Climate impact of carbon efficient forest-based value chains

This project explores how Sweden’s forest residues and industrial side-streams can be more efficiently utilized to produce renewable fuels and deliver negative emissions—supporting the phase-out of fossil fuels and accelerating climate mitigation. Current biomass technologies often result in significant carbon losses. More than half of the carbon in biomass extracted from Swedish forests is currently released to the atmosphere. To address this, the project evaluates several combinations of carbon-efficiency measures across different parts of the value chain, providing comparative results to guide strategic deployment.

Through climate impact and techno-economic assessments, this project shows that the most impactful measures—based on climate mitigation per unit of carbon and per unit of electricity used—include replacing biomass-based district heating and boilers at Kraftliner mills with bioelectrofuel production (electrified biofuel processes to boost biofuel yields), integrating CCS at kraft pulp mills and installing heat pump at sawmills. Deploying these strategies could deliver up to 76 TWh of transport biofuels and capture and store 15 MtCO₂ annually by 2050, with an associated electricity demand of 94 TWh, while avoiding 430–490 MtCO₂ cumulatively. These outcomes exceed future national projected demands,
offering opportunities for significant export of negative emissions and renewable transport fuels and enhanced energy security.

A key insight is the reframing of residue-based biomass—not merely as a heat source, but as a renewable carbon resource. This perspective supports climate-smart forest management and industrial transformation. Next steps include integrating these value chains into broader energy system perspective and developing policy instruments that incentivize carbon-efficient approaches across sectors.

Find out more about the project

Here is an executive summary.

Here is a presentation from EUBCE.