Role of the Finnish forest industry in mitigating global change: energy use and greenhouse gas emissions towards 2035

The objective of this paper is to analyse role of forest industry in meeting energy and climate targets that aim to mitigating global change. Finland as an important forest industry country with the ambitious target of becoming carbon neutral by 2035 is selected to a target county. This study aims to present a plausible assessment of the future of the Finnish forest industry until 2035 based on literature and a scenario building approach. The focus is on energy use and fossil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The results suggest that electricity consumption will decrease, whereas electricity production will increase, which indicates that forest industry can provide more renewable electricity to the grid. Heat consumption may even increase as a result from building new biorefineries, but those mills can most probably meet their heat demand by combusting biofuels. Changes in forest industry’s direct fossil CO2 emissions can reduce Finnish fossil CO2 emissions 2─4% in comparison to 2018. Biofuels production is likely to rise, but the extent remains to be seen. It is concluded that the Finnish forest industry can contribute significantly to meeting national climate policy targets, and forest industry in general can play a role in mitigating global change. Additionally, it was found that development of the Finnish forest industry will probably be limited by the requirement for sustainable wood harvesting, which may also be a problem for other forest industry countries.