Beating Europe’s forests to a pulp

The scale of biomass-burning at the EU’s pulp and paper mills – Joint Report by Biofuelwatch and Environmental Paper Network

Click here to download the report as a pdf

Mondi SCP pulp mill in Ružomberok in Solvakia, Photo: Mineralysk, Wikimedia Commons

Summary

This investigation aims to quantify the scale of primary woody biomass burning for energy generation associated with the pulp industry in the European Union (EU). It includes case studies on the EU’s top five pulp producers, and assesses the impacts of the extraction of wood from forests and plantations for energy use.

The report’s main findings include:

• Pulp-producing companies are the dominant force in biomass electricity generation in four of the five top pulp-producing countries in the EU. They are responsible for over a fifth of the primary woody biomass burned for energy in those countries.
• On average, for every tonne of pulp produced in the EU’s top pulp-producing countries, one cubic metre (m³) of primary  woody biomass is burned for energy generation. On an EU-wide level, pulp-producing companies could therefore be responsible for up to 45 million cubic metres of wood being burned. This is equivalent to 16% of all the primary woody biomass burned for energy in the EU in 2021.
• Rather than being a sustainable, low-carbon and efficient use of biomass, increasing biomass energy capacity at pulp mills throughout the EU results in more and more wood being extracted from forests and plantations, which increases carbon emissions and impacts soil health and other aspects of forest ecosystems. The increasing use of primary woody biomass and woody by-products that have different industrial uses than  energy generation increases pressure for further logging.
• Pulp companies are also diversifying into other areas of the bioeconomy and making investments in refining woody  biomass to produce fuels such as wood pellets and aviation biofuels, which is another factor that increases the overall demand for wood for energy generation.

In terms of the impacts of primary woody biomass sourcing in the EU’s top five pulp producers, this report highlights how:

• In Sweden, the “green” colonial forestry model that underpins the use of primary woody biomass for energy generation is resulting in the decimation of the country’s remaining highly-biodiverse primary forests and directly threatening the livelihoods of Indigenous Sámi reindeer herders and the communities that they are part of.
• In Finland, primary woody biomass is the country’s fastest- growing source of biomass energy. The excessive logging linked to the increase in biomass burning in heat and power plants has resulted in Finland’s land sector becoming a source of emissions rather than a sink.
• In Portugal, biomass electricity subsidies have decoupled power generation at pulp mills from by-product waste streams, whereby more  than two-thirds of the woody biomass burned for energy by the sector is now sourced  directly from forestry operations. In turn, this adds to political pressure to expand harmful eucalyptus plantations.
• In Germany, as well as pulp companies  increasingly diversifying into biomass  electricity, the gradual phase-out of coal burning has precipitated a shift towards burning wood at several pulp mills, which is of no benefit in terms of emissions and is diverting wood away from other more climate-friendly uses.
• In Spain, the pulp industry and power stations associated indirectly with it account for over  two-thirds of Spain’s overall biomass electricity generating capacity, requiring over a third of all of the woody biomass used for energy generation each year. Plans for new biomass power stations linked to pulp producers could see a 70% increase in primary woody biomass demand in coming years.

This report makes three main recommendations for
EU policy-makers:

• State subsidies and support mechanisms are the driving force behind new biomass energy developments associated with pulp mills or pulp producers, particularly for electricity generation, and the extraction of wood from forests and plantations for energy generation is also heavily incentivised in some countries. Because of this, subsidies, tax exemptions and public finance for biomass energy and perverse incentives for logging must cease.
• Accurate and up-to-date information on the type and origin of biomass feedstocks used across industrial sectors in EU Member States and the results of monitoring and verification by public bodies, is hard to come by. Consequently, there must be increased  transparency and information disclosure to the public about supply chains and biomass feedstocks linked to pulp producers and other industries.
• The main use of biomass energy generation associated with pulp mills in the EU is to satisfy the enormous electricity and heat demands of producing pulp and paper products. Efforts must be made to drastically reduce production levels, particularly of short-lived products such as disposable packaging, as the most efficient way of reducing the demand for energy by the pulp and paper industry and the scale of the demand for primary woody biomass.