Resource

Tool for Sustainability Impact Assessment (ToSIA)

Author/Contact:

European Forest Institute
tosia@efi.int
Diana Tuomasjukka: Diana.Tuomasjukka@efi.int
Marcus Lindner: Marcus.Lindner@efi.int

Publication date:

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Resource description:

ToSIA is a decision support tool that was originally developed for the forestry sector, which analyses sustainability impacts of Forest-Wood-Chains (FWCs) and value chains related to resource use. Value chains are chains of production processes that are linked with products. ToSIA compares alternative process chains by using scenarios to analyse the sustainability effects of changes due to deliberate actions (e.g. in policies or business activities) or due to external forces (e.g. climate change, global markets). Impacts are assessed by calculating changes in material flows and indicators of environmental, economic and social sustainability within each forest value chain.

Requirements:

  • Users need to determine spatial, temporal and technical system boundary definitions to specify the location, structure, content, and degree of detail of the studied FWC.
  • Users also need to identify the question of interest (i.e. baseline and at least one scenario) and describe the value chains, consisting of processes linked by products.
  • Technical requirements are a computer with administrator installation rights, stable internet connection and the latest Java version.

Advantages:

  • ToSIA provides a framework for analysing how new policies, changes in market conditions, management decisions or new technologies will affect the sustainability of entire value chains.
  • It uses a data-driven approach that enables application of the best available knowledge in the assessment, combining statistical data with outputs of well-tested simulation models and expert assessments.
  • ToSIA can be applied for any sector as long as alternative process chains can be described, material flows followed and indicators calculated. It is a user-defined tool as all data is provided by the user.

Constraints:

  • Due to its data-driven approach, the reliability of the sustainability assessment depends both on the reliability of the single values, as well as on the completeness of the data for the whole chain. Missing data for part of the value chain can obscure th
  • Human capacity and data availability are limiting factors. For example, currently there is no automatic indicator validation, geo-reference or similar so all connections to a map or geographic data need to be done 'by hand'.

Partners:

http://tosia.efi.int/tmug.html

Additional information:

To gain full access to ToSIA interested users need to join TMUG. TMUG is the ToSIA Management and User Group. Any organisation interested in using and maybe even further improving ToSIA for its further use, dissemination and development is welcome. For more details see contact details below.

Lindner, M., Werhahn-Mees, W., Suominen, T., Votter, D., Pekkanen, M., Zudin, S., Roubalova, M., Kneblik, P., Bruchert,F., Valinger,E., Guinard, L., Pizzirani, S., Paivinen, R.(2012). Conducting sustainability impact assessments of forestry-wood chains - examples of ToSIA applications. European Journal of Forest Research, 131(1), 21-34. doi:10.1007/s10342-011-0483-7.

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http://tosia.efi.int/forest-wood-chains.html

 

Licence:

  • Commercial

Development stage:

  • Full, working product