Tobias Stern

Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz | KFU Graz · Institute of Enviromental Systems Sciences

In many European countries with plentiful forest resources, novel forest‐based businesses play a key role in the transition from our current fossil‐based economy towards a circular bioeconomy. For example, kraft lignin, a by‐product from the pulping industry, is produced in large amounts globally. To date, however, it is still only offered on the m...

Für die Nutzung der limitierten Ressource Holz ist nicht nur eine ökonomische, sondern auch eine ökologische Dimension relevant. Das gilt insbesondere für Effizienzbetrachtungen. Die ökologische Effizienz ist vor allem im Kampf gegen den Klimawandel bedeutend, da im Wald und in Holzprodukten Kohlenstoff gespeichert wird und durch eine vermehrte Nut...

The production of liquid fuels and chemicals from biomass is an essential part of establishing a bioeconomy. Numerous techno‐economic studies have been published on different pathways for processing biomass. To examine the progress made in this field, a meta‐analysis investigating three exemplary biobased products was conducted. Using recently publ...

Purpose of Review Climate change poses a threat to European forests and threatens their capacity to deliver ecosystem services. Innovation is often considered critical to increasing resilience in wood-based value chains. However, the knowledge about types of innovation processes and how they enhance resilience, if at all, is largely dispersed. In t...

Socio-metabolic system states can be seen as a direct outcome of utilizing production technologies to meet needs and wants that are contingent on our lifestyles. The extent to which historical and hypothetical adoption of technologies and lifestyles affect(ed) socio-economic metabolism has been studied at the system level (e.g., Cao et al. 2018; Vi...

Climate change poses a growing threat to European forests due to the increasing frequency and severity of storms, insect outbreaks, and other natural disturbances. Natural disturbances affect both the volume and the quality of harvested wood and increase the tendency of increased salvage loggings, reducing roundwood prices over the short-term. The...

Providing sustainable energy storage is a challenge that must be overcome to replace fossil‐based fuels. Redox flow batteries are a promising storage option that can compensate for fluctuations in energy generation from renewable energy production, as their main asset is their design flexibility in terms of storage capacity. Current commercial opti...

Providing sustainable energy storage is a challenge that must be overcome to replace fossil-based fuels. Redox flow batteries are a promising storage option that can compensate for fluctuations in energy generation from renewable energy production, as their main asset is their design flexibility in terms of storage capacity. Current commercial opti...

Circular economy is an emerging concept that places an emphasis on strategies (e.g., reduce, reuse, recycle) to decouple resource use from economic growth, minimize waste and emissions, and maintain the highest utility along a product life cycle. The transition to a circular economy requires innovative solutions along entire value chains. This lite...

Polyethylene terephthalate is one of the most abundantly used polymers, but also a significant pollutant in oceans. Due to growing environmental concerns, polyethylene ter-ephthalate alternatives are highly sought after. Here we present readily recyclable polyethylene terephthalate analogues, made entirely from woody biomass. Central to the concept...

This book is a call for collective and integrated action to global leaders, investors, companies, scientists, governments, nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations, funding agencies and the society at large to put Romania’s forests on a sustainable path. This vision is put forward by Romanian and international experts whose exceptional...

The demand for plastics far exceeds that for any other bulk material and is expected to grow further due to global economic and population growth. Packaging is by far the largest end-user segment for plastics. Interest in bioplastics is increasing as public awareness of plastic waste accumulation in natural environments increases. 2,5-Furandicarbox...

Reducing meat consumption in high meat-consuming countries is seen as a key lever for achieving global sustainability agreements. However, little attention has been paid to unravel transition dynamics in the socio-technical protein regime. This study addresses this research gap by shedding light on institutional changes within the Austrian protein...

The utilization of coproducts is a strategy that can be applied to increase the economic and envi-ronmental performance of industrial processes and thus reach an objective targeted in several en-vironmental policies. In multi-output production processes, allocation needs to be performed to assess the products’ environmental and economic performance...

Background: There is strong evidence that wood-based products are typically associated with lower fossil-based emissions over their lifecycle than functionally equivalent products made from other materials. However, the potential impact of large-scale material substitution at the market level remains challenging to quantify and is subject to assump...

