ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the forest-products industry locally and globally, including the availability of raw materials, supply chain, production, and product sales. Therefore, it was essential to study the effect of COVID-19 in Central and Southeast European countries, including Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the forest-products industry plays a vital global role. An international group of wood scientists developed and implemented the web-based questionnaire that consisted of four parts: demographic questions, production changes, COVID data gathering, governmental response to COVID-19, and lessons learned. Participants were mainly from furniture production, joinery, and wood processing. Results indicate that more than 80% of respondents reported negative changes. The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously affected the supply chain, and the most significant changes were in the availability of solid wood (23%) and engineered wood products (21%). Among the most critical issues were increased prices of all materials, increased transportation costs, extended delivery times, limited quantities for all materials, and total disruption of supply chains.
ABSTRACT
As the world intensifies efforts to mitigate the effect of global climate change, an on-line survey was carried out involving 1,081 wood products and furniture manufacturers in Malaysia. The main objective was to evaluate the level of awareness, extent of adoption, and challenges faced by these manufacturers in adopting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices. The survey found that large-sized companies were more receptive to adopting ESG practices, as opposed to the medium-, small-, and micro-sized companies. Respondents were apparently more responsive to environmental requirements, followed by governance, and finally the social factors. Within the environmental sphere, compliance with using certified and legal wood and wood products, waste management, and conformance to emission standards were well received among respondents. The survey revealed that market forces and legislative requirements were the two most important factors that enticed respondents to comply with the ESG practices;among those respondents who did not comply with ESG requirements, the primary deterrent factors include lack of awareness, no direct benefit from adopting ESG, and the high cost involved. The ESG compliance may transform the wood products and furniture industries into a more sustainable industry, offering equitable wages and green jobs while producing high value-added products.
ABSTRACT
This article presents compliance courses made by the International Wood Products Association (IWPA) for the Lacey Act and other laws affecting the wood-products industry. The training encourages importers to work closely with suppliers to ensure they have access to the information needed to understand the rules and conduct robust due diligence. The course was crafted in the hope that it would help develop an industry-wide class of wood trade compliance professionals. The initial compliance and due-diligence course in 2016 was extremely well-received, it led to a series of more advanced courses, comprising, "Advanced Wood Trade Compliance", "Audits for the Wood Trade Professional", "Wood Products Supply Chain Mapping Basics", and "Formaldehyde Emissions Regulations for the Wood Trade Professional". IWPA has conducted briefings and training for suppliers worldwide, partnering with organizations, such as the International Tropical Timber Technical Association, the Global Timber Forum, the Malaysia Timber Council, and several Chinese industry associations. The global COVID-19 pandemic has led IWPA to re-examine how stakeholders access its wood-trade compliance training courses. In the due-diligence space, travel restrictions are requiring that wood-product importers re-evaluate their due-diligence procedures to ensure they continue to meet the requirements of the Lacey Act and other relevant laws and regulations. IWPA will continue to update its courses to reflect the new reality. In particular, and for the first time, it will offer courses virtually and via IWPA's e-learning platform in the second half of 2020.
ABSTRACT
The main objective of the survey was to assess the current situation in the sawmill industry in Slovenia (i.e., the number of sawmills, the amount of wood cut, the use of residues and the impact of the covid-19 pandemic). Prior to the 2019 survey, a list of 1,128 enterprises was compiled from various databases that registered C16 (wood processing) as their main or secondary activity. Completed questionnaires were provided by 588 companies, 328 of which are involved in the sawmilling activities. The total volume of the sawn roundwood recorded in 2019 was 1.71 million m3, with conifers predominating at 84%. The sawmills that participated in the survey produced 633,894 m3 of sawn timber products, 237,389 tons of sawdust and 252,655 m3 of bulky residues. In addition, 63% of participating companies were affected by the covid-19 epidemic during the first wave between March and May 2020.
