CirculAlps aims at promoting circular & bio economies in the Alpine timber sector. Both represent strategical perspectives, as highlighted by AG6 & AG2 work plans. Furthermore, bio-based innovation & circular economy in wood supply chain has been recently & repeatedly identified as key for mountain regions by institutions such Euromontana, Alpine Convention and Agricultural European Innovation Partnership. Timber value chain can benefit from these approaches e.g. in the management of discarded wood by adding further stages to wood life before biomass & in using waste products as raw materials e.g.bark as insulatator. Interesting best practices within and out EUSALP exist e.g. Werkraum Bregenzerwald & EcoSpruce but are still rare.
Thanks to the strong expertise of the consortium on: wood value chain, bio based innovation & circular economy in the forestry sector, the project seeks to:
1)analyze current state of art and best practices
2) evaluate the specific potential for innovative circular and bio economy value chains in the EUSALP region
3)Highlight enabling and transferring factors.
These findings will be collected in a feasibility study. Furthermore, the outputs “work plan” and “recommendations”, developed in a participative way, will investigate missing elements for forestry entrepreneur to start this new value chain and set concrete actions and tools facilitate them. This will set solid basis for the spread of circular and bio economy in the EUSALP area forestry sector.