Carbon budgets and climate footprints: the case of the Swedish forest-based economy

This study develops a novel, national-accounts-consistent framework that couples monetary and physical supply-use with input–output tables and multiregional input–output analysis to track biogenic carbon and fossil GHGs in Sweden’s forest-based economy. It yields integrated production- and consumption-based balances that reconcile forest carbon stock change with wood-based products stocks and supply-chain fossil GHG emissions. Sweden’s forest-based economy achieved average net emission removal of 92 Mt CO2e yr−1 from 2008 to 2021, though with a declining trend. The forest carbon sink weakened by 25 Mt CO2e, partly offset by increased storage in wood products, 8 Mt CO2e from domestic harvest and 3 Mt CO2e from imports, while wood energy use remained stable at 40 Mt CO2e yr−1. On average, 54% of net carbon storage occurred in forests and 46% in downstream economic activities, with a shift toward the latter over time. Augmenting national accounts with physical and international trade flows delivers a transparent, system-wide accounting of biogenic and fossil GHG emissions across complex supply chains that supports policy on bioeconomy performance and climate footprints, transferable to other countries and impact categories.