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The Impact of Forest Industry Operations and Comparison of Greenhouse Carbon Emissions

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Forestry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2023) | Viewed by 9355

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Kalle Kärhä

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Stora Enso, Forest Division, Wood Supply Finland, P.O. Box 309, FI-00101 Helsinki, Finland
Interests: forest operations; logistics; industrial roundwood; energy wood; greenhouse gas emissions; carbon footprint; energy efficiency; sustainability; digitalization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Teijo Palander

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Science and Forestry, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland
Interests: wood procurement; bioeconomy; energy wood harvesting; forest industry logistics; wood supply chains; wood energy production control systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our time. Forest industry is in a crucial role to combat climate change and global warming with reduction targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Growing trees in sustainably managed forests absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, and the carbon is stored in renewable, fiber-based products even through recycling. Wooden products help customers and societies substantially to reduce CO2 emissions by providing low-carbon alternatives to solutions based on fossil fuels and other non-renewable materials. The European Commission has recently presented its strategy for a carbon neutral EU by 2050. The strategy relies on the circular economy, natural carbon sinks, and lifestyle changes and suggests GHG emission cuts from all sectors of the economy.

Globally, forest industry actively aims to further improve the energy efficiency of its operations, and to continue to increase the use of biomass fuels from residuals. In forest industries, CO2 emissions from the operations can divided into 1) direct emissions, including on-site electricity and heat production, 2) indirect emissions related to the electricity and heat purchased externally for use in the operations of forest industries, and 3) indirect emissions along the value chain of forest industries. It is estimated that a main part of the emissions in the carbon footprint of forest industries is generated elsewhere along the value chain. Therefore, it is extremely important that we actively introduce and utilize novel innovations, methods and processes which enhance the operations of the value chain of forest industries and further lower the carbon footprint of the operations by the forest industry in the near future.

This Special Issue is seeking for R&D papers which study and report the GHG emissions in some specific operations – for instance in wood harvesting operations, production of fuels, transportation and logistics of purchased raw materials and fuels, production of purchased materials and services, processing of products by the customers, and transportation and distribution of the products to the customers – or in the whole value chain by forest industry. In addition, we encourage you to submit state-of-the-art papers as well as technical review papers on GHG emissions, energy efficiency, environmental sustainability and life cycle assessment (LCA) in the value chain by forest industry to this Special Issue.

Dr. Kalle Kärhä
Prof. Dr. Teijo Palander
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
  • carbon dioxide (CO2)
  • energy efficiency
  • life cycle assessment (LCA)
  • environmental sustainability
  • forest industry
  • wood harvesting
  • transportation
  • value chain.

