Forests provide a variety of resources and benefits, but only a few, such as timber, are traded on the markets. Ecosystem service valuation is a method for quantifying the non-market benefits of forests to understand the full costs of forest management. This review examines the forest ecosystem service valuations over the past 20 years, with a particular focus on their spatial modeling. The literature review method is designed to provide a systematic, explicit, and reproducible outcome concerning the valuations of forest ecosystem services and the contextual setting of these valuations. The findings suggest that there is a huge variation in the values reported for similar ecosystem services but that carbon sequestration, recreation in forests, and hydrological services, such as watershed protection and flood prevention, are the ecosystem services that are consistently valued highly in the reviewed studies. In the last ten years, studies have more frequently modeled ecosystem services in spatial terms.

Transaction costs associated with the transaction (frequency, asset specificity and uncertainty) and with the transactors (opportunistic behaviour, bounded rationality and information access) is assessed for investments in heat insulation and energy-saving windows. The decision is econometrically implemented as a binary choice, controlling for the transaction costs and sets of determinants affecting the decision. The results indicate that transaction costs are important determinants for the decision, but more so for heat insulation than for energy-saving windows. Besides transaction costs, experience, communication and length of stay in the dwelling are also affecting the decision. Contrary to previous studies, energy costs, net property values, and personal norms and perceptions are not affecting the decision to energy renovate. To achieve the energy and climate targets for the residential sector in EU, it is important to reduce the sector's energy consumption by creating incentives to do energy renovations. The results suggest that reducing the transaction costs associated with energy renovations might be an appropriate way to do that.

The iron and steel industry is a major emitter of carbon dioxide globally. To reduce their carbon footprint, the iron and steel industry pursue different decarbonization strategies, including deploying bio-based materials and energy carriers for reduction, carburisation and/or energy purposes along their value-chains. In this study two potential roles for biomass were analysed: (a) substituting for fossil fuels in iron-ore pellets induration and (b) carburisation of DRI (direct reduced iron) produced via fully hydrogen-based reduction. The purpose of the study was to analyse the regional demand-driven price and allocative effects of biomass assortments under different biomass demand scenarios for the Swedish iron and steel industry. Economic modelling was used in combination with spatial biomass supply assessments to predict the changes on relevant biomass markets. The results showed that the estimated demand increases for forest biomass will have significant regional price effects. Depending on scenario, the biomass demand will increase up to 25 percent, causing regional prices to more than doubling. In general, the magnitude of the price effects was driven by the volumes and types of biomasses needed in the different scenarios, with larger price effects for harvesting residues and industrial by-products compared to those of roundwood. A small price effect of roundwood means that the incentives for forest-owners to increase their harvests, and thus also the availability of harvest residues, are small. Flexibility in the feedstock sourcing (both regarding quality and geographic origin) will thus be important if forest biomass is to satisfy demands in iron and steel industry.

The residential sector has a large potential to reduce its energy use. Improving the energy performance of buildings is one way to realise this potential. For single-family buildings, improving the energy efficiency by energy renovations can produce a net financial gain. However, there are unaccounted barriers that act as impediments for house-owners to undertake energy efficiency measures. This study postulates that transaction costs are such a barrier. Transaction costs are defined as the cost of making an economic exchange on a market in addition to the market price. The purpose is to empirically estimate the magnitude of the transactions costs and its determinants for energy efficiency measures in the residential sector. Specifically, the transaction costs for heat insulation and energy-saving windows in Swedish single-family buildings are assessed. The analysis is based on a unique dataset, constructed from a web-based survey. The results indicate that transaction costs for energy efficiency measures are considerable. The average transaction cost to make additional heat insulation is SEK 18,046 (EUR 1,510) and SEK 21,106 (EUR 1,766) to install energy-saving windows. The determinants of the transaction costs are cognitive limitations, social connectedness, asset specificity and previous experiences. Therefore, to reduce the transaction costs, the complexity of energy efficiency measures must be addressed, potential opportunistic behaviour must be reduced, and financial options expanded.

Significant use of forest biomass in the iron and steel industry (ISI) to mitigate fossil CO2 emissions will affect the biomass availability for other users of the same resource. This paper explores the market effects of increased forest biomass competition when promoting the use of forest-based bio-products in the ISI, as well as the interactions between the ISI and the forest industries. We employ a soft-linking approach that combines a geographically explicit techno-economic energy system model and an economic partial equilibrium model of the forest industries and forestry sectors. This allows for iterative endogenous modelling of new equilibrium price developments for different biomass assortments, determining locational choice of bio-products and assessing optimal bio-products technology choices. The results indicate an upward pressure on biomass prices when bio-products are introduced in the ISI (up to 62%), which affects both forest industries and the ISI itself. Prudence is thus warranted not to render bio-production investments uneconomical ex-post by neglecting to include potential price effects in investment decisions. The estimated price effects can be mitigated by increased domestic biomass supply, adjustments of international trade or by revising relevant policies. Even though the results suggest that the price effects will affect the geographical preferences for individual bio-production plants, proximity to the ISI production facility and integration benefits are more important than the proximity to cheaper biomass feedstocks. Product gas production integrated at ISI sites emerges as particularly attractive, while charcoal production exhibits sensitivity to fluctuating markets, both regarding resulting cost for the ISI, and preferred production locations.

This study empirically estimated disaggregate market transaction costs facing single-family house-owners when energy renovating their dwelling. Two types of energy renovations are analysed: heat insulation and energy-saving windows. An analytical framework was developed including an adjustment mechanism for time-biases displayed by households. The decision process was modelling in three steps where households can be either latent, potential or actual clients to an energy renovation project. Data was collected by web-based surveys. The transaction costs are estimated based on time assessment, income levels and monetary expenditures occurring in the decision process. The results suggest that the magnitude of the transaction costs can be an important barrier to energy renovations. For energy-saving windows, transaction costs can constitute more than 50% of the investment cost, and almost 24% for heat insulation. The largest potential reduction in the transaction costs is found in the implementation phase.

Biogas from waste and residues is a renewable transportation fuel, which can contribute directly to the fulfillment of several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In this paper, we address the question of how biogas value chains, and the respective actor networks, emerge at the local level. The purpose of the paper is to empirically assess the development of local biogas transport systems in three Swedish regions, and how policy – including so-called network management – can support this development. The analysis draws on an analytical framework describing how emerging actor networks can be strengthened, and multiple data collection methods (personal interviews, workshop, and secondary sources). The results indicate that four factors explain the success of developing effective local biogas systems: (i) a clear political vision and an adequate basis for decision-making; (ii) a reliance on green public procurement giving priority to biogas vehicles (including follow-up); (iii) integrated actor networks, facilitating knowledge development and sharing of information; and (iv) strategies to deal with an uneven system growth.