Background
After 200 years of unprecedented urbanization and economic growth based on a fossil-based economy, we have arrived at a tipping point. Our urbanized world has become too big for our planet. This is clearly exemplified by climate change, biodiversity loss and the degradation of our natural resources.
Cities, our economic and innovation hubs, need to take the lead in rethinking our economy and its relationship to nature. Cities need to lead a transformational change, not only in replacing fossil energy by renewable energy but also by taking the lead in replacing non-renewable materials like plastics, steel or concrete with renewable biobased materials, and replacing grey infrastructures with green ones, making nature a basic urban infrastructure. Trees, forests and wood have a crucial role to play.
This event will facilitate an international science-policy-practice dialogue on the transformative potential of trees, forests, and wood to rethink the build environment and create healthy, sustainable and resilient cities as well as rural-urban sustainable interfaces.
About the European Forest Institute
The European Forest Institute (EFI) is a pan-European international organization. It has 30 Member Countries, and c. 130 member organizations from 40 different countries working in diverse research fields. EFI provides forest-related knowledge around three interconnected and interdisciplinary themes: bioeconomy, resilience and governance.
With a staff of over 100 experts in several offices across Europe, EFI is in a unique position to generate, connect and share knowledge at the interface between science and policy. Its high-level ThinkForest forum brings together policy makers and leading European forest scientists to generate science-policy dialogue on strategic forest-related issues. EFI is a leading science-policy platform providing forest-related knowledge to build a sustainable future: connecting knowledge to action. www.efi.int
About EFI’s Biocities Facility
EFI’s Biocities Facility aims to create an informed dialogue on how trees, forests and wood can contribute to rethinking our cities, so they can lead the transformation towards a climate-neutral and nature-positive economy. It works across scientific disciplines and actors to connect knowledge to action to transform the way we create and live in cities.