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 897 KiB  
Article
Efficiency Assessment of Fully Mechanized Harvesting System through the Use of Fleet Management System
by Narcis Mihail Bacescu, Alberto Cadei, Tadeusz Moskalik, Mateusz Wiśniewski, Bruce Talbot and Stefano Grigolato
Sustainability 2022, 14(24), 16751; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su142416751 - 14 Dec 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1639
Abstract
Nowadays the spread of precision forestry has led to the possibility of collecting data related to forest machines for an extended period and with enough precision to support decisions in the optimization of harvesting strategies in terms of technological and environmental efficiency. This [...] Read more.
Nowadays the spread of precision forestry has led to the possibility of collecting data related to forest machines for an extended period and with enough precision to support decisions in the optimization of harvesting strategies in terms of technological and environmental efficiency. This study aims to evaluate the effective benefit of automatic data collection through the fleet management system (FMS) of two forest harvesters and two forwarders in pine forests in Poland. The study also aims to determine how the use of FMS can help forest companies to manage their fleet and take advantage of long-term monitoring. Focusing on performance indicators of fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, as well as on the engine parameters from the Can Bus data, the exploration of data was performed following a Big Data approach, from the creation of an aggregate dataset, pre-elaboration (data cleaning, exploration, selection, etc.) using GIS and R software. The investigation has considered the machine productivity, in the case of the harvesters, and the specific fuel consumption of each machine studied, as well as the time used by each of them during the different working cycle activities and the total amount of timber processed. The main results indicate an average emission of 2.1 kg of CO2 eq/m3 for the harvesters and 2.56 kg of CO2 eq/m3 for the forwarders, which equates in total to 0.24% of the carbon stored in one cubic meter of wood. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Forest Industry Operations and Comparison of Greenhouse Carbon Emissions)
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14 pages, 759 KiB  
Article
Work Productivity, Costs and Environmental Impacts of Two Thinning Methods in Italian Beech High Forests
by Francesco Latterini, Rachele Venanzi, Walter Stefanoni, Giulio Sperandio, Alessandro Suardi, Vincenzo Civitarese and Rodolfo Picchio
Sustainability 2022, 14(18), 11414; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su141811414 - 12 Sep 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 998
Abstract
In the Mediterranean area, the most common management of beech forests relies on the shelterwood system. However, more effort has been put into developing alternative silvicultural treatments to enhance the forests’ capacity to provide the higher ecosystem services. The crop-tree management system seems [...] Read more.
In the Mediterranean area, the most common management of beech forests relies on the shelterwood system. However, more effort has been put into developing alternative silvicultural treatments to enhance the forests’ capacity to provide the higher ecosystem services. The crop-tree management system seems to perform well, particularly under the economic point of view. Moreover, it can provide higher quality timber from thinning interventions which are carried out before the end of the rotation period. However, very few articles have been found in the literature dealing with evaluation of the economic and environmental performance of the alternative thinning method based on crop-tree management (AT) in comparison to the traditional thinning from below typical of the shelterwood system (TT). Therefore, three study areas in Italy were selected to assess working productivity, costs and GHG emissions associated with the two methods. In the study areas with the application of mechanized extraction systems, AT showed higher work productivity and lower costs than TT, whereas GHG emissions reduction by AT was observed only in one of the three study areas. There was not significant improvement related to AT application when using animals for extraction operations. AT was more economically sustainable for thinning interventions in beech high forests, but the reduction of GHG emissions was not as effective as in TT. Crop-tree management proved to be a suitable option to be applied in beech forest stands, although further studies should focus on the overall rotation cycle and include the evaluation of impacts on productivity of a higher presence of saplings expected after crop-tree intervention. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Forest Industry Operations and Comparison of Greenhouse Carbon Emissions)
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11 pages, 1274 KiB  
Article
Review of the Integrated Development of Ecological and Cultural Forestry
by Luyu Huang and Yukun Cao
Sustainability 2022, 14(11), 6818; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14116818 - 02 Jun 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1551
Abstract
Ecological and cultural forestry need to be integrated for successful rural revitalization. A proper rural revitalization strategy should be linked to the value of the eco-cultural forestry industry. To adjust and optimize the structure of this industry, we need to develop the primary [...] Read more.
