Data Envelopment Analysis Journal > Vol 5 > Issue 2

Efficient and Sustainable Bioenergy Production in Swedish Forests — A Network DEA Approach

Wenchao Zhou, Centre of Environmental & Resource Economics, CERE, Sweden AND Department of Forest Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden, zhou.wenchao@slu.se , Moriah Bostian, Centre of Environmental & Resource Economics, CERE, Sweden AND Department of Economics, Lewis & Clark College, USA, mbbostian@lclark.edu , Rolf Färe, Department of Economics, Oregon State University, USA AND Department of Applied Economics, Oregon State University, USA, Rolf.Fare@oregonstate.edu , Shawna Grosskopf, Centre of Environmental & Resource Economics, CERE, Sweden AND Department of Economics, Oregon State University, USA, Shawna.Grosskopf@oregonstate.edu , Tommy Lundgren, Centre of Environmental & Resource Economics, CERE, Sweden AND Department of Forest Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden, tommy.lundgren@slu.se
 
Suggested Citation
Wenchao Zhou, Moriah Bostian, Rolf Färe, Shawna Grosskopf and Tommy Lundgren (2021), "Efficient and Sustainable Bioenergy Production in Swedish Forests — A Network DEA Approach", Data Envelopment Analysis Journal: Vol. 5: No. 2, pp 363-394. http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/103.00000041

Publication Date: 17 Aug 2021
© 2021 W. Zhou et al.
 
Subjects
Cost management,  Performance measurement,  Estimation frameworks
 
Keywords
Climatebioenergyefficiencyenvironmentforestsnetwork
 

Share

Download article
In this article:
1 Introduction 
2 Methodology 
3 Data 
4 Results 
5 Conclusion and Remarks 
Appendix 
References 

Abstract

Forest fuel defined as branches and tops (GROT) of harvested trees represents a large share of forest biomass and is increasingly viewed as a potential energy source. This study assesses the economic potential of forest bioenergy production in Swedish forests, using a network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to estimate the technology for biofuel and other forest products. We consider that forests are managed to use multiple inputs to produce multiple outputs. Outputs include sawtimber, pulpwood, fuelwood, and bioenergy in terms of GROT. Our model also considers environmental concerns over biodiversity and CO2 emissions from burning biomass. We apply the network DEA model to measure the revenue efficiency of forest production of Swedish forests using a panel consisting of 20 counties and covering the years from 2008 to 2014. Our results show that there exist persistent economic inefficiencies of forest production in some counties, reducing the overall efficiency of Sweden's forest and wood products industry. In addition, we also estimate the potential increase in bioenergy, deadwood and CO2 emissions reduction from combustion of bioenergy, and by-products from sawtimber and pulpwood.

DOI:10.1561/103.00000041