- Wyss Academy
Regional value chains – forest and wood
BERN HUB | Project AWN-2
Our goal:
Our aim is to help improving regional forest- and wood-related value chains, taking into account the ecologically and socially relevant ecosystem services provided by the forest.
In a nutshell:
The regions of Oberland East and Emmental are both characterized by a high proportion of forest, but differ in terms of ownership structure and the proportion of forest serving as protection. In these two pilot regions, the aim is to improve regional forest- and wood-related value creation together with local decision-makers from the forestry and timber sectors as well as policymaking and wider society. In collaboration with these actors, ideas and solutions will be developed as to how renewable wood resources can be used sustainably in a regional circular economy, and how the societal transformation process needed for this can be set in motion.
At the same time, a research project has been launched to study transformative small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the wood-processing sector. Drawing on the case study regions of the canton of Bern and Austria’s Voralberg, the project is investigating the extent to which such SMEs can steer development of the entire sector in the direction of sustainable business practices, and the corresponding strategies they pursue. Through targeted information and knowledge exchange, relevant research results will flow into a practice-oriented project on wood- and forest-related value creation.
In 2020, the first supra-regional workshop with broad stakeholder participation was held and initial ideas for possible solutions were discussed. The resulting industry survey enabled a prioritization of ideas. In the near future, funding partnerships will be established and the first incubator projects will be launched in the two regions of Oberland East and Emmental.
In collaboration with:
Amt für Wald und Naturgefahren des Kantons Bern AWN (Office for Forestry and Natural Hazards of the Canton of Bern)