This review sheds light on urgent questions that arise from the need to replace a polymer resin,–poly(ethylene terephthalate), which represents 7.7% market-share in the global plastic demand (Plastics–the Facts 2019), by renewable alternatives. The main question that this review will address is: what are the most promising PET replacements made fro...

40 papers presented at the 2nd Circular Packaging Conference which was held in hybrid system (live in Slovenj Gradec, Slovenia on 9-10th of September 2021 and online) published in form of full reviewed papers in Proceedings of the conference.

Given the complexity of today’s supply chains and stakeholder pressure, supply chain partners adopt cooperations with non-profit organisations to address social and environmental issues. This research aims at unveiling partnerships formed through such cooperations, the sustainability issues these address, their scope of impact, and their temporal c...

Despite a growing number of circular economy (CE) strategies, reports, methods and tools, researchers have provided little empirical evidence on the corporate practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are crucial to affect the transition towards a CE. Although there is an increase of studies on barriers for and driver to CE, there...

Bioökonomie im waldbasierten Sektor: inkrementeller oder disruptiver Wandel? Innovationen als treibende Kraft des Wandels sollen in der Vision einer waldbasierten Bioökonomie zu einer Stärkung der Wirtschaft, einer Verringerung der Emissionen, neuen Geschäftsmöglichkeiten und Beschäftigung führen. Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, welche Veränderung...

Bioökonomie: Was soll denn das sein? Weltweit steht die Menschheit vor grossen ökologischen Herausforderungen. Das Konzept der Bioökonomie wird dabei als vielversprechender Lösungsansatz gehandelt. Man versteht darunter eine Wirtschaft, die die Nut-zung nachwachsender Rohstoffe forciert und dazu beiträgt, fossile Rohstoffe zu ersetzen. Bioraffineri...

Although plenty of research has been carried out to develop a multitude of sustainability assessmentmethods, few guidelines and criteria have been established to help practitioners and researchersfind themost appropriate method for a specific case. Studies have shown the importance of integrating sus-tainability assessments when conducting research...

Purpose of Review As a major component of wood, lignin is regarded as a promising, bio-based compound which could strongly influence the forest-based circular bioeconomy. Much research has been conducted on the material use of lignin, but the lignin commercialization process is still under development; few commercial production facilities and large...

Purpose: The choice of materials used for a vehicle can contribute to reduce negative environmental and social impacts. Bio-based materials are considered a promising solution; however, the sustainability effects still need to be assessed. Depending on the material assessed, it is questionable which environmental and social impact categories or su...

Detailed description of the approach and literature search/selection

Purpose: The introduction of renewable materials into automotive applications is perceived as an innovative lightweight solution. Wood-based materials are advantageous in that they have potentially lower environmental impacts as compared with other materials such as steel. However, using wood per se does not automatically ensure more sustainability...

Studies and media attention suggest that the number of vegetarians and vegans in Austria and other Western European countries is increasing. Because certain convictions act as triggers that change dietary patterns, vegetarianism and veganism seem to be connected with the concept of social innovation. Using a mixed-mode sampling strategy, a sample t...

We identified counterintuitive environmental impacts of hypothetical eco-innovations (increasing environmental stress resulting from production input reductions). We show that uncertainty is associated with the impact direction of eco-innovations, and argue, that this uncertainty should be considered in sustainability transition modelling. This req...

Purpose Vegetarian and vegan dietary practices have recently moved from being marginal activities to occupying a more mainstream position. While the reasons for this have been analysed by many researchers, the extent to which the underlying motives may influence other behavioural contexts remains relatively unexplored. The present research thus ana...

The European Commission (EC) expects a bioeconomic transition to have both environmental and socioeconomic benefits. While bioeconomic impact assessments exist, they usually focus on a particular sustainability dimension and on specific products or technologies. To draw a more holistic picture, this paper aims to analyze the substitution impacts of...

Countries are responding to unsustainable resource extraction, rising emissions, and increasing waste streams by implementing national bioeconomy strategies. Assuming that the purpose of a bioeconomy is to replace fossil use by biogenic resource use, we estimate biomass and fossil raw material consumption (RMC) by applying multiregional input-outpu...

This paper describes the results of an investigation on potential diffusion gaps and information asymmetries of bio-based innovations identified during the R&D stage. The first goal of the study was to identify specific barriers and incentives (i.e. diffusion gaps) regarding technological, economic and environmental aspects of two lignin-based prod...

