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Bioeconomy is portrayed by the EU and several national governments as a central element contributing to sustainability strategies and a post-fossil transformation. This paper critically engages with extractivist patterns and tendencies in the forest sector as one of the main bio-based sectors. It argues that despite the official endorsement of circularity and renewability in the forest-based bioeconomy, current developments of modern bioeconomy might threaten sustainability prospects. The Finnish forest-based bioeconomy and one of its well-known showcase projects, the bioproduct mill (BPM) in the municipality of Äänekoski, serve as a case study in this paper. The forest-based bioeconomy in Finland is scrutinized as a potential continuation or consolidation of extractivist patterns, rather than an alternative to these tendencies. The lens of extractivism is applied to identify possible extractivist and unsustainable characteristics of the case study which are discussed along the following dimensions: (A) degree of export orientation and processing, (B) the scale, scope, and speed of extraction, (C) socio-economic and environmental impacts, and (D) subjective relations to nature. The extractivist lens provides analytical value to scrutinizing practices, principles, and dynamics of the contested political field and vision of bioeconomy in the Finnish forest sector. The analysis results in a discussion of latent and manifest social, political, and ecological contradictions within the forest-based bioeconomy in Finland. Based on its analytical lens and the empirical case of the BPM in Äänekoski, it can be concluded that extractivist patterns and tendencies are perpetuated within the Finnish forest-based bioeconomy., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe author declares that she has no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© The Author(s) 2023.)

In evaluating effectiveness for collaborative environmental governance arrangements, a key concern is describing not just the processes and actors that are a part of these systems, but also the impacts that these processes have on ecological and social conditions. Existing research delineates an emphasis on process variables over outcome variables, as well as the difficulties of demonstrating causal relationships between collaborative governance processes and ecological outcomes. In this paper, we examined how process and outcome criteria are used by sponsors, industry practitioners, and participants of collaborative environmental governance (CEG) arrangements in Canada's forest sector to ascertain effectiveness. We explicitly sought evidence from sponsors and industry practitioners of self-described effective forest advisory committees, anticipating that sponsors or practitioners might place greater emphasis than participants on outcome criteria over process criteria. We analyzed data from a nation-wide survey of forest advisory committee participants, conducted interviews with sponsoring agencies, and completed two in-depth case studies. We found that sponsors and industry practitioners, like participants, perceived a strong relationship between process and effectiveness. The perspectives of all participants helped us articulate ten key process criteria that they determined as essential for CEG. By including the insights of sponsoring agencies, our study provides both on-the-ground and management interpretations of process and outcomes as well as a nuanced approach to understanding the relationship between the two. However, we conclude that systematic evaluation approaches involving outcome-based criteria are still necessary and would provide a clear step towards encouraging accountability in CEG decision-making, both for sponsors and members.

Background: The potential contributions from forest-based greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation actions need to be quantified to develop pathways towards net negative emissions. Here we present results from a comparative analysis that examined mitigation options for British Columbia's forest sector. Mitigation scenarios were evaluated using a systems perspective that takes into account the changes in emissions and removals in forest ecosystems, in harvested wood product (HWP) carbon stocks, and in other sectors where wood products substitute for emission-intensive materials and fossil fuels. All mitigation activities were assessed relative to a forward-looking 'business as usual' baseline for three implementation levels. In addition to quantifying net GHG emission reductions, we assessed economic, and socio-economic impacts as well as other environmental indicators relating to forest species, age class, deadwood availability and future timber supply. We further considered risks of reversal for land-based scenarios, by assessing impacts of increasing future wildfires on stands that were not harvested., Results: Our spatially explicit analyses of forest sector mitigation options demonstrated a cost-effective portfolio of regionally differentiated scenarios that directed more of the harvested wood to longer-lived wood products, stopped burning of harvest residues and instead produced bioenergy to displace fossil fuel burning, and reduced harvest levels in regions with low disturbance rates. Domestically, net GHG emissions were reduced by an average of -9 MtCO 2 e year -1 over 2020-2050 for a portfolio of mitigation activities at a default implementation level, with about 85% of the GHG emission reductions achieved below a cost of $50/tCO 2 e. Normalizing the net GHG reduction by changes in harvested wood levels permitted comparisons of the scenarios with different ambition levels, and showed that a 1 MtCO 2 increase in cumulative harvested stemwood results in a 1 MtCO 2 e reduction in cumulative emissions, relative to the baseline, for the Higher Recovery scenario in 2070., Conclusions: The analyses conducted in this study contribute to the global understanding of forest sector mitigation options by providing an integrated framework to synthesize the methods, assumptions, datasets and models needed to quantify mitigation activities using a systems approach. An understanding of economically feasible and socio-economically attractive mitigation scenarios along with trade offs for environmental indicators relating to species composition and age, helps decision makers with long-term planning for land sector contributions to GHG emission reduction efforts, and provides valuable information for stakeholder consultations.

