OptiForValue

Forestry is a potential pathway to strengthening European competitiveness, reducing dependence on non-renewable, unsustainable resources, enhancing the circular bioeconomy, and understanding the bioeconomy’s ecological boundaries. Europe’s forests and their value chains, however, face diverse challenges, including increasing global wood demand, biodiversity loss, and increasing biotic and abiotic threats to forest health and economic revenue caused by climate change. OptiForValue’s ultimate goal is to foster transition to more sustainable and resilient forest-based value chains, by using a unique, interconnected modelling framework involving strong participative engagement and novel scientific approaches, including early warning indicators of biotic and abiotic risks, adaptive forest management strategies, remote sensing and artificial intelligence for agile forest operations, and integrated value-chain optimisation and life cycle assessments. The expected outcomes include increased value addition, competitiveness, sustainability, and resilience of European forest-based value chains, particularly in regions already or forecast to be impacted by climate change over the coming decades. OptiForValue will accelerate this transition by enhancing the sustainability, resilience, and profitability of regional value chains in Central European, Mediterranean and boreal, via case studies in Austria, Spain, Sweden, Finland. Significant long-term impacts are expected to be achieved, including a 10% reduction in wood damage, with a subsequent increase in wood harvesting (€240 M annually), 3% value addition from better quality control (€350 M annually), 5% increase in the forestry workforce in areas affected by climate change, and 5–10% reduction in fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The consortium’s research institutes, universities and companies are well equipped to advance the state of the art, validate solutions through case studies, and upscale results.