying collaboration between different stakeholders at both EU and national level in order to achieve the ambitious goals of the Green Deal and decarbonize the European economy. Our policy brief addresses this issue, providing dedicated recommendations across multiple policy levels (regional funders to pan-EU regulations) that highlight the need for

  1. better understanding of the challenges that are facing forest owners and operators, particularly the marginalized or smaller owners, and provide insights on how they can be supported,
  2. understanding of the latest technologies, methodologies, processes that should be encouraged for implementation or viewed positively for funding, and
  3. understanding the actual impacts of climate change to European forests and how this affects the wood economy.

The policy brief is elaborated within the context of the Horizon Results Booster, funded under Horizon 2020, and the recommendations are based upon the results of the 12 projects participating in the HRB services (NOBEL, MultiForest, ValoFor, I-Maestro, MULTIFOREVER, FIRENWOOD, CLICKdesign, ReadiStrength, InFutUReWood, DynaTTB, InnoCrossLam, AVATAR).