Ecological and cultural forestry need to be integrated for successful rural revitalization. A proper rural revitalization strategy should be linked to the value of the eco-cultural forestry industry. To adjust and optimize the structure of this industry, we need to develop the primary and tertiary industries and structurally optimize the secondary industry. The sustainable development of forestry requires us to promote the unity of the ecological, social, and economic benefits of forestry. By unifying ecological forestry and the cultural industry, we can capture consumer market trends, enhance industrial development policies, and increase the training of high-level talents to better deal with the danger of industrial hollowing out and resolve the embarrassment of the low end of the value chain. By integrating and promoting the two systems of ecological forestry and the cultural industry, we can converge their respective values and allow more nuanced value cognition when exploring the development paths of industry integration. In the period of overall transfer of forestry development strategy, it is of great significance to develop a forestry economy according to the evolution law of forestry industry, give full play to the advantages of forestry ecological culture resources, and vigorously develop forestry ecological culture industry under the background of rural revitalization strategy. Based on the integration of forestry industry, the aim of this study is to summarize the forestry ecological culture industry development mechanism, summarize the value of forestry ecological culture industry development strategy, put forward building a new era forestry ecological culture industry system, capture the consumer market trend, optimize industrial development policy, increase the high-level talent training industry integration development path, improve rural ecological advantages into ecological economic advantages, provide more and better green ecological products and services, promote the ecological and economic virtuous cycle, and realize the sustainable development of the forestry economy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Forest Industry Operations and Comparison of Greenhouse Carbon Emissions)
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18 pages, 1183 KiB  
Article
Greenhouse Gas Emissions of the Forest Supply Chain in Austria in the Year 2018
by Martin Kühmaier, Iris Kral and Christian Kanzian
Sustainability 2022, 14(2), 792; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14020792 - 11 Jan 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2173
Abstract
Wood is a renewable product, but for the supply of wood non-renewable materials are also necessary, which can have negative environmental impacts. The objective of this study was to analyze the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by the forest supply chain in Austria [...] Read more.
Wood is a renewable product, but for the supply of wood non-renewable materials are also necessary, which can have negative environmental impacts. The objective of this study was to analyze the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by the forest supply chain in Austria using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods. The forest supply chain consists of several processes like site preparation and tending, harvesting, and transport. In total, 30 relevant forest processes from seedling production until delivery of wood to the plant gate were considered. Results show that in the year 2018, a total of 492,096 t of CO2 eq. were emitted in Austria for harvesting and transportation of 19.2 hm3 of timber. This corresponds to 25.63 kg CO2 eq. per m3. At 77%, transport accounts for the largest share of emissions within the supply chain. Extraction causes 14% of emissions, felling and processing cause 5%, and chipping causes 4%. GHG emissions for felling, delimbing, and crosscutting are much lower when using a chainsaw compared to harvester. The high numbers for the transport can be explained by the high transportation distances. Especially for the transportation of wood, it is necessary to find more climate-friendly solutions from a technical and organizational point of view. The provision of wood is climate-friendly, and its use enables the substitution of fossil fuels or materials with higher negative effects on climate change such as aluminum, steel, or concrete. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Forest Industry Operations and Comparison of Greenhouse Carbon Emissions)
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18 pages, 1716 KiB  
Article
Design of Combined Auction Model for Emission Rights of International Forestry Carbon Sequestration and Other Pollutants Based on SMRA
by Hongpeng Guo, Zhihao Lv, Junyi Hua, Hongxu Yuan and Qingyu Yu
Sustainability 2021, 13(20), 11200; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su132011200 - 11 Oct 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1782
Abstract
In this paper, the combined transactions for emission rights of international carbon sequestration and other pollutants in forestry have been taken as the research object, and the Simultaneous Multiple Round Auction (SMRA) theory has been used to design a new model for the [...] Read more.
In this paper, the combined transactions for emission rights of international carbon sequestration and other pollutants in forestry have been taken as the research object, and the Simultaneous Multiple Round Auction (SMRA) theory has been used to design a new model for the current auction transactions. In this paper, the feasibility and application of the SMRA model of reach object are studied by the methods of simulation experiment, model analysis, and analogical analysis, and the promotion of this model is discussed. The results show that the new auction model designed in this paper fills in the blank of the combined auction of international forestry carbon sequestration and other pollutant emission rights. It successfully eliminates the winners’ curse and the losses of the sellers. Meanwhile, it provides a new way of resolving ecological deficits problems, achieving the ultimate goal of an overall reduction in carbon and pollution emission. Moreover, it’s beneficial in resolving the structural contradictions between ecological purification and pollutants discharge, hence maximizing the benefits for all the stakeholders. Finally, it is suggested that the SMRA should be adopted in the international trading of emission rights of international carbon sequestration and other pollutants to promote the emission reduction of greenhouse gases and pollutants. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Forest Industry Operations and Comparison of Greenhouse Carbon Emissions)
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