Woodlife Business

A 2024 pilot: Connecting East Africa and Sweden
In 2024, SI launched Woodlife Business, a pilot initiative with the aim to connect business leaders from different parts of the ecosystem for forestry, wood processing and construction, united by shared interest to drive the green transition, and strengthen partnership between Sweden and East Africa. By connecting East African stakeholders with innovative Swedish actors within sustainable forestry and wood construction, the pilot aimed to offer capacity building knowledge exchange and networking around innovative industrial practices that are both environmentally sound and economically viable. Find a recap of the pilot here: Woodlife Business – A pilot initative to support the green transition 

2025 continuation: Capacity building exchange with Türkiye and Thailand  
In 2025, the project continues with new planned delegation visits to Sweden, from Türkiye in April and from Thailand in September. During the delegation visits, participants will engage with Swedish experts through meetings and site visits, gaining a practical understanding of advanced technologies and methods. The engagement and networking activities in Sweden are designed to inspire discussions on potential collaborations and technology transfers that could benefit the further sustainable development within forestry and construction sectors.

BACKGROUND
Sweden has a long tradition of using nature’s raw materials in the built environment. Perhaps not surprising as forests cover 70 per cent of the country’s surface. This tradition reflected in our business landscape, with many prominent actors innovating across the wood value chain, from sustainable forestry, to innovative applications of using forest based materials as a modern and sustainable building material. 

Timber is used as structural building material in this pilot four-storey building in Vallastaden, Linköping Sweden. Credits: Okodoki Arkitekter, Ida Gyulai/imagebank.sweden.se

An exhibition sparked interest in further partnerships
The Swedish institute has highlighted this tradition and strength through the popular exhibition Woodlife Sweden. The exhibition was developed together with Architects Sweden in collaboration with Swedish Wood, the Swedish Wood Award and the Swedish Forest Industries Federation, and was first shown in 2020. In the exhibition, projects were selected to visualise how architecture, design and urbanism can help reduce the climate impact of buildings and products, and impact future development in line with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Woodlife Sweden exhibition in Müze Gazhane, Istanbul, Türkiye.
Photo credit: Cihat Özsaray.

In many of the places around the world that showed the exhibition the theme sparked a wish for further dialogue with the local community, inspiring the question:  How do we go from sharing inspiration from these Swedish examples, to actively nurturing new international partnerships and creating impactful new future solutions in this domain together?

A pilot was developed in collaboration between the Swedish Embassy and SI
Starting to explore how to develop the concept further was a natural next step. After dialogue with SI, the idea for a pilot initiative was developed for execution in 2024, organized by the SI Unit for Scholarships and Leadership programmes in collaboration with the Swedish Embassy in Nairobi. Kurt Bratteby, Head of International relations at SI explains: “Using Swedish strengths and an established communication platform as a starting point for our relationship building activity increases our chances to make an impactful contribution. It also an example of how we set out to forge stronger synergies across our strategies for development cooperation, trade and Sweden promotion”.

With impactful partnerships and solutions as the goal
Woodlife Business delegations connects actors from different parts of the forestry and wood ecosystem with Swedish counterparts through study visits in Sweden. “We are happy to explore and learn from this new way of supporting local capacity buildling. We believe that Swedish know-how can be a truly meaningful contribution to support the transition to more sustainable forestry and wood industry practices around the world. We also believe that the exchange will offer an opportunity for Swedish business to build stronger ties to these interesting emerging markets. Ultimately, it is our hope that the pilot will nurture impactful partnerships, driving green transition and sustainable development overall” says Kurt Bratteby.