The new EU forest strategy passed this week by the European Parliament has been welcomed by European woodworking industries. The new forest strategy – A new EU Forest Strategy for 2030 – Sustainable Forest Management in Europe – is clear in its recognition of the ability of wood products to both store carbon and substitute for more carbon intensive materials, according to the European Confederation of Woodworking Industries (CEI-Bois & EOS). Source: Timberbiz
However, the Confederation of the European Paper Industries said the European Parliament’s “well intentioned” vote on deforestation could hinder the action of the forest workers responsible for managing European and global forests sustainably.
“Forests cannot be treated as a uniform and unalterable object that has to fit a certain standard,” the confederation’s director general Jori Ringman said.
“Across the many climates and nature types of Europe and globally, this simply cannot work.
The paper industry is a pioneer in sustainable sourcing and actively opposes deforestation, but we have to use the tools which we know are working,” he said.
CEI-Bois & EOS particularly welcomed the recognition that “wood is the only significant natural renewable resource that has the potential to replace some very energy-intensive materials, such as cement and plastics, and will be in greater demand in the future”.
“It is very good to see that the EU Parliament has recognised the central role that the European wood working industries can play in helping deliver the Green Deal, in particular wood’s notable ability to both store carbon in the built environment and to substitute for other construction materials that have a very high carbon footprint,” Sampsa Auvinen, chair of CEI-Bois said.
Like the Parliament, the European woodworking industries are keen for wood to be used as efficiently as possible given its value and importance in helping to deliver the Green Deal and the EU’s 2050 carbon neutrality objective.
The organisation said that the new strategy was right to acknowledge there are concerns around a reliable and sustainable wood supply, a situation exacerbated by Russia’s war on Ukraine, hence – like the Parliament – the woodworking industries believe that locally and sustainably produced wood will be needed to meet this demand.
As co-creator and co-funder of the Forest-based Sector Technology Platform, the European wood working industries join the EU Parliament in “inviting the Commission to develop comprehensive forest-focused programmes involving different functions and parts of the forest-sector value chain and including living labs to test and demonstrate solutions to key challenges, building on existing and proven platforms such as the Forest-based Sector Technology Platform”.
“Members States should now create the right conditions to boost the entire sustainable forest bioeconomy and fully recognise the positive EU climate-change mitigation effects of increased carbon storage in harvested wood products and material substitution from increased wood construction,” Herbert Joebstl, President of EOS, said.
