European Investment Bank and European Forest Institute address forest investment barriers
Forests are a vital green infrastructure of the EU. They cover 39% of its land area and support a forest sector that generates 165 billion euros per year in gross value added (GVA) and employs around 3.6 million people. Forests have a great potential for increased contribution to economic development, decarbonisation, and societal well-being. Despite this, it faces significant investment barriers.
On 13 September 2024, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Forest Institute‘s (EFI) Bioregions Facility gathered 40 participants in Brussels, Belgium, and 50 online for a workshop aimed to deepen understanding and foster peer exchange and collaboration on Overcoming Investment Barriers in the Forest Sector. The participants represented regional and EU policymakers, the private sector, financiers and academia.
The workshop featured two sessions focusing on
- five practical cases on forest management, ecosystem services, and
- four practical cases on industrial value chains.
These sessions allowed participants and presenters to discuss investment challenges in the forest sector and explore solutions for various cases.
What is needed to address the investment barriers?
The workshop’s organisers compiled a report based on the nine cases presented. This report explores lessons learned regarding market failures, complex regulation, fragmented ownership, scaling up, blended finance and overcoming a knowledge gap.
Significant knowledge has been created around these barriers to investment. For example, “EFI and EIB have been working on investment barriers in forestry since 2023, resulting in two outcomes: an investment barriers report and this workshop”, said Felipe Ortega Schlingmann, Head of Bioeconomy Division at EIB. This work is timely regarding the upcoming update of the EU Bioeconomy Strategy.
In addition, “awareness helps understand the needs, knowledge, and barriers to seek solutions; knowledge and good practice examples are needed to make this change”, said Diana Tuomasjukka, Head of the Bioeconomy Programme at EFI. The possibility of directly learning from the examples of good practice by asking about pertinent experiences and how specific challenges could be overcome was key to further exploring solutions’ transferability.
The report compiling six lessons learned from nine cases in Europe on overcoming investment barriers in the forest sector is available here.
Learn more
Read “Forests at the heart of sustainable development: Investing in forests to meet biodiversity and climate goals” and “Investment barriers in the European Union 2023” to understand more about the barriers to investment in the forest-based sector.
In addition, sign up for the Bioregions Facility InfoFlash and follow us as we explore more about this relevant topic in the future. You can also download the practical cases overcoming investment barriers below:
- Catalan Forest Adaptation Credits: investing in resilient landscapes. Speaker: Teresa Baiges Zapater, Centre de la Propietat Forestal.
- Antarr investment case: enhancing resilience and productivity of Portuguese forests. Speaker: Pedro Lencart, Managing Director.
- Land Life’s approach: upscaling nature restoration and reforestation with private funds. Speaker: Axelle Ducos, Chief Growth Officer.
- Czech Republic forest restoration: financing post-bark beetle restoration. Speaker: Miroslav Hájek, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZU).
- NRW.BANK example: how funding programmes can help overcome current challenges in the forest-wood value chain. Speaker: Stefanie Wieland, Team Leader Wood Industries, Wald und Holz NRW (on behalf).
- Baskegur: three investments in the woodworking industry in the Basque Country, Spain woodworking industry. Speaker: Oskar Azkarate, Director General.
- Fibenol: from demonstration to impact and navigating the critical stages of biorefinery scale-up. Speaker: Merili Palu, Site Selection and Planning Manager.
- CMPC Ventures: investing in European wood start-ups. Speaker: Viviana Hermosilla, Innovation and Technical Lead Europe.
- Metsä Spring: bringing innovative textile fibres to the market and investing in a demo plant. Speaker: Niklas von Weymarn, CEO.