CARBON ACCOUNTING IN THE FOREST-BASED INDUSTRY – MAXIMISING THE MITIGATION POTENTIAL OF WOOD PRODUCTS IN SLOVENIA

Forest-based industries are responsible for about 3% of the world’s total CO 2 eq. emissions and represent one of the few readily available and effective ways of capturing atmosphere’s carbon dioxide.

Restructuring forest industries towards products which offer the benefit of long-term carbon storage in so-called harvested wood products (HWP) has an important and underexplored mitigation effect for global warming. In Slovenia, forests represent 58 % of the landcover and are highly important ecologically, socially and economically.

Despite the known carbon mitigation potential of wood and the high untapped harvesting capacity as well as the potential for a revival of wood industry, strategic documents do not address the importance of the forest industry as means of offsetting carbon emissions.

In order to maximize the potential carbon sink effect of Slovenian forest industry, it is crucial to understand the product/resource interconnections within the value chain and where the carbon is stored/released.

Making use and further upgrading candidates’ current skills in modelling and LCA, MAXIWOOD aims to analyse the CO 2 emitted and sequestered by the forest based industry in Slovenia through carbon sequestration, manufacturing, end-of-life treatment and substitution of other products.

This will in facilitate an identification of the opportunities for the Slovenian forest industry to improve its carbon footprint and increasecompetitiveness.

Existing national and international studies are largely based on 2013 IPCC guidelines for carbon accounting and are not sufficiently detailed to be translated into policy measures.

MAXIWOOD will build further on the existing methodologies in order provide results detailed enough to inform effective policy making.

The developed methodology will be applicable in other countries in Europe, increasing the competitiveness of the forest sector and mitigating global warming internationally.