Increasing supply for woody biomass-based energy through wasted resources: Insights from the US private landowners

Preventing climate change from reaching the tipping point requires the reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Woody biomass is suggested as a substitute for fossil fuels to achieve sustainable development. Transitioning the land purpose entails investment and a tradeoff between wood pellet production and the current utilities created by the land, hindering the private landowners’ willingness. The current study suggests that utilizing the woody leftover on the land can potentially increase the woody biomass supply. Employing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 707 private landowners in the United States (US), we aimed to identify the characteristics of woody-resource-wasting landowners and examine how to increase their likelihood to contribute to woody biomass-based energy. We discovered that landowners being male, having higher income, and being a member of a state/national forestry organization are more likely to waste woody resources. Moreover, woody-resource-wasting landowners perceiving woody biomass-based energy as a substitution for fossil fuel are likelier to sell wood, while those perceiving environmental costs over benefits of woody biomass-based energy are less likely to sell. These findings can be used as insights for policymakers, logging companies, and state agencies to find an additional supply of woody biomass-based energy from landowners likely to waste woody resources.