Monitoring the Sustainability of the EU Biomass Supply:

The article presents a novel approach combining a physical accounting model with a material flow–life cycle assessment approach to trace the locations of origin of the wood and the associated sustainability impacts. Applying this approach to EU trade data from 2018, we found that: Around 113 million cubic meters wood fibre equivalents of finished paper products were consumed in the EU-27 in 2018.
Around one-third of wood contained in these products was imported, the main wood origins were Brazil, the USA and Uruguay.
Employment, value added generation and global warming potential connected to the EU consumption of paper products was evaluated in one of the main suppliers, Uruguay, underlining trade-offs and benefits among and that impacts are not confined to national boundaries.  
This article thus takes the first step toward a bioeconomy monitoring system that covers import commodities and their sustainability impacts in the countries of primary production.

• Pozo Inofuentes PS, Bösch M, Schweinle J (2024) Monitoring the sustainability of the EU biomass supply: A novel hybrid approach combining tracing and selected sustainability impacts. Land 13(9):1366, DOI:10.3390/land13091366
• Project:
  Bioeconomy Monitoring II