PhD Candidate in Material Flow Analysis (MFA) for regional wood management

PhD Candidate in Material Flow Analysis (MFA) for regional wood management

The PhD candidate will be involved in the Horizon Europe project WoodStock,which supports the New European Bauhaus (NEB) initiative by developing climate-smart solutions and strategies for effective wood use, including the use of under-utilized wood resources in the construction sector.Global wood demand is expected to grow significantly over the coming decades, necessitating sustainable timber strategies beyond virgin wood. However, the amount of available under-utilized wood in the forest and building stock in the EU is not clear. There is a need for accessible and transparent methods to evaluate both circular practices and climate mitigation strategies. In addition, while harvested wood products (HWP) accounting is obligatory in the EU, it has low granularity and is not aligned between countries. WoodStock will go beyond the state-of-the-art by developing a Material Flow Analysis (MFA) model for wood and embedded carbon flows within the whole forestry-wood value chain. Using scenario techniques, WoodStock will provide insights into the potential and limitations of alternative wood utilization strategies. WoodStock will develop alternative options for circular building designs, following the NEB principles and harnessing the power of digital twins. The potential of these options will be evaluated in terms of their scalability, their contribution to climate change mitigation and forest resource use, as well as health and well-being by co-creation activities with regional actors in 6 Living Labs in 6 different European regions.

The PhD candidate will develop, with the support of a post-doc / researcher and in collaboration with the project team, a dynamic material flow analysis (MFA) model for the Norwegian wood sector and its embodied carbon cycle. This model will subsequently be used (i) to develop scenarios for climate change mitigation under wood availability constraints, taking into account the under-utilized wood resources in forests and buildings, novel and climate-smart wood construction practices, and circular strategies; (ii) to support the development of a new HWP tier 3 level method based on material flows rather than half-lives and decay models; (iii) to work with other research groups in the consortium on the development of harmonized approaches for wood flow accounting and modelling in Europe.

• Norwegian University of Science and Technology
• Energy and Process Engineering - Industrial Ecology Program

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