The knowledge developed at pilot and demonstration projects (PDPs) plays an essential role for emerging biorefinery technologies. This research addresses the unexplored role of actor strategies in the construction and operation of PDPs. Drawing on the theory of technological innovation systems, we conduct a pan-European survey to map the current pi...

This special issue addresses the current need to enhance the conceptual and empirical understanding of economic, societal and environmental challenges along with opportunities related to transitioning to a forest-based circular bioeconomy (Sanz-Hernández et al., 2019). Hosting a high degree of internal diversity, circular economy and bioeconomy are...

Several authors have pointed out the importance of systems thinking, and have considered both environmental and social aspects (holistic perspective) of sustainability assessment in the past. Sustainability assessment tools which integrate different aspects (e.g., environmental/social aspects) in order to identify negative impacts have already been...

Te concept of sustainably processing biomass into a spectrum of products and bioenergy is thousands of years old. Large‐scale utilization of such processes existed in the 19th century and the term biorefinery first appeared in the late 20th century. This review addresses how different feedstock classes, products, and regions have been described in...

Because it is a mature industry, the European pulp and paper industry (PPI) possesses strengths due to its infrastructure, technological know-how, and the availability of biomass. However, the declining trend in the wood-based products sales, coupled with an increasing amount of global attention focused on a bio-based and circular economy, sends a...

A growing population and the impact of climate change represent clear challenges for the agricultural sector. Adapting agricultural machinery, e.g., raising the use of electric vehicles (EVs), is one way of meeting such challenges. Although interest in EVs and sustainable farming is becoming ever stronger, in practice the usage of EVs still remains...

Social acceptance of the use of biomass has emerged as one of the key factors in the transition from the use of non-renewable to renewable resources. Furthermore, the achievement of a social license to operate is of increasing importance in forestry. However, the sustainability of an intensii ed production and use of forest biomass has been contest...

The biorefinery of the 21st century requires commercialization and policy support of current technologies to allow the industry to grow. Companies that attempt to enter the field of renewable raw materials and products must be aware of prices, performance values and volumes available. Such information can speed up new developments. Finding suitable...

Executive summary Forests have multiple roles, but the role of forests in climate change mitigation has become increasingly important due to the urgent need to reduce climate change impacts. Forests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere via photosynthesis, and store carbon in biomass and soil. When forests are harvested, part of the carbon is r...

The bioeconomy provides new approaches to deal with environmental challenges by substituting fossil fuels for sustainable, renewable resources and fuels. In Europe, this process and discourse has mainly been driven from a strategic top-down level. This leads to a lack of inclusion of societal actors, which can consequently lead to reduced acceptanc...

Normative judgments on sustainability underpin concepts that shape the supply scenarios of timber consumption. The modern understanding of sustainable forest management is shaped by a diverse spectrum of social demands, going beyond the principle of sustainable yield management. Rival stakeholders compete to incorporate their ideas and interpretati...

The terms bioeconomy and bio-based economy refer to one of the recently most prominent political-economic concepts in Europe addressing ecological objectives. Measuring bioeconomic progresses is vital for future socioeconomic and political decisions. Previous studies on the state of bioeconomy were based on an initial decision, what bioeconomy is,...

New innovations are called for to renew the European forest sector into bioeconomy. However, little research exists on how the industry innovativeness is publicly perceived. Using data collected with an online questionnaire in four European countries, we investigate perceptions related to forest sector innovations on 13 current and new bioeconomy-r...

Wood-based innovations can substantially contribute to bioeconomy and future competitiveness of the forest-based sector. However, the forest-based sector lacks consumer-related information that is essential to achieve societal acceptance and market diffusion of wood-based innovations. Therefore, this study investigates the perceptions and related i...

Bioeconomy as a political-economic concept proposes the replacement of fossil resources by bio-based resources in order to address climate change mitigation and counteract resource depletion. The aim of this paper is to figure out how competitiveness across primary sectors, i.e. sector A, bio-based agriculture, forestry and fishing, and sector B, n...

Individual approaches to sustainable forest management have to be operationalized according to the regionally specific environmental conditions and stakeholder requirements. Unique regional socio-economic conditions also significantly impact stakeholder requirements of globally acting forest sector companies. Therefore, forestbased sector decision...