Carbon stored in harvested wood products (HWPs) can affect national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories, in which the production and end use of HWPs play a key role. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides guidance on HWP carbon accounting, which is sensitive to future developments of socioeconomic factors including population, income, and trade. We estimated the carbon stored within HWPs from 1961 to 2065 for 180 countries following IPCC carbon-accounting guidelines, consistent with Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAOSTAT) historical data and plausible futures outlined by the shared socioeconomic pathways. We found that the global HWP pool was a net annual sink of 335 Mt of CO 2 equivalent (CO 2 e)⋅y -1 in 2015, offsetting substantial amounts of industrial processes within some countries, and as much as 441 Mt of CO 2 e⋅y -1 by 2030 under certain socioeconomic developments. Furthermore, there is a considerable sequestration gap (71 Mt of CO 2 e⋅y -1 of unaccounted carbon storage in 2015 and 120 Mt of CO 2 e⋅y -1 by 2065) under current IPCC Good Practice Guidance , as traded feedstock is ineligible for national GHG inventories. However, even under favorable socioeconomic conditions, and when accounting for the sequestration gap, carbon stored annually in HWPs is <1% of global emissions. Furthermore, economic shocks can turn the HWP pool into a carbon source either long-term-e.g., the collapse of the USSR-or short-term-e.g., the US economic recession of 2008/09. In conclusion, carbon stored within end-use HWPs varies widely across countries and depends on evolving market forces., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Background: We determine the potential of forests and the forest sector to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by changes in management practices and wood use for two regions within Canada's managed forest from 2018 to 2050. Our modeling frameworks include the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector, a framework for harvested wood products that estimates emissions based on product half-life decay times, and an account of marginal emission substitution benefits from the changes in use of wood products and bioenergy. Using a spatially explicit forest inventory with 16 ha pixels, we examine mitigation scenarios relating to forest management and wood use: increased harvesting efficiency; residue management for bioenergy; reduced harvest; reduced slashburning, and more longer-lived wood products. The primary reason for the spatially explicit approach at this coarse resolution was to estimate transportation distances associated with delivering harvest residues for heat and/or electricity production for local communities., Results: Results demonstrated large differences among alternative scenarios, and from alternative assumptions about substitution benefits for fossil fuel-based energy and products which changed scenario rankings. Combining forest management activities with a wood-use scenario that generated more longer-lived products had the highest mitigation potential., Conclusions: The use of harvest residues to meet local energy demands in place of burning fossil fuels was found to be an effective scenario to reduce GHG emissions, along with scenarios that increased the utilization level for harvest, and increased the longevity of wood products. Substitution benefits from avoiding fossil fuels or emissions-intensive products were dependent on local circumstances for energy demand and fuel mix, and the assumed wood use for products. As projected future demand for biomass use in national GHG mitigation strategies could exceed sustainable biomass supply, analyses such as this can help identify biomass sources that achieve the greatest mitigation benefits.

Managing forests to increase carbon sequestration or reduce carbon emissions and using wood products and bioenergy to store carbon and substitute for other emission-intensive products and fossil fuel energy have been considered effective ways to tackle climate change in many countries and regions. The objective of this study is to examine the climate change mitigation potential of the forest sector by developing and assessing potential mitigation strategies and portfolios with various goals in British Columbia (BC), Canada. From a systems perspective, mitigation potentials of five individual strategies and their combinations were examined with regionally differentiated implementations of changes. We also calculated cost curves for the strategies and explored socio-economic impacts using an input-output model. Our results showed a wide range of mitigation potentials and that both the magnitude and the timing of mitigation varied across strategies. The greatest mitigation potential was achieved by improving the harvest utilization, shifting the commodity mix to longer-lived wood products, and using harvest residues for bioenergy. The highest cumulative mitigation of 421 MtCO 2 e for BC was estimated when employing the strategy portfolio that maximized domestic mitigation during 2017-2050, and this would contribute 35% of BC's greenhouse gas emission reduction target by 2050 at less than $100/tCO 2 e and provide additional socio-economic benefits. This case study demonstrated the application of an integrated systems approach that tracks carbon stock changes and emissions in forest ecosystems, harvested wood products (HWPs), and the avoidance of emissions through the use of HWPs and is therefore applicable to other countries and regions.