Promotion of tropical certified timber to French specifiers

This project was focused on three actions

1. The organization of regional meetings

Three conferences, aimed at specifiers such as architects, were organized in three different cities in France: Caen, La Rochelle, and Paris. Caen and La Rochelle were chosen due to the fact that these two cities are homes to two important ports in term of tropical timber importation; Paris was chosen because as the French Capital, a lot of companies and specifiers are located in its area.

The program was as followed:

• A testimony delivered by a company on its policy of responsible purchasing of tropical timber;
• A presentation by WWF France on social, economic, and environmental benefits of sustainable forest management in producing countries;
• A presentation by ATIBT (International Tropical Timber Technical Association) on the technical advantages of tropical timber in construction;
• A presentation by LCB on the certified tropical timber supply on the French market and its action as a monitoring organization.

The event in La Rochelle was on the 23^rd of November; the one in Caen was on the 28^th of November, and the one in Paris was on the 30^th of November.

We wish to thank our partners, who made this project possible:

• IDH and the STTC;
• Our partners companies: CID, Rougier Group, Menuiseries Pasquet and Bois des Trois Ports;
• WWF France;
• ATIBT (Association Technique Internationale des Bois Tropicaux).

2. The organization of presentations to architecture schools

Just as we wanted to reach the specifiers with our conferences, we thought it would be just as important to talk about certified tropical timber to students.

A total of 22 schools were found and contacted, and a few of them expressed their interest. We also consider getting in touch with vocational schools with degrees related to timber.

This action is in progress.

3. The creation of a digital toolkit

To support our conferences, we wanted to give the specifiers and the students a digital toolkit. It contains the following documents:

• A directory of tropical timber importers in France;
• 2 technical sheets and the ATIBT guide on certified tropical timber;
• 4 environmental sheets;
• 1 STTC sheet;
• 9 videos;
• 12 communication documents ;
• 10 documents (articles, press releases, commercial material) related to sustainable development;
• Le Commerce du Bois contact details and links to our different websites.

This digital toolkit has been put on mahogany USB sticks and has already been distributed at our conferences.