Forest Bioeconomy from the Perspectives of Different EU Countries and Its Potential for Measuring Sustainabili
The bioeconomy responds to the economic and societal challenges including lack of resources, replacement of fossil fuels and climate change.
One of the sectors of the bioeconomy with significant potential is forestry. The use of wood as a renewable resource can be seen as consistent with the concept of sustainability. Forest bioeconomy is an important research topic addressed by FFWS ČZU, among other things within the EVA4.0 project - Advanced Research Supporting the Forestry and Wood-processing Sector´s Adaptation to Global Change and the 4th Industrial Revolution.
At the beginning of the year, the EVA4.0 team published the article entitled Forest Bioeconomy from the Perspectives of Different EU Countries and Its Potential for Measuring Sustainability in Forests journal. The researchers primarily dealt with the forest bioeconomy in the Czech Republic, while the results were compared with the situation in Slovakia, Finland, Italy and Germany. The bioeconomy is embedded at the EU level in the updated strategy for the bioeconomy (from 2018) and has been part of European policies since 2012.
As noted by Dr. Palátová, the authors of the research therefore dealt with the connection between the concept of sustainability and bioeconomy, especially in relation to the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The main goal of the published article was to examine the perception of the forest bioeconomy in the context of financial support and subsequently to evaluate whether the amount of financial resources directed to the forest bioeconomy can be compared between the selected countries. The methodological evaluation procedure consisted of several sub-steps. The initial analysis of strategic and other relevant documents in individual countries was followed by an analysis of financial support in the Czech Republic focused on finances provided under the Rural Development Program (2014- 2020) and then the situation in the Czech Republic and abroad was compared. Based on the results found, it can be said that the financial support of the forest bioeconomy is currently not a suitable indicator for comparing countries and cannot be used as an indicator for measuring sustainability.
The original English article is available on the Forests website: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/14/1/33.
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