During the last few decades there has been a substantial growth in forest biomass consumption for the Danish heat and electricity sector, but questions about its sustainability have been raised. Since 2016 Danish energy companies have addressed sustainability issues through a voluntary industry-initiated agreement. This agreement introduces sustainability criteria on forest biomass sourcing.
We have analysed the Danish energy sector’s biomass sourcing, compliance and deployment of sustainability criteria during 2016-2018 based on public sustainability reports. Additionally, we analysed supply chain levels and feedstock use of Danish medium to large energy companies.
Results show that 57 % and 70 % of the biomass sourcing was in compliance with the sustainability criteria in 2016 and 2017 respectively with even larger volumes expected for 2018. Most of the volume is sourced by only a few large companies and wood pellets are sourced in much larger volumes than wood chips. Danish energy companies source woody biomass from different supply chain levels: local to global, but especially from the regional supply chain around the Baltic Sea.
The Danish voluntary sustainability criteria have been effective in governing biomass sourcing. Overall, the Danish experience shows it is possible within a short time frame to implement sustainability governance with risk-based criteria on multiple energy companies sourcing solid biomass in the megaton scale. A similar approach has been chosen by the EU and will be implemented from 2021.