ERA-NET Sumforest Conference Barcelona, 17-18 October 2017 Sustainability of the forest-based Bio-economy Bart MUYS Div. Forest, Nature & Landscape, KU Leuven EFIMED
The current empty world model affecting biosphere integrity Source: Costanza et al. (1997) 2
The full world model considering the whole social-ecological system Source: Costanza et al. (1997) 3
Circular Bioeconomy: more than bioeconomy or circular economy From EFI FSTP5, in press Biodiversity Renewable Natural Capital Ecosystem functions ECOSYSTEM Provisioning services Ecosystem services Regulating services Cultural services Biomass -climate regulation - flood control - water supply - disease regulation etc. -aesthetic - spiritual - educational - recreational - etc. Chemicals Materials Bioenergy Biofuels Food Feed Bioproducts for - Construction - Packaging - Textiles, etc. Market and non-market values - Prosperity and well-being SOCIETY Maintain Redistiribute Reuse Share Sustainable management for multiple ecosystem services
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 model Griggs et al. (2013) Nature 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 INPUT-RELATED IMPACT CATEGORIES Extraction of abiotic resources Extraction of biotic resources Land Use: - Increase of land competition - Degradation of ecosystem functions - Biodiversity loss OUTPUT-RELATED IMPACT CATEGORIES Climate Change Stratospheric ozone depletion Acidification Eutrophication Toxicology Positive Negative Depends Categories after De Haes et al. (1999) Int. J. LCA.
IDEA 2 Bioeconomy with its nature based solutions has much potential and should take up a leading position in sustainability transition
Environmental Assessment Tools DESIGN 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)
From pan-european Indicators of SFM to Sustainable Bioeconomy Indicators Wolfslehner et al. (2016) EFI FSTP4
Global meta-analysis of sustainability in bioenergy systems institutional social economic environmental technological Robledo et al. (2016) GCBBioenergy 12
SUSTAINABILITY ISSUES OF THE BIO-ECONOMY Existing standards: 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 In a EU context many social and economic issues are taken care of in a wider non-forest context Effective environmental safeguards needed
SUSTAINABILITY ASPECTS OF THE BIO-ECONOMY Climate mitigation and adaptation Sustained yield Water Biodiversity Integration/Synergies
SUSTAINABLE YIELD = maintenance of long-term site productivity Gobin et al. 2011 Soil Organic Matter management across the EU, DG ENV 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
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 3 Several SD evaluation tools exist with each its strengths & weaknesses. C&I and LCA are promising to guide the circular bioeconomy
IDEA 4 Sustainability 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 LULUCF regulation? Solid bioenergy regulation? To manage or not to manage: that s the question
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 CO 2 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
SPACE TIME TiSpa LCA: CONCEPT and SOFTWARE ACCOUNTING LCA Eliassen et al. 2011 CLASSIC LCA Impact For 1 m 3, all impact assumed today SOFTWARE Eliassen et al. 2011 TISPA LCA Real Time Impact of all emissions from stand or landscape, and their products over time TEMPORALIS: new LCA Software in Brightway2 (Cardellini, Mutel et al., subm.)
PRELIMINARY RESULTS FOR EUROPEAN FORESTS GWP of scenarios by region
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 CO 2 ): BaU sc. 47.97 Mt CO 2 (1.4%); Material sc. 94.91 Mt CO 2 (2.8 %); Energy sc. 14.76 Mt CO 2 (0.4 %); Engineered wood sc. 59.99 Mt CO 2 (1.8 %)
IDEA 5 The climate mitigation potential of forests is large but uncertain. The climate mitigation potential of wood products is smaller and requires large transition efforts.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION bart.muys@kuleuven.be