Abstract
Bioenergy is an important renewable energy source in the UK, but the wood fuel sector is characterised by low growth and deployment levels compared to other countries. The sector is also described as emerging with a slowly growing demand, complex, fragmented and under-developed supply chains within a changing and uncertain environment. Further socioeconomic factors were identified as critical for its sustainable development, however previous studies assessed these factors using quantitative methods which are limited in assessing pertinent contextual factors such as institutional/regulatory governance, supply chain structure and governance, capital resource availability and actor decisions. Therefore, the aim of this research is to determine factors and strategies for the growth and resilience of the UK wood fuel sector with objectives to determine the structure and institutional context of its supply chains and assess the role of these under-explored contextual factors. To achieve this, a new analytical framework: The Resilience and Livelihoods in Supply Chains (RELISC) framework was designed, linking Value Chain Analysis, the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach and a supply chain resilience framework and then applied to three typical wood-fuel supply chains as case studies, based on a constructivist paradigm that engages with actor perceptions and experiences. The RELISC framework first revealed that policy assumptions underpinning the sector were uncertain. It also identified a range of different supply chain structures and institutional contexts. Further, it demonstrated the role of institutional and internal governance patterns in specific action spaces and processes and the influence of capital resources on supply chain governance as well as the impact of actor attitudes and actions on uptake levels and supply chain development. Finally, it showed how socioeconomic benefits and supply chain resilience can be derived from factors such as access to resources, actor decisions, internal governance patterns, compliance to external governance, effective organisational practices as well as employing supply chain resilience strategies that can be applied to other emerging sectors.