International Forest Business Conference – Poland

The main theme of the conference was :  New Forest Business Frontiers

A greater demand for energy, volatility in the fossil fuel markets and increasing material resource scarcity are considered as the most significant sustainability megaforces shaping European and global wood industry markets over next 15 years. Together with unstable consumer demand, uncertain policies and indifference among regulators, forest and wood industry have never experienced such significant barriers to advancing sustainability and profitability.

MISSION

The goal of the International Forest Business Conference 2018 was to focus on megatrends that shape forest and wood industry sectors, highlight transformation of forest related businesses towards a low-carbon bioeconomy, discuss tensions between sustainability and cost competitiveness, and call attention to new green innovations.

The main aim of the conference is to focus on discussions about timberland investments, wood industry and global forest products.

The conference was dedicated to:

• Forest management companies
• Forest products producers
• Fast-growing plantations managers
• State forests
• Pension fund managers
• Investment analysts
• Private forest landowners
• Investment, hedge funds and bank managers
• Endowments
• Scientists and researchers within applied forest and wood industry sectors
• Forestry and wood industry press
• People interested in alternative, green investments
• Forestry-related software companies

Sections available for speakers  :

Wood Industry and Certification

New Technologies

Timberland Investments

Applied Science

Wood Industry

About  the conference: 

This conference reunited speakers from all over the world ( New Zeeland, Canada, USA, Finland, Romania, Poland, Italy, Norway, United Kingdom).

I was representing Romania and ForstPan at this event in the section Wood Industry  with a speech about the challenges that the Romanian wood supply chain faces today. My speech was based on my professional activity as well as official statistics and reality of this specific market. For the presentation I had analyzed and structured the issues and ended  up with a list of main  challenges that Romanian wood supply chain withstands.  These are of a legal, social, commercial, traceability, competition and digitization nature.

You can find my presentation here.

Though  the situation of the Romanian wood market is clear, well, at least it’s problems are, there is no official, durable scenario of solving them. And the main question stays unanswered: How will the Romanian wood industry  face the competition of the European market?

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Besides the amazing opportunity for networking and information exchange, the conference, held at Hotel Kiston in Kistowo, Poland offered beautiful landscapes as the hotel is located within a quiet and green area rich in lakes, in the centre of the Kashubian region.

The field trip, scheduled on the first day of the conference made the agenda trully exciting!  Fabrizio Nardin and Piotr Łysiak   had been amazing hosts and I would like to thank them for showing us the great job they are doing!

The visit to the Castle of the Teutonic Order in Malbork – was an impressive and welcomed addition to the conference schedule as well. The Castle is one of the largest and best-preserved gothic stronghold in the world, built in the end of 13th century as a seat of Teutonic Knights Order and capital city of Order’s State. The size of fortress is impressive. For its construction were used almost 5 millions bricks. During the ages Malbork was the seat of Teutonic Order’s Grand Master. This is one of only few strongholds in the world which have never been captured in battle.

It had been a great event for professionals and i would like to congratulate and say thank you to Karolina and Rafal Chudy for the invitation!

#neverstoplearning