The driving force in the natural resin value chain is the demand for derivatives and products in which derivatives are embedded. European natural resin faces global competitors and substitutes that threaten the sustainability of the sector. Its environmental, socio-economic and technological values need to be strategically promoted and differentiated.

Once this need has been detected, the SustForest Plus project has started the action for the development of a European resin guarantee mark as part of the Plan for the promotion of European natural resin as a technological and sustainable product, which the project has marked as another of its actions.

European natural resin

The guarantee marks of origin are instruments perfectly adapted to the objective of 'integrated territorial development' through the value chain, which operate a kind of 'reconversion' of traditional forestry activities, such as the extraction of natural resins, into others of greater added value, linking them to the industrial sector and the end consumer. SustForest Plus aims to develop the basis for the creation of a label that differentiates natural resin from European forests from other products on the market, other extra-EU sources and other substitute products, through an action involving representatives of all the links in the value chain of the European resin sector.

The Strategy for the Sustainable Use of European Natural Resins (ERNE) is conceived as a territorial sectoral strategy that will allow European natural resin producers to act in a coordinated way through a territorial network of joint management to plan, improve and articulate the supply of products in a competitive way vis-à-vis extra-EU sources.

In addition, the strategy will enable the sector's representatives to present their objectives to public decision-makers, and will serve as an instrument to promote the integration of the natural resin sector in regional, national and European policies.

The ENRE strengthens and brings together the European Network of Resin Territories, RETR, where the brand will be of preferential application, contributes to the revaluation of the resin industry and to consolidate the activity of this group of workers, and encourages the promotion of European natural resin as a technological product integrated in the new bioeconomy.