The PECT "The forest, the first resource of the green economy", through its operations, addresses most of the challenges of the forestry sector identified, as evidenced by the strategic objectives of the PECT and the specific objectives of the operations and their actions .
Developing advanced planning tools, optimizing forest harvesting on land that is difficult to access through innovative mechanization methods, promoting product and process innovations, as in the case of laminated wood, to give added value to the country's wood, or the The establishment of cascading lignocellulosic biorefineries to give way to the advanced chemical industry of a resource that is clearly undervalued today, such as forest biomass, or connecting research centers such as the UdL, CTFC or INCAFUST with companies, means facing up to the challenges following:
- Catalan wood is not very competitive in costs
Abundant carpenter resource, but non-competitive exploitation. Not all forest management plans are eventually implemented, and little investment is made in improving and managing forests relative to total forest area. Therefore wood arrives from other places in Catalonia.
- Difficulty exploiting the forest resource
Some private owners dissociate themselves from logging on their farms. In addition, factors such as difficult access to certain areas make the extraction of wood more expensive.
- Diverse forest resource - existence of a large number of species
Greater complexity in forest management due to the diversity of species that hinders the consolidation of activities or businesses specialized in the use of a certain species.
- Quality Catalan wood for low added value applications
In Catalonia there are few products that require quality wood. Therefore, a lot of quality Catalan wood ends up being used for products with less added value.
- Low entrepreneurial profile of the forestry sector
Currently there are not too many entrepreneurship in the sector nor too many new industrial projects underway. The prospects for investments to boost existing businesses are slim.
- Agents of innovation in forestry and wood transformation
Competitive environment with different institutions that can contribute research and innovation both in the forestry field and in the transformation of wood (CTFC, INCAFUST, Universities), but little related to innovation in the business world.
- There is no strong first transformation industry
The industry of the first transformation is weakened by the difficulty of accessing the local forest resource and because it is integrated by many small companies that work very low volumes of wood without benefits of economies of scale.
- Disappearance of reference companies.
In recent years, reference companies have disappeared in the wood processing sector, as is the case of TRADEMA, which has affected the entire sector as it was the recipient of by-products from other companies.
- There are second transformation businesses that do not use local wood
In some cases, there are businesses that not only do not use Catalan wood in their production processes, but also do not have this option so that the chain is broken as there are no first-transformation activities at the local level (eg Ind. Paper, furniture. ..).
- Second transformation of low added value wood
As a result of the fall of the construction sector, the wood -also the highest quality- is mainly destined to the manufacture of other products that do not require such high quality wood (pallets, wooden boxes, chips, ...).
- Certain integration / diversification of companies towards other businesses
In particular, there is a clear orientation of companies towards the biomass business for heat generation. Forest resources and recoverable by-products are available that are facilitating the development of this sector.
- Potential of some businesses around new trends
New trends in which wood can play a leading role, such as energy efficiency and "passive houses" (structural and construction), green purchasing (certified pallets), the use of renewable energy (hairlets and chips), or the most innovative interior and exterior space design (custom carpentry).