A Forest-First COP30: Industry Meets Policy

From our hotel windows in Belém, the Amazon stretches across the river; vast, humid, and humming with life. It’s a daily reminder of what’s at stake. This is the first COP held on the edge of the world’s largest rainforest, and it’s already clear: forests are no longer a side-conversation. With major initiatives like the Tropical Forests Forever Fund, forests are front and center here. This is the COP where forests meet the built environment. What better COP for Built by Nature to be present!

From Rio to São Paulo and on to Belém

Our team began the week in Rio de Janeiro, reconnecting with partners at C40 and the Local Leaders Forum before travelling on to São Paulo. We’ve brought a small but determined coalition of practitioners with us, ready to share real solutions from the ground, and we feel the support of our BbN Frontrunners and hundreds of endorsers who say that policy needs to follow the industry’s lead in accelerating the biobased transition. And in this first week, we’ve already seen what’s possible when that voice is heard.

São Paulo really is a city that lives up to its reputation as a concrete jungle. But even there, through the cracks in the concrete, green shoots are emerging; biobased buildings, timber networks, and a palpable energy for change. Our premiere of Our Future: Built by Nature at the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) felt less like a standalone gathering and more like ‘day three’ of the Built by Nature Summit. The conversations were focussed, the barriers shared, and the appetite to collaborate unmistakable. It was a reminder that this movement is global, and growing. Having several of our Prize winners with us in the city added real depth to the conversations.

Then came Belém. Here, the Amazon isn’t just a backdrop; it shapes every conversation. You feel it in the air, see it across the river, and hear it in every conversation. On Monday, in the Blue Zone’s Buildings and Cooling Pavilion, we launched the Principles for Responsible Timber Construction, announcing that no fewer than eleven national governments would join over 300 businesses and organisations in endorsing a shared framework for scaling timber responsibly.

Aligning industry and government

This moment was the result of months of quiet, determined campaigning, working alongside our partners at the Forest & Climate Leaders’ Partnership and Bauhaus Earth to build trust, align priorities, and prepare the ground. There’s plenty of diplomatic massaging that goes into a result like this; careful conversations, countless drafts, and the patient work of consensus-building. But it has paid off. What we presented at COP wasn’t just a statement of intent; it was a coordinated signal that industry and governments are ready to move together.

The room was warm, sweaty, and buzzing with optimism. Our Prize winners stood shoulder to shoulder with UNEP, WWF, and government officials, showing what’s already possible. As Canada’s Ambassador to Brazil put it: “This best practice approach can transform the market for responsible timber construction… a win-win for the climate and global goals to halt deforestation.”

The following day, during the first Intergovernmental Council for Buildings and Construction (ICBC) ministerial, we welcomed another endorsement and two acknowledgements. These outcomes also reflect the groundwork laid through ICBC, the GlobalABC Bio-based Materials group, each one a step toward aligning policy with practice.

Throughout the week, four of our six Prize winners, Andrew Waugh, Frédéric Denise, Susan Jones and Kim Baber, brought the Principles to life, not just through their projects, but through their presence; navigating the heat, the downpours, and the packed schedule with humour and resolve. And our campaign manager Harry, somehow in four places at once, kept the momentum alive managing sessions and side events, jumping into spontaneous panel discussions, and even holding a microphone to a laptop when audio-systems failed. All to make sure we forge those valuable connections with policy leaders and create opportunities to follow through after COP.

Why being here matters

It’s hot in Belém. Very hot. Even with air ducts roaring like jet engines, the pavilions are still being assembled, maps are nowhere to be found, and the official app offers little help. It’s easy to wonder: why bother? But once you’ve settled in, if not acclimatised, you remember why COP matters. It’s messy, imperfect, and absolutely essential. Thousands of people from every corner of the globe come here with hope, ambition, and ideas. They come to stand up and be counted.

For Built by Nature, this first week has marked a turning point. We’ve taken the insights, energy and readiness of industry frontrunners, and the wider community of organisations already working with timber, and have brought them to the global stage. These are practitioners who know what’s possible, and what’s holding progress back.

That’s the essence of our approach. Bottom-up, we connect and enable: surfacing barriers, sharing knowledge, and amplifying solutions. Top-down, we activate and align: translating those insights into targeted campaigns that remove roadblocks. Such as in policy.

This is what global engagement at COP30 is about. Not just visibility, but alignment. Not just ambition, but acceleration. And this week, we’ve completed step one: bringing global industry readiness to the attention of governments. Week one has shown that governments are listening, and industry is ready to move. The next step is clear: implementation. More on that next week.