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Abstract: Slovenia is the third most forested country in Europe. Nevertheless, in the last twenty five years this natural wealth did not get the adequate role in national development strategies, which unnecessary reduced their sustainability potential and lead the Slovenian forest-wood industry in a very bad situation. The forest-based sector in Europe is in a period of profound structural changes, which requires reassessment of the wood-chain products outlook. In the master’s thesis, the importance of integration of forestry and wood industry has been evaluated with the meaningful connection of different analytical methods: material flow analysis (MFA), SWOT analysis and life cycle assessment (LCA). With comparison of the roundwood and sawnwood material flow in Slovenia, Italy and Austria, the critical points in the Slovenian forest-wood chain were identified. In contrast to Austria and Italy, where wood is intensively reworked, Slovenia exports large amounts of untreated roundwood. As a consequence, the gross value added (GVA) per employee of wood sector in Slovenia reaches only 40 % of GVA in Austria and 50 % of GVA in Italy. Not only MFA, but also the SWOT and LCA analyses show, that wood processing into finished products is important both in terms of the value added and the environmental impact, as well as for more decisive shift of the economy towards a low-carbon society. Slovenian economy could take advantage of its sustainable development potential to a great extent by increasing the level of raw material self-sufficiency and energy independency. It is essential to re-establish forest-wood processing chain, to rework wood at home into products with the highest added value, and to use wood residues as renewable feedstock in green chemistry industry and for transformation into energy with novel technologies. Slovenian vision of sustainable economy has great potential, but requires enhanced cross-sectoral integration of forestry, wood processing, construction, chemistry and energy.
Keywords: sustainability, forest-wood processing chain, development potential, material flow analysis (MFA), SWOT analysis, life cycle assessment (LCA)
Published in RUNG: 30.09.2016; Views: 7665; Downloads: 279
Full text (1,77 MB)