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%.

Land managers combine man-made resources with natural resources to produce marketable products like food, feed, fiber and wood, but at the same time produce ecosystem services that are generally not marketed or compensated. However, land managers generally have little incentive to invest in healthy soils, as they cannot sufficiently capture the value generated by these ecosystem services. SoilValues aims to contribute to the conditions for developing successful soil health business models. These are models in which land managers make production decisions that result in higher levels of soil-based ecosystem services (SES) and in which they are paid for the non-marketed services they generate. In order for such business models to function, three important conditions need to be fulfilled: (1) the outcomes of SES need to be measured, thus requiring knowledge, indicators and models, (2) the data and information generated by these indicators and models need to be exchanged to facilitate monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV), and (3) all these activities should be governed by an appropriate institutional framework consisting of the necessary legislation, standards and incentive schemes. To enhance the conditions for developing successful soil health business models, SoilValues will: (1) provide a comprehensive assessment framework addressing all factors influencing the development of business models for investing in soil health, (2) establish 6 testing grounds across Europe to test and improve emerging and designing new soil health business models, (3) establish 12 communities of practice of land managers, value chain actors, investors and public authorities for soil health business models, (4) design a comprehensive toolbox of incentives and policy recommendations to facilitate soil health business models and (5) raise awareness and exchange knowledge for soil health business models.