Publication

Welcome to the IUFRO conference: The social and ecological value added of small-scale forestry to the Bio-Economy

Bioeconomy "encompasses the production of renewable biological resources and their conversion into food, feed, bio-based products and bioenergy" (EC, 2012). It includes forestry and wood production, with the related biotechnological, chemical and energy industries, but also the provision of other ecosystem services that can support sustainable economic growth. "Bio-refineries are increasingly at the core of the Bio-Economy vision at the EU level and worldwide" (World Bio-Economy Summit, 2015). Large private and public investments actors are mainly focused on capital intensive investments based on low cost biomass in vertically integrated value chains, where the perspective of the social or ecological value added often lacks behind. As counterpart to this mainstream economic trend, we intend to focus our interests towards small-scale labour-intensive activities in the bio-economy context, including the non-wood products and cultural services, as they seem to have a minor role in the discussions of scientists and decision makers.

In the IUFRO Conference we thus want to put our focus on interpreting and promoting the impact of forest bio-economy on the development of quality product markets and nature-based services and the concepts behind them: social innovation, product diversification, multifunctionality and the value added network of vertically and horizontally integrated economic stakeholders. The extension of the economic paradigm towards social and ecological value added, leads us to the need for considering the associated trade-offs or opportunity costs. But the challenges of climate and socio-demographic changes, coupled with complex and dynamically changing political and socio-economic situations underpin the relevancy to transform our business thinking. Porter and Kramer's (2011) shared value approach may support this mental shift.

This book of abstracts presents research proposals, project results and conceptual approaches that demonstrate how to support such enlarged interpretation and the development of forest Bio-Economy, inclusive the various facets of social, ecological and economic added values and their trade-offs, generated by multifunctional managed forests and the downstream industries purchasing, processing and selling timber and NWFPs.

The conference is organised in cooperation with the IUFRO Unit 4.05 "Managerial Economics and Accounting" and the IUFRO Task Force: unlocking the bioeconomy and non-timber forest products, with the involvement of Subunits 4.05.02 "Managerial Economics", 4.05.04 "Forest-based Value Chains" and 4.05.05 "Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship"

Christian Hoffmann and Davide Pettenella

Conference title: The Social and Ecological Value Added of Small-Scale Forestry to the Bio-Economy
Conference date: 6-9 October 2020
Conference place: planned for Bolzano, Italy, but held virtually
Research Unit(s): 4.05.00, 4.05.01, 4.05.02, 4.05.03, 4.05.04, 4.05.05, Task Force on Unlocking the Bioeconomy and Non-Timber Forest Products
Language: English
Publication year: 2020
Page(s): 58