Assessing the eco-efficiency of bioeconomy policies at both regional and national scale: application to the French energy wood sector
Résumé
We investigate the economic and environmental performance of national and regional bioeconomy policies oriented towards energy wood development in the French forest sector. Eco-efficiency indicators are calculated for scenarios built on different combinations of national and regional measures, including fuelwood demand incentives, local wood supply, and forest conservation. We compute eco-efficiency using a simulation model based on a coupling between a partial equilibrium model of the French forest sector and a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) framework. This approach allows taking account of indirect effects at multiple scales, i.e local forest resource, wood flows through interregional trade or substitution between fuelwood and fossil fuels on global markets. We show that the scenario based on a combination of fuelwood demand incentives and local supply constraints is the most ecoefficient one both at national and regional scale. It increases the eco-efficiency compared to the baseline for all environmental impact categories: 16% and 18% on ecosystems, 21 and 25% on human health, 42 and 59% on resources, respectively for an implementation at national level and an implementation in the region Grand Est.