The industrial utilization of wood grew in a trend, without taking into account the years of war, the whole of the 1900’s.
The development of wood utilization
The use of wood reached its highest level to date in 2006, when 81 million cubic meters of domestic and imported wood was used. In year 2016 it was 77 million cubic meters. Year 2017 the consumption of wood reached its highest level and is still rising (including energy use).
According the forest inventories forests can be put to even better use, while taking care of the principles of sustainable development.
The use of wood in the sawmill industry in the 2000’s
The quick growth of sawn softwood production within the Finnish Sawmill Industry in the mid 1900’s increased the demand of softwood logs until the middle of the first decade of the millennium.
The sawmill industry’s wood consumption was at its peak in 2004, when the production volume was 13.5 million cubic meters of sawn timber. The usage of softwood logs (including the plywood and LVL industry) grew to a record level, 29.7 million cubic meters, of which 4 million cubic meters of logs were imported.
Logs were mainly imported from Russia, which was later stopped by the log export tariffs, introduced by the Russian government. Although the custom duties have subsequently reduced, the importation of softwood logs has not grown to a significant level.
The Financial crash caused the demand for timber to decline and problem with the availability of raw material were reasons for timber production to fall below 8 million cubic meters in 2009. The usage of logs fell to below 20 million cubic meters.
In 2017, 11.7 million cubic meters of timber was produced, and the use of softwood logs grew to 29.3 million cubic meters. Remarkably, there was a decline in the use of wood after these peak years which is almost exclusively because of the logs.
The saw-log share of the total raw material volume was just under a third in 2015. The share of the log in forest owner’s stumpage earnings was over two thirds.
Wood utilization and energy
The use of fuel wood has increased noticeably since the year 2000, as a result of the EU climate policy. The EU climate policy will be steered until 2020 by the United Nations climate agreement, the Kyoto Protocol as well as the EU 2020 climate and energy package.
Over the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, through the years 2008 – 2012, the European Union (EU-15) was obligated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as follows:
- 8 % between 2008–2012,
- 20 % between 2013-2020
- 40 % of the 1990 emissions level by 2030.
Europe’s commission road map the climate policy is envisioned until 2050 towards a low carbon economy.
Since the 2000’s the Finnish government has been committed to increasing the share of renewable energy. In Finland this proportion has grown by subsidising wind power generation and combustion of forest chips.
National strategy
At the end of 2016, the Finnish government accepted a national energy and environmental strategy until 2030. This strategy outlines the actions which will help Finland to achieve the EU’s agreed climate targets. According to the strategy, the share of renewable energy against the total energy consumption will rise over half a year by the 2020’s. Energy systems should simultaneously shift over to carbon neutrality.
The subsidies to promote investments in renewable energy are intended to target the commercialisation of new technologies and especially plants producing biofuels for transport. Furthermore, there is an aid scheme to make biofuels by using agricultural waste and side streams of both communities and industry. The increasing production of traffic biofuels is expected to increase the utilisation of forest industry residues and forest chips.
The calculations in the strategy are based on total fellings increasing to 79 million m3 by 2030. Of the volume, 68 million m3 of this volume would be pulp and saw logs for industry and 11 million m3 would be firewood and wood chips from intermediate felling, including small diameter logs and their residues and stumps.
