The debate on forest bioenergy sustainability has been so far dominated by assessments made through the carbon emissions lens. The biodiversity perspective has been largely missing. The European Green Deal’s ambitious targets have brought biodiversity and ecosystem condition restoration and conservation to the core of the EU’s legislative portfolios. An opportunity to revisit some important governing texts with a biodiversity lens has therefore presented itself.
In this study, we review the impacts on biodiversity and carbon emissions of specific bioenergy pathways that may be used to supply additional forest-based energy. We then synthesize our findings in a nexus matrix, plotting the pathways along a gradient of benefits through to detriments on the two dimensions to highlight win-win and lose-lose options.