Although it is obvious that research regarding Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) is context specific and developed over time, not many research papers yet intended to investigate these changes. As a matter of fact, the number of scientific publications addressing SFM is relatively high. Hence, such a wide field cannot be sufficiently covered by t...

As a result of the implementation of the CE-marking in the European Union, the testing method as defined in prEN 16516 is about to become the new volatile organic compounds (VOC) testing standard and replace a multitude of testing methods and regulative systems in Europe that assess the existence of VOC in building materials, including wood-based m...

Purpose of Review: The aim of this study was to analyze the differences and similarities between the concepts circular economy (CE) and cascading utilization (CU) and the interactions between these concepts. The method chosen for this study was a qualitative content analysis,which was conducted on academic CU publications that appeared between 1990...

The overall impression of a glossy surface is an important parameter for consumer’s choice of wooden products. A new gloss parameter, called gloss impression, which calculates a reflexion structure image, was developed in order to complement the measurements made by industrial glossmeters, which are highly limited in describing the visual human per...

There is broad consent in climate research that forests and harvested wood products play a crucial role in climate change mitigation. Several studies exist on the perception or communication of the forest-based sector, but the combination of both elements is rare. We therefore examine the communication and the public perception of the forest-based...

Purpose of Review Stakeholder communication plays an important role in enhancing the societal sustainability and business acceptability of the forest sector. The purpose of this study is to present the current state of forest sector communication research with its stakeholders at different hierarchical levels of sustainability (i.e., societal, sect...

Forestry operations in urban forests are often perceived negatively by forest visi-tors seeking recreation. This study investigates the range of attitudes present among such forest visitors and how their perceptions towards forestry operations can be influenced by targeted information measures. First, in order to identify the specific attributes an...

The approach of the ERIFORE project is to facilitate the work on research developments and foster collaborations among relevant stakeholders. The current study uses a social network approach to describe and analyse co-operation activities using a sample research network.

The emerging bio-based economy is initiating a shift from fossil-based resources towards renewable resources. The use of biopolymers is seen as being a key component in sustainable product development. Research on biopolymers for bioplastics production mainly focuses on product development, environmental performance and cost-related aspects, and ne...

Purpose Improving technical properties and the durability of wood-based products by modification in various processing technologies is subject to recent research and development activities. This study aimed at integrating environmental considerations during the research and development phase of a novel modification process for a multilayer wood par...

From Spain down in the south to Finland up in the north – research and development in the field of circular forest bioeconomy is carried out all over Europe. In the H2020 project ERIFORE, 13 leading research organizations in ten European countries jointly focus their usual research activities to build a collaboration network that can turn scientifi...

Executive Summary The objective of the W3B-project was to create and demonstrate innovative and cost-efficient ways for communicating towards stakeholders the relevance of the European forest-based sector and its products for a sustainable bio-economy. Therefore, the project mapped the state of communication analyzing the website content of 80 comp...

Communication is important for the forest-based sector to maintain legitimacy of forestry actives among the general public. The study examines communication activities of the Austrian forest-based sector concerning sustainable forest management. First it is investigated, which key messages are communicated online, and second, how they are perceived...

Anthropogenic GHG emissions add a fast reinforcing feedback cycle to global carbon dynamics which continues to influence GHG concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere. When looking at forest carbon cycles there is potential in utilizing another feedback cycle, namely the carbon cycle involving harvested wood products. To assess the potential of the...

The term bio-economy, bio-based economy and other associated terms are getting increasingly popular. However, different definitions reach from narrow biotechnology focused to wide bio-based interpretations. With the increasing relevance of the term in political discussions a growing number of industries and research areas are expected to claim bio-...

The expansion of existing pulp mills with additional technology processing concepts to forest-based biorefineries implies high risks. A stakeholder-integrated strategy development is therefore more likely to open up such new business opportunities. Therefore, this paper aims to develop and verify a feasible approach. For this purpose, Porter’s deli...

Forest owner associations act as middlemen in the cooperative marketing of timber: they are supplied with small and fluctuating quantities of timber and sell bundled amounts to industrial consumers. Knowledge of the future quantity of monthly distributable timber is of particular importance for planning, but remains a subject of uncertainty. This w...

