Forest bioeconomy - a new scope for sustainability indicators

European forests and the forest-based sector play a central role in a bioeconomy: they provide material (wood and non-wood), bioenergy and a wealth of other regulating and cultural ecosystem services. These demands need to be properly balanced, and many targets have to be tackled simultaneously.

In a situation with many possibilities, synergies, trade-offs and uncertainties, indicators can help to avoid unwanted impacts, and support successful and sustainable bioeconomy development. They can be used to inform policy makers, synthesize complex matters and act as tools for decision support. At present, however, there is a fragmented landscape of bioeconomy-related data and monitoring instruments.

The forest-based sector has the opportunity to take the lead in the sustainable development of the bioeconomy. It has powerful tools in place that can be adapted and further developed for application in the bioeconomy as a whole. These tools have to be state-of-the art and continuously developed: here the forest sector can be a forerunner and role model, shaping the bioeconomy debate and its monitoring and assessment.

This study provides insights into the potential use of forest-based sector indicator sets in Europe. It builds on the rich experience gained with sectoral indicator tools, and connects to aspects of policy research, operational research and sustainability science. It develops three different options or scenarios for how bioeconomy indicators can be designed in the future.

Citation

Wolfslehner, B., Linser, S., Pülzl, H.,  Bastrup-Birk, A., Camia, A. and  Marchetti, M. (2016). Forest bioeconomy – a new scope for sustainability indicators. From Science to Policy 4. European Forest Institute. https://doi.org/10.36333/fs04

Number of pages: 32

ISBN 978-952-5980-30-1 (online)