A fossil-free EU
Forests are high on the EU’s agenda thanks to their importance for combating climate change, protecting biodiversity, and providing jobs, sustainable materials, and energy. Forestry and wood can assist in the green transition of the economy, to help us reach the goal of a resource-efficient, fossil-free Europe. The forest helps us with our climate challenges in two ways: by binding carbon, and through the substitution or displacement effect.
Forests and forest-based products help lower emissions
A substitution effect occurs when wood-based products replace products made from fossil raw materials. This means that fossil carbon is removed from the materials cycle and replaced with biogenic carbon. The total amount of carbon in circulation therefore stops increasing.
FAM tasked AFRY with determining exactly how large the substitution effect is at a European level. The results are available in the report “Substitution Potential and Climate Effects in EU’s Forest Value Chains“. The report concludes that the total annual substitution effect in the EU is 390 million tons of CO2e.
By 2050, the forestry sector has the potential to contribute to further reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 171 million tons in a median scenario. In total, forest-based raw materials can take us about a quarter of the way to net zero in 2050.
This is happening while the carbon stock in European forests continues to increase. Between 1990 and 2020 it rose by 48 per cent.[1]
The substitution effect plays a crucial role in reducing climate impact and is key to achieving the EU’s climate goals. Products made from forest resources have significantly lower climate impacts than fossil or non-renewable alternatives.
In addition to the substitution effect, forests also have other important climate benefits. The carbon sink, or the annual increase in carbon storage in European forests, is -406 million tons of CO2e/year, and in forest products, it is -41 million tons of CO2e/year – resulting in a total of -447 million tons of CO2e/year.[2]