The post-pandemic “new normal” has fuelled a new spike in wood production, with more than 4 billion cubic metres produced in 2022 alone. At the same time, the latest estimates show that roundwood demand could grow by 49% between 2020 and 2050, fueled by the development of mass timber, biomass, and cellulosic products.
It comes as policymakers scramble to manage precious forest stock, which is now under existential threat from climate change.
That is according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which published The State of the World’s Forests 2024: Forest-sector Innovations Towards a More Sustainable Future – which shows evidence that climate change is making forests more vulnerable to stressors such as wildfires and pests.
According to the FAO, wildfire intensity and frequency are increasing, including in areas not previously affected, with fires releasing an estimated 6,687 megatonnes of carbon dioxide globally in 2023 alone.
At the same time, pine wood nematodes are causing significant damage to native pine forests in some Asian countries, with North American forests also expected to experience destruction at the hands of insects and disease over the next 2-3 years.
“FAO recognises that science and innovation are crucial ingredients for achieving forest-based solutions,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu in the forward to the report, adding that “this edition will inform FAO’s work to scale up evidence-based innovation in forestry.”
According to the report, global roundwood removals—a proxy for production and consumption—increased significantly between 1961 and 1990, stagnating for two decades until 2010, at 3.5 billion cubic metres per year before taking off again in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reunification of Germany, and the global financial crisis.
The rise and rise of industrial roundwood
Significantly, high-value industrial roundwood – used to produce sawn wood, wood-based panels and pulp, surpassed woodfuel production for the first time in 2018 – with more than 50% of the industrial roundwood produced in Europe and North America, whilst 39% is produced in Africa, Asia and South America.
Interestingly, “the world produced 13% more roundwood in 2022 than in 1990,” the FAO said, “given that, in the same period, the world population increased by 50% and world GDP per capita grew by 174%, the growth of roundwood production may be considered moderate, with wood production per capita decreasing in the last few decades.”
“Covid-19 had a short-term impact on the production and trade of forest products,” the FAO said, adding that the “production and trade declined for most wood products in 2022 due to disruptions to global supply chains, combined with a slowdown in consumer demand and the introduction of new trade restrictions in some countries.”
Whilst global industrial roundwood removals were almost unchanged in 2022, compared to 20221, at 2.04 billion cubic metres, “global trade declined sharply in 2022—by 17%—to 119 million cubic metres, comprised of 37% of imports to China. Log export restrictions introduced by the Russian Federation accounted for half the global contraction.”
Demand for wood will grow with mass timber, a growth incubator.
Using data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Resource Outlook Model (FOROM), the FAO projected timber demand based on four scenarios: lower global warming and moderate growth to higher global warming and high growth.
and the world, 2015–2070, historical (1990–2015), and projected (2020–2070) using the Forest Resource Outlook Model (FOROM), 2nd Edition. In: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2022-0073-2
“According to the projections, world roundwood production will increase by 4–8% between 2022 and 2030,” it said. “Production could increase by 6–32% between 2022 and 2050 (with uncertainty increasing markedly over the longer period),” and in terms of roundwood volume, “the projected increase to 2050 ranges between 240 million cubic metres and 1 200 million cubic metres, depending on the scenario.”
However, these estimates do not consider new product categories, including engineered wood products, biofuels, and chemicals, which have been prioritised in the push to decarbonise. As a result, the FAO made additional estimates to include the potential impacts of three emerging forest products considered the most promising wood products for the large-scale substitution of non-renewable materials:
- Mass timber/ cross-laminated timber (CLT) for construction;
- Artificial cellulosic fibres from dissolving wood pulp, mainly used in the textiles industry and;
- Woodfuel for bioenergy.
“Demand for these products is estimated to increase roundwood consumption by up to 272Â million cubic metres per year by 2050 compared with 2020,” the FAO said, “this amounts to a total increase in global roundwood consumption (production) of 49%.”
Innovation and increased efficiency are critical to global forest stocks.
The report identifies five innovation types that enhance forests’ potential to address global challenges: technological, social, policy, institutional, and financial: “Multiple pathways that combine increased harvesting and processing efficiency, recycling, and planting of forests and trees, including in agroforestry systems and building on restoration efforts, can lead to sustainable wood supply in volumes to meet the increase in demand, supporting the bioeconomy,” the FAO said.
Then, there is improved wood efficiency; thanks to modern technologies, the FAO reported that “15% more finished products can be produced in 2022 compared with 1961 for the same volume of roundwood.”
“If this trend of increasing efficiency continues for the next couple of decades, it will be possible to produce the same volume of product as today in 2040 using 116 million cubic metres of industrial roundwood.”
- To learn more about the global scramble for forest resources and the impact of climate change on global forest stocks, download the FAO State of the Forest report.
