Future of the European forest-based sector: Structural changes towards bioeconomy

The forest-based sector is undergoing many profound structural changes. This study provides analysis and insights on changes in the operating environment and its implications to forest-based sector. The focus is on the outlook of the current forest products (pulp and paper, wood products), new forest products (already in production or on the horizon), bioenergy, forest services (mainly related to forest products), and regional implications in central, northern, and southern Europe.

The authors raise the need to rethink and reassess the outlook for European forest-based sector, as well as point out to some neglected issues, which should be taken into consideration for such a outlook. There are fundamental structural changes taking place in the global and European forest sectors, which have not received enough attention, but could affect significantly the way in which the forest products markets are developing. Also, the publication draws attention to the need to update methods used for forest sector outlook studies, especially pointing to the importance of using also systematic foresight analysis in these.

Citation

Lauri Hetemäki (ed). 2014. Future of the European forest-based sector: Structural changes towards bioeconomy. What Science Can Tell Us 6. European Forest Institute.

Number of pages: 110
ISBN 978-952-5980-17-2 (pdf)