Woodland Capacity in East Sussex (WoodCapES) (Woods into Management Forestry Innovation Funds)

This Forestry Commission Innovation (grant) project explores the design and development of locally sourced timber products for social housing in Sussex. Local authority, forestry industry and university colleagues are collaborating to co-design and devise systems, technologies and products that deliver on collective expectations for net-zero, biodiversity net gain and realising the latent benefits for health and well-being, regenerative circular economies and local nature recovery that can be enacted through local timber supply chains.

A range of products have been developed that integrate augmented technologies to enhance social housing users connection to the landscape and nature from where resources are devised.

The industry lacks the collaborative culture needed to enact a more sustainable supply chain

Locally sourced timber products offer a range of social, environmental and economic benefits to the region but the underlying systemic and need for better collaborative planning issues frustrate progress.

Land owners are motivated to support biodiversity and improved habitats for nature and timber production and products and technologies designed with a systems thinking and ecological approaches can help underpin this.

Our Forestry Commission report provides detail to findings