ABSTRACT
A considerable amount of construction and demolition wood waste (CDWW) is generated, mostly landfilled, contributing to severe environmental effects. The management of CDWW is a significant challenge as it is a hazardous contaminated waste. In this context, the circular economy (CE) concept is a solution as it comprises waste minimisation and efficient recovery of resources. Although much research is found in the literature on CDWW end-of-life management, research on CE implementation considering every life cycle stage is still scarce. In this review, we endeavour to integrate CE in CDWW to identify the waste management strategies involved in the life cycle phases. The databases were searched from 2009 to 2020 and were analysed using CiteSpace version 5.7.R1 software. Forty-nine articles were identified, and the six life cycle stages were explored. The analysis shows that CE for wood waste is essential and has greater growth potential. While the LCA studies are limited to environmental viewpoints, combining economic and social perspectives is necessary for sustainable development. Overall, based on the research findings, a theoretical framework was proposed. This study, as a consequence, promotes the application of recycled wood into multiple valuable products and thus encourages waste management to boost CE and sustainability.
ABSTRACT
The Association of Wooden Housing Construction notes an increase of up to 15% in the number of requests for the construction of wooden houses and associates it with the unstable economic situation and the coronavirus epidemic. The share of wooden housing construction in the total volume of commissioning of low-rise buildings increased from 34% in 2018 to 37% in 2019, and the share of low-rise housing construction in the total volume of housing construction in 2019 increased by 5% and amounted to 49.1%. According to experts, today the timber housing industry is ready for increased demand and, if necessary, can increase production capacity by another 40-50% in the shortest possible time.
ABSTRACT
This paper describes the impact of COVID-19 on the tropical timber sector. An ITTO survey of stakeholders shows that the measures are having devastating impacts on the tropical timber sector. Correspondents in Brazil, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Viet Nam were asked in April to use their networks to seek answers to questions on the impacts of the pandemic. Highlights of the responses are: (1) unemployment;(2) economic decline;(3) low output production in the forestry and timber sector;and (4) financial losses in timber sector.
ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on the path of China’s participation in global value chain reconstruction and concludes three ways to reconstruct the global value chain: embedding in the global value chain, reconstructing the national value chain, and leading the regional value chain. Based on the value-added accounting system and the latest statistics of the TiVA database, we construct an index system for the path selection of global value chain reconstruction and put forward a more suitable path for different manufacturing industries in China. According to the VRCA index and ranking of each type of manufacturing industry, our study concludes that: transportation equipment manufacturing tends to embed in global value chains;textiles, clothing, leather, and related manufacturing;wood products, paper products, and printing;chemical and non-metallic mineral products;base metals and metal products;computer, electronic, and electrical equipment manufacturing;machinery and equipment manufacturing;and other manufacturing industries tend to dominate the regional value chains;and food and beverage manufacturing and tobacco industries tend to restructure national value chains. Finally, our paper gives suggestions and prospects for path upgrading;promoting the integrated development of e-commerce and the manufacturing industry can enhance the competitive advantages of China’s manufacturing industry and achieve path upgrading and optimization. Furthermore, the two-way nesting of the “Belt and Road” regional value chain and global value chain can help China’s manufacturing industry eliminate the dilemma of low-end lock-in and upgrade from the original low-end dependent embedding mode to the middle high-end hub embedding mode.
ABSTRACT
The world’s forest area decreased to three point nine billion hectares in 2015, a net annual loss of 3.3 million hectares, and large-scale deforestation is occurring in the tropics. Furthermore, greenhouse gas emissions are increasing as forests are converted to other uses such as agricultural land. Against this backdrop, sustainable forest management is becoming increasingly important. This study attempts to quantify people’s general awareness and values concerning for on-line shopping habits (in this study, for wooden furniture) in terms of sustainable forest management in Japan by estimating the acceptable price premium or willingness of consumers to pay for wood-related products made using wood produced under sustainable forest management as the raw material. The study proceeds to quantify the awareness and values of consumers concerning sustainable forest management and conservation of forest environments. Consumers were found to have a certain willingness to pay for wooden furniture made from wood produced through sustainable forest management. As a consequence of this analysis, it was revealed that consumers place a high value on sustainable forest management and environmental conservation, and that they are willing to act on these values when purchasing wood-related products.
ABSTRACT
This article presents a compilation of updates regarding the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic to the global timber industry, from manufacturing to international trade. The article cites the state of some countries regarding the current crisis, such as the hit on China's manufacturing due to slow export demand, US tropical hardwood imports dropping, hold in European timber imports, India's manufacturing shutdown, and the sharp drop on Japan's wooden door imports, among other things. Other subsequent effects on the timber crisis were cited as well, such as drops in housing sales, employee layoffs, temporary business suspension, and others. The consensus among analysts is that the global trade of wood products will be curtailed until at least mid-2021. The most severe declines are expected in the second and third quarters of 2020, with effects through to the first quarter of 2021, followed possibly by a slow recovery that could take as long as 2 years.
