Several crucial steps in wood industries involve extreme operation conditions (such as high temperature and pH) to remove or modify recalcitrant lignin that protects cellulose in the plant cell wall. Enzymes can substitute harsh and energy-demanding chemical treatments for sustainable production of bio-based building blocks and products in wood biorefinery. However, wild enzymes, evolved to act under natural environmental conditions, cannot be integrated into the current industrial processes. WoodZymes partners already have available extremozymes resisting very high temperature and pH that will be further optimized to be used as biocatalysts in wood industries. Enzyme application will include the recovery of phenolic compounds from enzymatic breakdown of technical lignin, and of lignin and hemicellulose compounds from enzymatic delignification and bleaching of kraft pulp (also resulting in more sustainable final cellulosic pulp). Extremophilic enzymes will also be used to valorize the latter compounds as bio-based precursors for adhesives in the manufacture of medium-density fiberboards, and as components of insulation polyurethane foams (substituting fossil building blocks), as well as for obtaining renewable sugar-based papermaking additives. WoodZymes illustrates the potential of extremozymes in the global bio-based economy, contributing to the sustainability and competitiveness of cellulose and board/polyurethane manufacture (as suggested by techno-economic and environmental analyses), and establishing a direct link between the pulp and wood industrial sectors. The feasibility of these objectives is based on a consortium from four EU countries formed by: i) four world-leading companies of the above industrial sectors; ii) a highly-active biotech SME commercializing extremophilic enzymes; and iii) four reputed research institutes of the wood, cellulose, lignin and enzymes sectors, being able to demonstrate the extremozyme-based technology at the pilot scale.

Forests, cornerstone of the EU economy (42% of EU land) and source of multiple social and environmental benefits, need to be managed according to the sustainability principles as stated in EU Forest Strategy. However managers lack accurate / up-to-date data to support it. Traditional forest inventories characterize forests from the ecologic and dasometric perspective; but they are expensive and typically planned on a 5-10years basis. This periodicity is often much lower than required for planning forests´ commercial or recreational activities on the basis of these data. Forest change rates demand tools able to monitor, on annual basis, the forest extension, the attributes of available timber, or the different ecosystem services emerged. MySustainableForest aims to develop a pre-commercial service and platform for forest stakeholders, compliant with open and standard interfaces, to integrate Earth Observation into the forest stakeholders’ decision making processes and operations. It will be implemented on the basis of GMV prototyped service, eoForest and will leverage on partners’ expertise on LiDAR and forest modelling. It engages relevant European public and private forest stakeholders: RAIZ (R&D branch of The Navigator Company), Croatian Forest Research Institute, Mendel University in Brno, Forest Owners Association of Navarra and Lithuania, Centre Nationale de la Propriété Forestière, European Forest Institute, and 2 innovative SMEs (MADERA+ and Föra). Its added value will be demonstrated in 6 different bioclimatic zones from Portugal, Spain, France, Croatia, Czech Rep. and Lithuania, and across a variety of management protocols and forest usages. The economic viability of the service will be assessed and the associated business model validated. As a larger implication of MySustainableForest, it is expected that End-Users optimize their operations up to 10%, participating SMEs´ headcounts increase up to 20% and GMV market share in the sector is incremented up to 10%.