Browsing by Author "Tolmatsova, Anastasia"

The role of wood-based bioenergy has improved over the past few years after the European Union’s climate and energy directive came into effect. The main aim of the policy is to substitute fossil fuel with biofuels aim-ing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase energy security and support the development of rural com-munities. To achieve this aim it is necessary to pursue more efficient energy use in living, construction and transport. Most of the EU countries have undertaken to participate in these actions by increasing the use of renewable energy such as wood-based bioenergy. Currently, wood-based bioenergy is highly supported with subsidies and other political decisions that act as the main market driver. Furthermore, the increasing prices of fossil fuels create favorable conditions for future bioenergy market developments. Nevertheless, the role of bioenergy is growing even though the market has its own challenges due to fluctuating forest industry cycles. To better understand the wood-based bioenergy market and its current situation, this Master’s thesis has ga-thered up-to-date information on three different market areas which will assist in finding potential delivery destinations within the Baltic Sea area for wood-based bioenergy produced in the Leningrad region. In addi-tion, this thesis introduces, on a broad scale, the central concepts of wood-based bioenergy and discusses the political drivers affecting bioenergy markets. The theoretical framework is mainly based on the Information Environment Model by Juslin and Hansen (2002), an instrument for investigating the bioenergy market from both macro and micro environment aspects, and on the Relationship Commitment and Trust theory by Morgan and Hunt (1994), which examines how relationships between buyers and sellers are established and discusses the role of two variables - trust and commitment. Both models were applied when collecting both the primary data from bioenergy customers through interviews and the secondary data from research articles, publications and Internet sources. The study also includes a discussion part as well as development proposals related to future customer relationship man-agement. Wood-based bioenergy is an important energy source fighting against climate change. However, to fulfill the targets set by the European Union and country-specific politics there is still a need for more opera-tors working in bioenergy field. Based on the results, it is necessary to support good communication, coopera-tion and trust between raw-material buyers and sellers in order to achieve functional raw-material exchange circumstances. The study is conducted as a qualitative research project.