While many countries around the world are advancing their efforts to transition to more sustainable economies, it is important to be aware of goal conflicts that can be induced by these transition processes. In this paper we focus on land use, especially forest clearances to provide space for transitions in other sectors. The key questions for our empirical case study in Switzerland are: 1) to what extent forests are being cleared to advance sustainability transitions in other sectors and 2) whether pressure on forest area is higher in the Central Plateau than in other parts of the country. We build a conceptual framework based on existing literature that allows us to identify overlaps and differences between three sustainable economy transition concepts (i.e. green, bio- and circular economy) and apply the framework to our data on forest clearances. Our analysis is the first empirical assessment of the Swiss national forest clearances database. In this paper, we included the records of all forest clearances in Switzerland from 2001 to 2017.

The analysis revealed that overall, 14.5% of the clearances in the database are attributable to the sustainable economy classes defined by our framework. ‘Transportation’, ‘energy and lines’, and ‘waste disposal and recycling’ are the three clearance categories that harbor most sustainable economy related clearances. Inspecting the data over time, we identified a trend towards more green economy related clearance reasons in the Plateau and in the Alps. Related to our second question, the data analyses revealed that the pressure, measured as absolute clearance area (definitive and temporary) as well as clearance area relative to the regions' forest area, is higher in the Plateau than in other regions. It was not possible to identify a trend in terms of clearance area over time. Our results should enable future discussions of forest clearances to be more nuanced, especially to take into account regional contributions to the sustainable economy transition.

尽管世界上许多国家都在努力向更可持续的经济转型，但重要的是要意识到由这些转型过程可能引起的目标冲突。在本文中，我们着眼于土地利用，尤其是森林砍伐，为其他部门的过渡提供了空间。我们在瑞士进行的经验案例研究的关键问题是：1）砍伐森林的程度以促进其他部门的可持续性转型； 2）中部高原对森林面积的压力是否大于该国其他地区。我们会根据现有文献建立一个概念框架，使我们能够确定三种可持续经济转型概念（即绿色，生物和循环经济），并将该框架应用于我们的森林砍伐数据。我们的分析是瑞士国家森林砍伐数据库的首次实证评估。在本文中，我们包括了2001年至2017年瑞士所有森林砍伐的记录。

分析显示，总体而言，数据库中14.5％的许可归因于我们框架定义的可持续经济类别。“运输”，“能源和管道”以及“废物处理和回收”是三个清关类别，其中包含与可持续发展有关的大多数清关。通过检查数据，我们发现在高原和阿尔卑斯山，与绿色经济相关的清算原因越来越趋于趋势。与我们的第二个问题有关，数据分析表明，以绝对净空面积（确定的和暂时的）以及相对于该地区森林面积的净空面积衡量的压力在高原地区高于其他地区。无法确定清除面积随时间的变化趋势。