{"id":80919,"date":"2021-06-28T09:59:50","date_gmt":"2021-06-28T09:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tin.happy-projects.ro\/shortage-wood-europe\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T08:55:43","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T08:55:43","slug":"shortage-wood-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.timberindustrynews.com\/ro\/shortage-wood-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Is there a shortage of wood in Europe?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The sharp increases in timber prices worldwide since the middle of 2020 do not reflect any long-term shortfall in the supply of wood.\u00a0 Rather the trend is due to the combined effects of a spike in demand driven by economic stimulus measures at a time when supplies have been severely disrupted during the pandemic.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is argued by Professor Gert-Jan Nabuurs, Bas Lerink and Mart-Jan Schelhaas from Wageningen University in an European Forest Institute (EFI) post.<\/p>\n

The authors argue that in Europe the supply imbalance will even out in the medium term but that does not mean that changes to forestry policies and practices are not needed to help satisfy the anticipated long-term rise in demand for carbon-neutral wood products. Specifically, there needs to be increased harvesting (not an easy process by the way), more investment in reforestation and efficient processing capacity, and increased recycling.<\/p>\n

The authors note that during the corona lockdowns, many people in Europe and North America started home renovations or building new homes. These and other construction activities have been boosted by central bank policies in the EU and USA, which have kept interest rates record low. Also, fiscal stimulus packages due to the corona crises have supported public investments, for example to fund construction. All these activities contributed to increasing demand for wood.<\/p>\n

In addition, say the EFI authors, there is simply a shortage in wood processing capacity so that supply has been lagging behind demand now for several years. In addition, in 2020 as many sawmills and logistics were partly closed down due to corona restrictions, the supply of timber declined and deliveries were delayed.<\/p>\n

The EFI authors also suggest that the US softwood dispute with Canada has contributed to rising timber prices. As early as 2018, to protect the US domestic market, the Trump administration significantly increased import tariffs on Canadian timber. As a result, Canada now supplies timber to China, and the United States purchases much more softwood from Europe, including from Austria, Germany and Scandinavia.<\/p>\n

With increased demand for European timber, there are now shortages, according to the EFI authors. Even the oversupply from Germany and Czech Republic caused by the increased loggings in forests affected by bark beetles have not made up for these shortages, as a fair share of their supply was exported to China. Also, in this central European region, coniferous log prices are still below the level of five years ago.<\/p>\n

The EFI authors ask the question, \u201cIs there really a shortage of wood [in Europe]?\u201d and offer the response, \u201cNo, definitely not\u2026There is more wood in the European forests than at any time since the late Middle Ages.<\/p>\n

Including countries in eastern Europe such as Ukraine and Belarus, this stock of wood amounts to almost 35 billion cu.m. Due to forest growth, a billion cu.m of wood is added every year. The harvest is only 600 million cu.m\/year. So there is certainly no physical shortage\u201d.<\/p>\n

They note that building more buildings with wood in Europe would do little upset this supply balance: \u201ceven if the EU were to build 30% of its new homes with wood (equivalent to 300 000 dwellings per year), that would mean only an extra demand of 15 million cu.m of sawn timber (for comparison: Sweden alone produces annually 18 million cu.m). A small increase\u201d.<\/p>\n

The EFI authors also emphasise that \u201cFor clarity, it is important to stress that the current price increase has nothing to do with the bioenergy market, because these are completely different types of wood and qualities\u201d.<\/p>\n

They conclude \u201cIf we must get rid of fossil fuels, the demand for wood may increase. That is possible under two requirements: we should further improve efficiency and reuse of wood products. And in addition, we need to invest in good forest management and reforestation. The EU Green Deal and Timmermans\u2019 Green Deal\u2019s 3 billion trees are a good start\u201d (a reference to the EU\u2019s ambitious strategy published last year to plant 3 billion trees alongside other measures to protect the region\u2019s natural resources for which EU aims to raise \u20ac20 billion per year).<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sharp increases in timber prices worldwide since the middle of 2020 do not reflect any long-term shortfall in the supply of wood.\u00a0 Rather the trend is due to the combined effects of a spike in demand driven by economic … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4716,4715],"tags":[3299,4501,3323],"class_list":["post-80919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-trends","category-market-analysis","tag-europe","tag-shortage","tag-wood","topic-forestry","topic-sawmilling","area-europe"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs there a shortage of wood in Europe? - Timber Industry News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.timberindustrynews.com\/ro\/shortage-wood-europe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"ro_RO\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is there a shortage of wood in Europe? 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