Slovenia

IDWOOD aims to promote and foster innovation and competitiveness of SMEs in the wood sector in the SEE area by sharing and transferring technical and organizational know-how to enable local support organizations to address structural deficits of SMEs and enhance innovation potentials.

Inclusion of both, stakeholders and policy makers, is of great importance and beneficial for both. Stakeholders are given the opportunity to strengthen their organizational and technical capacities, to develop new functions, to participate to working groups and to be actively involved in networking activities. Policy makers receive guidelines and advice on support policies to foster sector’s development.

Results of the project are improved capacities of support organisations; transnational cooperation between support organisations, knowledge poles and productive sector; increased information flow towards SMEs; innovation, design and knowledge transferred to SMEs; sustainability of the transnational network/support system and SMEs cooperation after project end; increased knowledge of market opportunities.

Wood of exceptional quality of various tree species can be sold at the timber auction. First, trees that have high quality timber and are suitable for felling need to be identified with the help of local forester. After the delivery of logs to the place of auction about one month before the event, potential purchasers have 14 days to give offers for the selected timbers. The timbers are then sold to best tenderer. On the day of the open door, the public can view the logs and the prices reached. High quality logs can be sold to purchasers who will offer a slightly higher price than other wood. However, higher profit may be achieved at auction of timber. Purchasers are looking for timber of precisely defined quality and are willing to pay more. It is possible to reach very high prices at the auction and that can be a motivation for forest owners to invest more interest, time and work in their forests. In the year 2018, 3094 logs were offered by 447 owners, 993 offers were submitted. 90% of logs were sold for over 857.000 € to purchasers from Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Croatia. The highest price reached at the auction was 11.833 €/m3 for ribbed Acer pseudoplatanus.

Action plan “Wood is beautiful” is an operational document for increasing the competitiveness of the entire forest-wood value chain. The document defines wood as a strategic raw material of Slovenia, which has a lot of unexploited potential. The action plan sets out the objectives, measures, indicators and deadlines for intensifying forest management and for the revitalization and development of wood processing and the energy use of its residues. Due to the interdependence between all individual areas, all the measures foreseen should be implemented. This way the document can contribute to the competitiveness of the entire forest-wood chain, job creation and high added value in the Slovenian wood processing industry. Key objectives of the action plan are to create a market for timber products and services, to increase forest management and conservation in line with forest management plans, to increase the amount and processing of timber at higher levels of difficulty with new technologies, to create new jobs and growth in added value per employee in the wood processing industry. The action plan again places Slovene wood processing industry among strategically important and promising industries with a sufficient amount of domestic raw material.

Forest owner association (FOA) Pohorje-Kozjak is voluntary, non-profit and independent association of private forest owners established in 2007. Main aim of FOA is to increase the sustainable management of private forests and strengthen the economic power of forest owners in accordance with the law. Main tasks of FOA are education of forest owners, consultancy on management and sale of wood, assistance in applying for calls and giving comments on legislation. In the year 2012, a forest owners cooperative (FOC) was set up in order to expand their activities to the rave of business integration.

FOC Kozjak-Pohorje is an example of good practice expansion from the societal activities to the level of business cooperation in a forest cooperative. The comparative study reveals, that members of FOC are on average younger, they have larger forest properties and are better educated than members of the FOA. Also, the interests of members in FOC and FOA are different;  socio-educational reasons are the main driving force in case of FOC, while among FOA members interests are predominantly economic in nature.

The purpose of FOC is primarily a common appearance on the market, which in turn accelerates the economic benefits of its members and increases the competitiveness of forest owners on the market. On the long term, the plan is to increase the purchase quantity of wood and conclude long-term contracts with sawmills. The FOC also established a logistic center for supplying the residents with heat, produced from woody biomass. The next planned step is the investment in boiler rooms, establishment of social enterprise and sale of heat to final consumers. In addition, members of the FOC carry out logging and harvesting activities for forest owners and state forests. In the period from its foundation to date, the operation of the cooperative is stable and positive.

The significant increase in the number of forestry contractors in last few years has been increasing competition, however at the same time requires a reflection on the objective quality of contractors. In sustainable management of forests, the criterion for the selection of contractor should not be only the lowest service price, but it should include also environmental, social and business aspects of the relationship between the client and the contractor. Platform MojGozdar (MyForester) enables the integration of all stakeholders in the forest-wood value chain, including providers of forestry services, users of services (forest owners, forest managers) and administrators of basic data bases about business entities. It is a transparent and objective web-based information system for assessing the suitability of contractors, who perform work in the forest. The methodology for evaluating is consisted of an automatic assessment of the formal suitability of the forestry contractors and direct evaluation of the service by consumers.

Detailed description is available at http://www.crojfe.com/site/assets/files/4529/triplat_77-90.pdf