In recent years, the concepts of accounting for water use and assessing its impact, also known as the water footprint (WF), have evolved. The cultivation of wood and cotton are two important bio-based fiber resources that can use, consume, and pollute huge amounts of water. The purpose of this study is to identify the methodological options on an i...

Die Holznutzung im österreichischen Wald wirkt sich besonders durch den Effekt der vermiedenen Emissionen von Substitutionsprodukten außerordentlich positiv auf die THG-Bilanz aus. Vorratsänderungen in der Waldbiomasse und im Waldboden spielen eine wichtige Rolle in der THG-Bilanz. Eine kaskadische Holzverwendung, wo immer möglich, ist für die THG-...

The aim of this paper is to assess possible future developments regarding the demand for wood products and woody biomass for energy. The forest-based sector in Austria and Germany has many similarities to other forest-based sectors across Europe, however, it also differs in some aspects from the rest of Europe. Although both countries are located i...

Ein aktuelles Projekt von Wood K plus untersuchte den Stand des Qualitätsmanagements in der Holzindustrie. Gemeinsam mit LEAN Management Consulting Gmbh (LEAN MC), einem Experten für technisches Management im gesamten Produktentstehungsprozess, erfolgte darauf aufbauend eine Potentialanalyse um die größten Unterschiede und Herausforderungen hinsich...

Hemicelluloses based films (HBF) may be used for food packaging. Based on information from a B2B-survey in the food packaging industry in German speaking countries, a substitution potential model considering varying film properties was developed. State of the art HBF show therefore a potential of 927 t/a or 0.1% of the total volume. The high water...

Plant-based food additives in functional foods can improve consumer’s nutrient uptake and promote optimal health effects. Considering the ongoing development of new technologies for extracting bioactive substances the potential pricing of these substances plays a major role in assessing the overall profitability of new technologies. The study there...

In this study the effects of an increasing future demand for wood fuel were investigated. For this purpose a forest sector model was used and an “energy”-scenario was developed to be compared with a reference scenario. While the evolution of the forest-based sector is following trends of the recent years in the reference scenario, it was assumed th...

Communication is an important tool in maintaining legitimacy and acceptability of forest sector operations and activities and expectations by the general public on the forest sector conduct in Europe are in general very high. Despite this, there i scarce research in cross-national contexts on how forest sector sustainability is communicated to the...

Wooden biomass is the main source for energy based on biomass in Austria. Only a part of the wooden biomass for energy directly originates in forests. Other major sources include post-consumer wood and by-products of the Austrian forest-based industries. Consumption of wooden biomass has been growing much more than domestic production, forest-based...

Women decide on about 80% of the goods that their household buys. But marketers often sell products, especially technical ones, that are designed by men and therefore are oriented largely toward their needs. Consequently, assembly instructions for these products are also oriented toward men’s needs. To illustrate the impact of gender orientation in...

Technical research projects often target innovative high-value products. These products may serve dynamic and fastgrowing markets. However, while the general demand for such products may be very high and a lot of technical research is carried out in developing the respective processes, only very few new technologies and products are commercially re...

Outlook and foresight studies have long traditions in the forest-based sector. However, this sector is facing major structural changes on a global level, making its operating environment more complex and interlinked with other sectors. The aim of this paper is to review forest-sector outlook and future studies in combination with recent secondary d...

Zusammenfassung Rund 40% aller land-und forstwirtschaftlichen Betriebe werden von Frauen geleitet, daher spielen diese als Konsumentinnen von techni-schen Produkten oder Maschinen auch in dieser eher konservativen Branche eine immer wichtigere Rolle. An Hand des Beispiels Aufbau-anleitung für ein technisches Produkt wird verdeutlicht, welche Aus-wi...

The concept of bio-refining, equivalent to petrochemical refining, is a basic concept of bio-economic innovation. The so called wood-, forest-based or ligno-cellulosic biorefinery is one of the basic biorefinery concepts which frequently bases on existing pulp and paper processes. Three dilemmas for innovation and adoption in context of the increas...

Natural fibre-reinforced composites (NFC) being a comparatively young and therefore dynamic sector, appears to be promising with regard to economic and technological trends in the future. Many market studies on NFC have been carried out in recent years trying to assess the dynamic growth of the tech-nology with only a few investigating the necessar...