ABSTRACT
Community wellbeing is dependent on agroforestry, which provides social, economic, health and ecological benefits for man, and has proved essential in the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper purposely examines the effect of agroforestry on community wellbeing with a focus on the benefits of tree-crop interactions on community's wellbeing, and limitations to adoption of tree-crop interactions in Kyanamukaaka Sub County. The paper employs a cross-sectional survey design using qualitative data collection approaches. The paper targets 35 farmers from which 32 practicing in tree-crop interactions were determined by Krejcie and Morgan sample size determination table. Respondents were purposely selected and participated in the study. Data was collected through interview, observation and documentary review. Later, it was organized, transcribed and triangulated to develop themes for interpretation, analysis and discussion. Results indicate that tree-crop interactions offer socioeconomic [food (96.9%), local herbs (100%), fodder (52.6%), raw material (62.5%), firewood and income (90.6%), employment (37.5%) and ecological (conserves soil fertility and moisture conservation (50%)), controls soil erosion runoff (59.4%), protect soil health (28.1%) and act as habitats organisms (34.4%)] benefits. Furthermore, other themes included;climate change (84.4%), land size and ownership (90.6%), inadequate competences (50%) anthropocentrism (56.2%), poor quality and high costs of farm inputs (96.9%) and diseases (93.7%) as limitations to adoption of tree-crop interactions. The paper concludes that tree-crop interactions were of benefit to the community. However, observations show that some households had no trees while the others cut trees unsustainably on their farmlands. Therefore, to increase adoption of tree-crop interactions and diversity, Kyannamukaaka Sub County and Masaka District should create awareness and build farmers' capacity in climate change resilience, underground forestry management, tree growing and energy efficient technologies.
ABSTRACT
Despite contributing almost RM 20 billion (USD 4.9 billion) in exports earnings annually, the public perception of the wood products industry in Malaysia remains unknown. Therefore, this study attempted to assess public perceptions about the industry in Malaysia among the public, including teenagers, based on 3,010 reliably answered questionnaire-surveys. Generally, the public perceived the wood products industry to be a low-wage economy, labor-intensive, predominated by foreign contract workers, and unsustainable in the long-term. In essence, the public appear to have stronger negative images of the industry compared to the positive images. The main drivers for such negative perceptions, identified through the factor analysis, were the prevailing business environment in the industry and its workforce characteristics. Consequently, teenagers and school-leavers tend to be less interested in pursuing a career in the industry, let alone pursuing further studies in the wood-related fields. The main reasons cited for this were the limited career growth opportunity due to the predomination of family-controlled small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the industry and the discouragements from family members and friends. The provision of reliable, timely, and transparent information is important to boost the public’s awareness and build positive beliefs and perception of the wood industry.
ABSTRACT
Analysis of the pandemic's effect on the forest products sector, including lumber pricing and demand, reduction of labor is presented. The combination of labor supply contraction and higher product demand produced a set of repeated bidding wars for wood products that has endured throughout the pandemic, driving prices higher still. Economic research suggests that producers are able to adjust labor, capital and raw material input allocations in response to altered market conditions over the course of many months to years. Therefore, the short-run behavior in markets, demonstrating limited output adjustments, seen in this light, is not surprising.
ABSTRACT
In the present paper the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on Turkish forest products industry was investigated with the help of qualitative research methods. Focus groups and interview methods were adopted as the methodology. The scope of the study is limited to wood-based panel, laminate flooring and furniture industries which are the leading branches within forest products industry of Turkey. The respondents are white-collar workers randomly chosen from engineers, managers or marketing directors of large-sized enterprises from Ankara and Bursa. The enterprises were limited with mentioned cities due to these cities are of great importance for the industry in management and marketing activities. Results showed that COVID-19 pandemic affected the labour force and income negatively. The key finding of this work is that if the pandemic lasts longer the substantial economic side effects will be inevitable. Also, the results suggest that at first the companies should focus on raw material supply and secondly to domestic market rather than the international market.