Biomass Energy, Forests and Climate Library

This report explores the history of the GGL and the pivotal role that RWE and different biomass certification schemes which RWE and other energy companies developed played in developing a global market in wood pellets. It then gives an overview of the timeline for Dutch wood pellet burning and subsidies.

Green Gold Label (GGL) is a biomass certification scheme that was set up by the Dutch energy company Essent in 2002, before any other certification schemes for wood biomass energy existed. A supposedly independent Green Gold Foundation was then set up as owners of the scheme, and Essent was acquired by the German energy corporation RWE in 2009.

Open Letter to the European Commission: A better use of wood and public funds

The global Biomass Action Network (BAN) of EPN joined other NGOs in sending an open letter to the European Commission with an important message: wood burning incentives in EU legislation need to be removed as soon as possible. Woody biomass must be excluded from the EU Renewable Energy Directive’s (RED) list of renewable energy sources, and the zero-rating of its considerable CO2 emissions on the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) must end.

The Human Rights Impacts of Large-scale ‘Modern’ Biomass Energy

This briefing examines the human rights impacts of large-scale (‘modern’) biomass energy that burns wood in centralized heat and power generators. As the industry rapidly expands, growing evidence highlights serious human rights concerns throughout the biomass supply chain. The following examples illustrate negative impacts occurring worldwide - impacts that are likely to intensify unless robust action is taken to halt the biomass industry.

This briefing includes case studies from Chile, Brazil, the USA, Sweden, Ghana, Mozambique, Uganda, Indonesia, Nepal and Thailand.

Bioenergy in Countries’ Climate Plans – Full Report

Full Report - The Role of Bioenergy and BECCS in Nationally Determined Contributions and Long Term Strategies

Bioenergy in Countries’ Climate Plans – Briefing

An Analysis of Biomass, Bioenergy and BECCS in Nationally Determined Contributions and Long-Term Strategies

Bioenergy: A Roadmap to Forest Destruction

As world leaders wrapped up COP30 in Belém last year, a new climate roadmap was unveiled: one to transition away from fossil fuels, and another to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation by 2030. These goals are meant to work hand in hand. But there’s a growing problem: the rise of forest bioenergy threatens to undermine both efforts, putting forests and the climate at risk. Members of the Biomass Action Network are currently in Bonn for the UN’s mid-year climate meetings, to raise the alarm that bioenergy is nothing but a roadmap to destruction.

Beaten to a pulp: How the pulp and paper industry is burning EU forests for energy

This report exposes the extent to which the EU’s major wood pulp producers generate and sell energy produced by burning wood sourced directly from forestry operations. In the largest pulp-producing countries, the report estimates that over a fifth of the wood sourced directly from forestry operations that is burned for energy can be attributed to the pulp industry with, on average, one cubic metre being burned for every tonne of pulp produced.

The report looks at the EU’s top five pulp-producing countries – Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Germany and Spain – and finds that in all but the case of Germany, the pulp and paper industry is the dominant force in the biomass energy sector. The case studies can also be downloaded separately from the biomass library.

Burning down Finnish forests: The scale and impacts of using woody biomass for energy by the pulp and paper industry

Finland is one of the most biomass dependent countries in Europe when it comes to generating energy, and 30% of the energy consumed in Finland in 2021 was produced by burning biomass, with more than half of this being woody biomass (57%). Wood-based fuels account for as much as 70% of so-called renewable energy in Finland. It has been the single largest source of energy in Finland since 2012.

Pulp mills and biomass plants in Germany

At least two pulp and paper companies are expanding into wider biomass energy markets, beyond supplying process energy and selling some
additional electricity to the grid. These are Mercer International, which has built a 150,000 tonne capacity wood pellet plant, and Koehler Group, which operates
five biomass cogeneration plants that don’t supply the company’s paper mills. Koehler Group has also recently acquired two wood and biomass logistics and trading companies, one in Germany, the other in France.