Forest2Energy Lab

Objective 
Our community faces an urgent challenge: managing the wood waste generated from tree cutting and arboriculture. The local municipal enterprise, Dibrova, manages 687 hectares of forest, where thousands of tons of branches and wood residues accumulate every year, simply rotting and polluting the environment. We see an opportunity to turn this waste into a resource by producing pellets for heating and local use.        

Additional framing 
We aim to present this initiative as a circular peri‑urban linkage: rural forest management provides resources, while urban and social infrastructure (social housing, schools, municipal facilities) directly benefits from reduced heating costs and improved energy sovereignty.

Partners we are looking for 
1. Cities piloting energy transition strategies 
2. Cities with strong public engagement in recycling practices 
3. Cities committed to advancing biomass recycling

Expected results  
1. Established local energy governance with functioning community energy models
2. Development of a municipal circular economy strategy  

3. Creation of a pilot model for wood waste management (pellet production) 

4. Active energy communities with behavioural change in everyday energy practices    
5. Tangible small‑scale actions tested within the network (e.g., “Pellet Pick‑up Point” or “Community Bio‑fuel Cooperative”)

What we offer  
We are ready to share our community's experience in forestry and municipal management. We propose a win‑win cooperation: our community becomes a laboratory for adapting European solutions to a rural context, while our partners gain a real‑world case that can be scaled in their own municipalities. This opens the door to further grants that finance infrastructure and makes our contribution to Europe's transition to a circular economy tangible and practical.