U.S. President Joe Biden responded to the death of dissident Aleksei Navalny with new sanctions that target hundreds of Russian entities and individuals, but these could go further in key areas that are also good for the planet. Timber represents more than half of all remaining U.S. imports of Russian goods: all of Russia’s vast forests are state-owned, and some are even under control of its military. Customs data show the U.S. has imported close to $2 billion of timber from Russian companies since the war began. “The U.S. should immediately bar Russian timber, pulp & paper imports, as the E.U. and U.K. have already done,” a new op-ed argues. We propose a response that would simultaneously teach Putin a clear and painful lesson, and help save the planet from climate change. The U.S. should immediately bar Russian timber, pulp & paper imports, as the E.U. and U.K. have already done.
The Global Wood Summit – to be held in Vancouver BC on October 29-30, 2024 – has released various price options for its international wood and trade conference. The conference partners announced that they have adopted 2016 conference prices to offer better value to participants and to attract a wider audience. The Global Wood Summit will feature key speakers that offer independent views and come from the log and processing industries, domestic and international trade, and other experts in their fields, along with selected strategic consultants and analysts. The objective to is discuss current issues and trends across the key exporting and importing countries to arrive at some consensus about what to expect in terms of business and trade over the next few years. Registration for the two-day conference will open in April along with the programme and the initial list of confirmed speakers.
We are excited to announce that this week marks the release of our China Outlook Report that addresses key softwood and hardwood topics, issues and outlooks. It includes novel analysis not previously conducted and is a timely must-have report. This new report, China Forest, Log & Lumber Report: Supply, Demand & Prices to 2030/2035, shows China will again become a significant growth market for softwoods – especially for lumber. The Chinese hardwood pulp sector will also see substantial growth with important fibre sourcing implications and opportunities. China’s softwood lumber demand peaked in 2019, a level unlikely to be reached for a very long time. Demand will increase slowly, but only by about 20% from 2023 to 2035. China’s hardwood eucalyptus plantation estate has expanded exponentially and based on size is now on par with Brazil. This expansion allows for more domestic supply than many would expect.
EUROPE — Suffering from an adverse macro-economic context, production of pulp and paper in Europe has experienced a decline in 2023. It was due to several compounding external factors: a poor economic environment, destocking and still high energy costs, as shown by the Cepi preliminary 
While many people have an affinity for wood furniture and interior spaces, few of us realize the extent to which wood can tangibly affect our mental health and wellbeing. But according to a scientific study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, this effect is measurable and significant. Fifty volunteers were observed in the wooden waiting room at the National Oncology Institute in Bratislava, Slovakia before and after their stays in the waiting room, via heart rate, respiration activity, and blood pressure. According to the study, the effects of spending time in the wooden waiting room were overwhelmingly positive. “The usage of wooden materials verifies their regenerative and positive impact on the nervous system, through the appealing aesthetics (color, texture, and structures), high contact comfort, pleasant smell, possibility to regulate air humidity, volatile organic compound emissions, and acoustic well-being in the space”.
Thank you for your letter dated 7th November 2024 and the subsequent email exchanges. …We were already in the process of planning a corporate group review when we received your complaint. …We do not consider the complaint to fall in scope of a case that has to be managed according to the procedure for Processing Policy for Association (PfA) Complaints (FSC-PRO-01-009). …FSC will proceed with the corporate group review as planned. We have agreed the terms with Paper Excellence and the contracting of a third-party law firm is at an advanced stage. We expect to see the results within two months and plan to publish a statement about the results thereafter. We cannot share the terms of reference and it will not be possible to have additional observers in the investigation. Nevertheless, we certainly aim to explain the rationale of any decision that may be taken. [see more in 
A report has called on ministers to scrap the huge subsidies and tax breaks given to conifer forests because they do too little to combat the climate crisis. The report from the Royal Society of Edinburgh said the tens of millions of pounds in subsidies given to the timber industry should instead be spent on longer-living native forests, which have greater and clearer climate and biodiversity benefits. It said the Scottish and UK governments are wrong to argue that public subsidies are needed to help plant more, larger conifer forests. These plantations are largely monocultures using a single species that have a relatively short lifespan. Instead, public subsidies should be diverted to planting millions of native broadleaf trees, including in urban areas, which capture and keep more CO2, support more plant and animal species, store more carbon in the soil, and have a far longer lifespan.
FSC is updating its sustainable forestry requirements with three concurrent public consultations. This consultation includes system-wide changes to align with the intention of FSC’s Policy to Address Conversion, the updated FSC Risk Assessment Framework and FSC Regulatory Module. The public consultation for these requirements is open until 1 March 2024 on the Consultation Platform. …FSC Risk Assessments contain 76 indicators for social and environmental protections, going beyond regulatory requirements to ensure material is sourced responsibly. Learn more 
Adidas has committed to Canopy’s CanopyStyle and Pack4Good initiatives and it is hoped the commitment will also help the brand to move to low-carbon and circular Next Gen alternatives for its textiles, paper and paper packaging products. The initiatives are said to be dedicated to eliminating the use of fibre sourced from climate-critical forests in textiles, paper, and paper packaging while promoting the adoption of low-carbon and circular alternatives. …In addition to committing to sustainable sourcing practices, Adidas is also exploring solutions to reduce waste and reliance on virgin forest fibre. This includes using discarded clothing for viscose production and agricultural residues for paper packaging, thereby repurposing waste materials while reducing the pressure on vital forests. Adidas aims to increase the use of recycled materials in its paper packaging and prioritise sourcing from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified forests when virgin forest fibre is necessary.
New independent analysis by Public First, ‘Mind the gap: Exploring Britain’s energy crunch’, commissioned by Drax Group (Drax), reveals that the UK will hit an energy security “crunch point” in 2028. Public First’s research finds that in 2028 a perfect storm of an increase in demand, the retirement of existing assets, and delays to the delivery of Hinkley Point C will culminate in demand exceeding secure dispatchable and baseload capacity by 7.5GW at peak times. This shortfall is more than three times the secure de-rated power that Sizewell C will be capable of providing to the system when completed – 2.5GW – and nearly double the gap in 2022 (4GW). Uncertainty for biomass generators, which contribute over 3GW of secure dispatchable power, risks compounding the shortfall by nearly 50%.
Council and European Parliament negotiators reached a provisional political agreement today on a regulation to establish the first EU-level certification framework for for permanent carbon removals, carbon farming and carbon storage in products . The voluntary framework is intended to facilitate and speed up the deployment of high-quality carbon removal and soil emission reduction activities in the EU. Once entered into force, the regulation will be the first step towards… the EU’s ambitious goal of reaching climate neutrality by 2050. The deal reached today is provisional, pending formal adoption by both institutions. The regulation will cover carbon removal including temporary carbon storage in long-lasting products (such as wood-based construction products) of a duration of at least 35 years and that can be monitored on-site during the entire monitoring period.
