Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 27th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview WG6: Evidence-Based Public Policy Making Author(s) Francesca Ferranti Open University of the Netherlands Heerlen Netherlands Leban Vasja, Title Increasing Reliance on Energy Wood? A Case Study on Policy-Practice Interface in Selected European Countries File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Francesca Ferranti Abstract European Union’s policies emanated during the last decade in the energy, climate and rural development sectors foster an increased reliance on energy wood as a contribution to the achievement of a low carbon economy. This study analyzed the degree of correspondence between European Union’s policy ambitions with respect to energy wood and perspectives of national stakeholders about possibilities to increase reliance on this energy source. In particular, we collected stakeholders' opinions about current and future roles of energy wood and about chances of implementing three concrete options for increasing energy wood production. To carry out our study, we chose three European Union Member States with different characteristics (Germany, Slovenia and Spain) and we selected five stakeholder groups that covered as much as possible the actors of the energy wood contexts. While we detected that stakeholders were often uncertain about the feasibility of achieving European Union's policy goals, especially due to the environmental trade-offs that they associated to increasing reliance on this energy source, we found out that they supported European Union’s discourses regarding the role of energy wood in boosting the competitiveness of the forest sector, contributing to climate change reduction and maintaining different forest functions. We suggest that, in order to achieve an increased reliance on energy wood, European policy makers use these positive considerations of the energy wood role to underpin their strategies and at the same time work to reduce the effect of environmental trade-offs by prioritizing at supranational level the policy objectives that affect the environment.
