FOREST MANAGEMENT

EFORWOOD
AT A GLANCE
Title: Tools for Sustainability Impact Assessment of
the Forestry-Wood Chain
Instrument: Integrated Project, FP6
Total Cost: 20.608.411
EC Contribution: 12.944.060
Duration: 48 months
Start Date: 1/11/2005
Consortium: 38 partners from 21 countries
Project Coordinator: Skogforsk (The Foretry
Research Institute of Swewden) (Sweden)
Project Web Site: http://www.eforwood.com
Key Words: Sustainability, Impact Assessment,
Forestry-Wood Chain.

THE CHALLENGE
Improved sustainability and competitiveness are
identified as important achievements of the European
society. Using the forest-based sector as its study
object, EFORWOOD will develop decision support tools
to be used by policy makers, industry and other
stakeholders. The goal is to identify sustainability
impact of future changes related to the sector. The
impacts can be induced by external or internal drivers.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES
The main objective of EFORWOOD is to develop a tool
for Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) of Forestry
Wood Chains (FWCs) at various scales of geographic
area and time perspective. A FWC is determined by
economic, ecological, technical, political and social
factors, and consists of a number of interconnected
processes, from forest regeneration to the end-of-life
scenarios of a wood-based product. EFORWOOD shall
produce, as an output, a tool, which will allow analysis
of Sustainability Impacts of existing and future FWCs.
Multifunctionality of forests and sustainability impact of
changes of the whole FWC will be addressed by
analysing and selecting sustainability indicators
reflecting forest resources, forest to industry
interactions, processing and manufacturing and
industry to consumer interactions, including re-use, recycling and end of life in relation to economy, society
and environment.

METHODOLOGY
The FWC consists of a large number of different
processes, starting from forest regeneration, tending
and harvesting, followed by transporting of the wood
for converting and manufacturing in the forest industry
and its down-stream industries, ending with the
consumption and recovery of a broad range of products

containing wood- or fibre-based materials. Along with

the physical FWC come all the non-wood services and
externalities provided by the FWC. Each of the
processes along the FWC can be characterised in terms
of criteria and indicators of sustainability. EFORWOOD
will analyse the sustainability of present FWCs with an
integrating tool for Sustainability Impact Assessement
(SIA), and will also use specific tools developed for parts
of the chain. The current FWCs will be analysed and
scenarios will be established to study the impacts of
future changes affecting the FWC.

processes within FWCs, attaches quantitative indicator

values to processes and derives the aggregated values
for sustainability indicators. ToSIA+E includes
components to evaluate optional chains and their
trade-offs for various stakeholders. ToSIA-U is a
simplified, demonstration version. ToSIA software tool
is intended to be used by policy makers, industry, and
other stakeholders such as NGOs. ToSIA enables the
user to discover the impacts of (expected or user
defined) changes in the chains or processes on the
sustainability indicator values. In addition to ToSIA
specific, partial chain models will be developed.

EXPECTED RESULTS
The main output of EFORWOOD will be a decision
support tool for sustainability impact assessment of the
forestry-wood-chain - ToSIA. ToSIA will be available in
three versions: ToSIA-FWC describes production

PROJECT PARTNERS
The Forestry Research Institute of Sweden, SE

Alterra BV, NL

European Forest Institute, FI

European Confederation of Woodworking Industries, BE

Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, FR

Albert Ludwigs University, Freiburg, DE
Kenniscentrum Papier en Karton, NL
STFI-Packforsk AB, SE

Confederation of European Paper Industries, BE

CEPF Confdration Europenne des Propritaires Forestiers, BE
OY Keskuslaboratorio Centrallaboratorium AB, FI
Baden-Wrttemberg Forest Research Institute, DE

InnovaWood Limited, IE
Warsaw Agricultural University, PL

CIRAD-Fort, FR
Slovenian Forestry Institute, SI

Institute of Forest Ecosystem Research, (Switzerland) CH

Building Research Establishment, GB
The Norwegian University of Life Sciences, (Norway) NO
Instituto Superior de Agronomia, PT

Savcor Indufor OY, Olli Haltia, FI

Forest Research Institute, PL
Technical University in Zvolen, SK
Latvian Forestry Research Institute, LV

Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Centrer, (Costa

Rica) CR
Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), FI
BOKU University of Natural Resources and Applied Sciences,
Vienna, AT
Asociacin de Investigacin y Desarrollo en la Industria del Mueble y
Afines, ES
Pyry Forest Industry Consulting Oy, FI
Centre Tecnologic Forestal de Catalunya, ES
Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet, SE

Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry, CZ

Center for International Forestry Research, (Indonesia) ID
Unit de Recherch sur la Productivit des Plantations Industrielles,
(Democratic Republic of Congo) CD
Forest Research, an executive Agency of the Forestry Commission, GB
Kbenhavns Universitet, DK
Institut Technologique FCBA, FR
Heinrich von Thnen-Institut, DE