Sustainable Wood for a Sustainable World

Objective

Sustainable wood is a renewable material which if responsibly sourced can contribute to a resilient planet, reduce deforestation and ecosystem degradation, while providing for livelihoods, including those of indigenous peoples and traditional communities. Building on the lessons learned from the first four years of the Sustainable Wood for Sustainable World (SW4SW) initiative, this webinar will present and exchange information on innovative initiatives focusing on making cities more sustainable through the increased use of wood in construction. The presentations of invited speakers will provide participants with an opportunity to have an informed discussion about the contributions from forests to sustainable cities and livelihoods, preparation at national level to scale up sustainable wood in the construction sector, and the role of innovations connecting sustainable wood with construction value chains in developing countries.

Agenda and speakers

Welcome and Opening remarks by Mr Gijs Breukink,
Senior Advisor Responsible Forestry, Forests for Life Programme, World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
Presentations (15 minutes each speaker):

• The Sustainable Wood for Cities platform and the Partner Forest Program for European Cities, by Mr Scott Francisco, Founder and Director at Pilot Projects Design Collective, Director at Cities4Forests
• The state of the art of wood and the future of sustainable construction in Argentina, Mr Diego Pezzano, Architect, National Directorate for Industrial Forestry Development, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of Argentina.
• Innovation in the construction value chains for the use of wood in developing countries and greener cities, by Dr. Henrik Heräjärvi, Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke Institute).

Interactive Q&A session moderate by Mr Gijs Breukink, Senior Advisor Responsible Forestry, Forests for Life Programme, WWF.

Closing remarks by Ms Thaís Linhares-Juvenal, Senior Forestry Officer, Forest Governance and Economics, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Background

The Sustainable Wood for a Sustainable World (SW4SW) is a joint initiative of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) launched in May 2018 at the UNFF13, as an outcome of the SW4SW global meeting held in Rome in 2017. The initiative gathers five CPF organizations, namely the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the World Bank, and one global civil non-governmental organization, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The initiative focuses on increasing the sustainability of wood value chains and is based on a framework designed according to their most relevant contributions to the SDGs. Specifically, the SW4SW work with national, regional and global actors to improve the organization of wood value chains, increasing their environmental integrity, generating higher value-added, jobs and the supply of sustainable low carbon products. Its underlying assumption is that sustainable forest management and forest products are undervalued, constraining sustainable forestry attractiveness, limiting forest capacity to contribute to a more resilient planet, and exposing forests and their stakeholders to severe pressure for land-use change.

Some of the SW4SW activities and reports (2017-2020) can be found on the SW4SW website.

Contact
Sustainable-Wood@fao.org

Source: FAO