PRESS RELEASE LIFE WOOD FOR FUTURE/MADERA PARA EL FUTURO

An Andalusian delegation led by LIFE Wood for the Future knows the thriving industrial sector of structural timber in Galicia

Businessmen, builders, specifiers and representatives of the administration have visited the technology center of the University of Santiago, two structural timber factories and the innovative Impulso Verde building in Lugo.

LIFE Wood for the Future aims to promote in Andalusia, from poplar wood, a sector that in Galicia has an annual turnover of almost 2,000 million Euros, exports 700 million Euros and employs 18,000 people in more than 3,000 companies.

Granada, March 30, 2022

An Andalusian delegation of businessmen, investors, builders, specifiers and government representatives visited A Coruña and Lugo this week to learn about Galicia’s booming structural wood industrial sector, thanks to LIFE Wood for Future-Madera para el Futuro, the project of the Universities of Granada (UGR) and Santiago de Compostela (USC), the Diputación de Granada, the Confederación de Organizaciones de Selvicultores de España and 3edata, which aims to promote the development of a poplar bioeconomy in Granada along the entire value chain, from the primary sector to the construction sector.

As explained Antolino Gallego, professor at the UGR and coordinator of LIFE Wood for the Future, “the visit aims to learn first hand the Galician success story for the valorization of forest resources in Galicia through innovation and development of a powerful industry of structural technical wood products and their use in industrialized construction, as well as policies to promote the use of wood in public and private construction and development of the forestry sector promoted by both the regional government and municipal government initiatives.

The timber sector in Galicia had a turnover of 1,996 million euros in 2020 and represents 12% of industrial employment in that autonomous community, where it brings together more than 3,000 companies that employ 18,000 people. Galicia is the leader in Spain in the export of wood products, with almost a third of the total, and pulp, more than a quarter, worth 700 million euros annually.

The delegation is made up of representatives of the industrial and construction sector of Andalusia, potential investors, prescribers of wood construction and the Ministries of Industry, Economy and Development of the Junta de Andalucía.

The group has visited two emblematic technical wood factories in Galicia, Xilonor, manufacturer of industrialized cross-laminated timber solutions, and Maderas Villapol, manufacturer of beams and laminated profiles for structural use and high quality carpentry, in the provinces of A Coruña and Lugo, respectively, and engine of local development based on the use of kilometer 0 resources.

They have also known the technology center Pemade (Structural Wood Engineering Platform) of the USC as an engine of transfer of research and innovation between the University and the company.

 

Reception by the vice-president of the Xunta

The Andalusian delegation, which has been received by the Vice President of the Xunta de Galicia and Minister of Economy, Enterprise and Innovation, Francisco Conde, has also visited the innovative Impulso Verde building, the seed of the multi-ecological neighborhood of Lugo, built entirely with wood from Galicia with sustainable forest management. This demonstrative building, promoted by the Lugo City Council, has been developed within the framework of the LIFE Lugo+Biodinámico project, which has generated a great impact in the sector and in society on the possibilities of sustainable construction with local wood.

The analysis, study and prospecting visit of the Galician case, organized by the Universities of Granada and Santiago de Compostela, is part of the marketing and business actions programmed by the project to bring structural products based on poplar wood close to the market and thus develop in Granada and Andalusia an industry based on local poplar and coniferous forest resources, currently underutilized in the manufacture of packaging or biomass.

LIFE Wood for the Future promotes in Granada, through the creation of the first group of eco-producers in the country, the recovery of traditional poplar crops in the Vega and the northern part of the province. With almost 4,000 hectares, Granada is the fourth Spanish province with the largest area of poplar trees, but it has the natural conditions to recover the more than 8,000 that have been lost in recent decades.

The current market situation, with high demand and scarcity of raw material, represents a great opportunity to promote this crop, which also offers enormous environmental advantages, as it absorbs a large amount of CO2 from the atmosphere, filters polluted water, refreshes the environment, attracts biodiversity and prevents soil erosion.