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V-FOREST: turning damaged forest biomass into bio-based cosmetic ingredients

Forests cover about 39% of European land, or equivalent to 160 million hectares. Beyond their traditional roles in biodiversity and soil conservation, they offer also substantial wood biomass feedstock. As the V-FOREST project kicks off in July, it addresses the urgent need for innovative, sustainable and economically viable valorisation processes for damaged and underutilised forest biomass.

Forests as a resource remain largely underutilised due to the increasing prevalence of damaged, low-value, or heterogeneous biomass. This is particularly observed in forests affected by natural disturbances, such as wind, fire and pest outbreaks. These affected woods are mostly either left unused or burned for energy production, providing minimal economic benefit for local operators while also contributing to CO2 emissions.

Following the signature of a grant agreement with Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking, the V-FOREST project will officially begin its four-year duration on 1 July 2026. The consortium will convene for its kick-off meeting in July in Turku, Finland, the home city of the project coordinator, Åbo Akademi University.

V-FOREST addresses the urgent need for innovative, sustainable and economically viable valorisation processes for damaged and underutilised forest biomass. The overarching goal of the project is to develop mobile and decentralised processing pathways that can eventually be operated at or near the biomass source.

To meet its ambitious objective, V-FOREST will combine mild, low-impact pretreatment and fractionation processes with chemical and biological conversion routes. Industrial partners will help translate selected biomass fractions into scalable bio-based ingredient pathways. The fractions obtained will be transformed into bio-based cosmetic ingredients supporting a circular bio-based economy. Additionally, sustainability and biodiversity protection measures will be introduced in the selected forest areas and actively monitored by forest managers.

“Through V-FOREST, we also want to strengthen collaboration between academia, industry and forest stakeholders to ensure that scientific innovations can be translated into practical and scalable solutions with real societal impact”, said Professor Chunlin Xu, consortium leader from Åbo Akademi University.

In the coming months, V-FOREST will begin establishing the project’s management system, communication channels, and feedstock supply. Stay tuned for the launch of our project website and social media accounts.

The V-FOREST team

The V-FOREST project consortium is a small yet ambitious team covering key players across the entire forest valorisation value chain. The project includes seven organisations from six European countries: Åbo Akademi University (Finland), CO2DRY BV and Vertoro BV (the Netherlands), Instituto Tecnologico Del Embalaje, Transporte Y Logistica (Spain), Ecomaat OOD (Bulgaria), Regia Nationala A Padurilor Romsilva Ra and the associated Cheile Bicazului-Hasmas National Park (Romania), as well as Strateco OG (Austria).

The project consortium has been awarded 3.2 million € through the HORIZON-JU-CBE-2025-RIA-01 funding call, aiming for valorisation of untapped forest biomass.

Curious for more information? Contact us!
Project Coordinator
Åbo Akademi University
V-FOREST@abo.fi

Dissemination 
CO2DRY BV
V-FOREST@CO2Dry.com 

The project is supported by the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking and its members. Funded by the European Union under grant agreement No. 101290488.

Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE-JU). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them