Building Climate Smart Forest Economies through holistic Value Chain Alliances: Learning from East Africa

Abstract

Using its existing East African biobased construction value chain alliance (VCA) as a case study, the Climate Smart Forest Economy Program (CSFEP) will discuss VCAs as a mechanism to build climate smart forest economies (CSFEs). CSFEs link forests and cities within regions to form a single, connected biobased construction value chain that maximizes climate and social benefits. Across the value chain, CSFEs maximize the sink benefits of the forests, the carbon stored in wood products, and the fossil-carbon substitution of materials in the built environment. Along the way, safeguards reduce social and environmental risks and maximize co-benefits. Within regions, CSFEP builds CSFEs through value chain alliances: voluntary collaborations of diverse actors (forest managers, sawmill owners; architects; construction firms; financiers; and policy makers, among others) who commit to coordinating value-adding activities that enhance sink, storage, and substitution in forests, forest products, and buildings. VCAs collectively achieve goals that can’t be accomplished by individual businesses, including: - Collaboratively developing local solutions for local problems rather than importing one-size-fits-all solutions. - Growing biobased construction systems in a balanced, coordinated, climate-smart manner—for example, ensuring demand doesn’t grow faster than supply. - Ensuring local landscape repair and biodiversity replenishment; the growth of small, local businesses; and the accumulation of benefits to local communities. - Collectively advocating for enablers, such as policy and finance support. Attendees will learn why CSFEP built a VCA in East Africa; hear about successes, challenges and future goals; and be able to apply learning from the session to their region.