Biomass Energy, Forests and Climate Library

Biomass Energy Expansion at the Expense of Indonesia’s Gorontalo Forests

Gorontalo Province, located in the Wallacea biodiversity hotspot on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, is increasingly becoming a centre of industrial woody biomass production. Driven by domestic energy policies and growing international demand for wood pellets, particularly from Japan and South Korea, the expansion of energy plantation forests (Hutan Tanaman Energi, HTE) is placing increasing pressure on natural forests, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and the rights and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs).

Why the EU must stop subsidies for burning trees: A policy mistake that needs to be corrected

More than 40 NGOs have come together to call on the EU to stop incentivising biomass in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). They have produced a shared position paper calling on the EU to stop incentivising biomass in EU renewable energy and climate legislation because it makes the climate crisis worse; damages the economy and undermines energy security; increases biodiversity loss and the destruction of forests; and worsens air pollution.

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.

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.

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.