The timber footprint allows the scale of use to be determined. This is linked to the extent of pressures that consumption levels exert on forests for wood supply. In that sense, it can be used as a basis to explore such questions as: how much timber is currently used in the bioeconomy (the footprint) compared to how much is available in a sustainable way? It thus helps to determine the potentials and limits for further building up the bioeconomy with primary resources. Knowledge on the limits compared to current performance can be used to smartly steer the bioeconomy transformation. It provides the evidence and impetus for policy interventions, e.g. to shape the types of coherent incentive frameworks for where and how wood can and should be most efficiently used in the bioeconomy. By providing an economy-wide perspective such footprints allow a “silo effect” and clashing incentives to be overcome — e.g. the promotion of timber in multiple sectors at the same time without consideration of aggregated consumption pressures. This is important as forest degradation, fragmentation and loss are strongly connected to the global biodiversity and climate crises and are challenges of both management and the scale of use.

The calculation of the timber footprint follows the same basic methodological principles as the calculation of the (agricultural) material footprint. In other words, the timber footprint relies on the same data basis and applies the same calculation algorithm (see here). The conversion of forestry production in € into roundwood equivalents in m3 uses the EXIOBASE database as well as forestry data from FAOSTAT and distinguishes between softwoods and hardwoods.