EcoReFibre at Wood Policy and Innovation Conference 2024 | Brussels
On the 7th of November 2024, a major conference co-hosted by Wood4Bauhaus took place in Brussels, titled Europe’s Wood Sector: Driving the Green and Digital Transition of the Built Environment. EcoReFibre hosted Session B called Reuse, Reclaim, Recycle Circularity approaches to reduce and valorise waste wood.
Several EcoReFibre partners participated as moderators or keynote speakers in the session, presenting various aspects of the project’s work and progress. Oliver Jancke from InnovaWood and Kris Wijnendaele from the European Panel Federation moderated the session. The speakers covered a wide range of topics, including:
- Mark Irle from ESB Ecole d’ingénieur des matériaux biosourcés presented Post-consumer wood in Europe: qualities and future supply.
- Kristine Nore and Wendy Wuyts from OMTRE presented Reclaimed timber: business opportunity for the circular economy (SirkTRE & Drastic)
- Geert Coudenys from Unilin Panels presented MDF recycling, closing the circle
- Emma Romero from FINSA presented Superpan Tech, a high-performance board for passive buildings from recycled wood
- Jacinto Seguí Mendez from FINSA presented ZICLICK, a plug & go panel design system as a service
The conference highlighted the vital role of the wood sector as a key driver of future competitiveness in housing and climate debate, encouraging greater recognition and support from the new EU Commission and EU Parliament. It showcases the latest state-of-the-art in building design with wood and how the public sector can support more biobased construction to combat climate change.
The conference was well attended by 170 participants. About 40 speakers contributed to keynotes, two panels and four parallel sessions. The audience included a broad range of stakeholders: European Commission staff, European, national and regional policy makers, industry representatives, clusters and researchers.
The event was co-hosted by Wood4Bauhaus , EFI Bioregions Facility, European wood policy platform (woodPoP), Holzcluster Steiermark GmbH, Bavarian Represent Representation to the EU. The conference was co-organised with support of the Horizon Europe project consortia, namely the NEB Academy Alliance, EcoReFibre, AEGIR, EUFORE, as well as digiNEB , (co-)funded by Horizon Europe, EU Science, Research and Innovation and Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU) and its members.
All the recordings of the sessions of the conference are now available online: bit.ly/wpic2024v
The programme with links to all the presentations have been published: bit.ly/wpic2024p
