Wood Waste Management in Europe through the Lens of the Circular Bioeconomy

Marcin Zbieć, Justyna Franc-Dąbrowska and Nina Drejerska
Additional contact information
Marcin Zbieć: Institute of Wood Science and Furniture, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, 02-787 Warsaw, Poland
Justyna Franc-Dąbrowska: Institute of Economics and Finance, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, 02-787 Warsaw, Poland
Nina Drejerska: Institute of Economics and Finance, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, 02-787 Warsaw, Poland

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 12, 1-9

Abstract: Over 30% of the world’s land area is covered by forests. Approximately 761 million m 3 of wood is harvested annually in Europe (2017). The aim of the paper is to assess the amount of wood (biomass) produced in Europe per year, as it determines the amount of carbon dioxide released from wood because of combustion for heating and energy purposes. The circular bioeconomy was applied as the theoretical framework for this study. The study employs official statistics on material flows and also uses a technology assessment, which allows for more precise estimations. It can be estimated that 110 million tons of harvested woody biomass are converted into energy every year. This constitutes nearly 69% of processed wood, with burned wood treated as zero-emission. From the analysis of the compiled results, it can be concluded that, in Europe, more than 50% of the mass of raw wood material harvested per year is used for energy in the first stage of processing by manufacturing industries. These processes produce products that become the raw material for further processing, as a result of which, further amounts of wood biomass are used for energy purposes.

Keywords: circular bioeconomy; wood waste; energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/12/4352/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/12/4352/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:12:p:4352-:d:838839

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().