CSFEP and Built by Nature in East Africa: A Shared Journey
Last year, Built by Nature made a bold move. Looking beyond Europe for the first time, it partnered with the Climate Smart Forest Economy Program (CSFEP) to support an emerging regional biobased construction coalition in East Africa.
In June, we took the next step in that partnership, on the ground. Over two weeks, the CSFEP and Built by Nature teams travelled across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania to meet coalition members, visit forests and factories, and witness firsthand the challenges and promise of the region’s forest-to-frame economy.
We talked to architects trying to solve Uganda’s school shortage with a biobased solution. We met with Kenyan entrepreneurs trying to scale in a market that far too many investors see as risky. We talked to developers in Zanzibar building Africa’s tallest wooden building using mass timber.
The contrast to Europe was striking. Eucalyptus trees here can grow up to five times faster than in northern climates, with many ready for harvesting in under 10 years. But so were the similarities: across both continents, biobased construction is still proving its market case.
Each time we engage in focused meetings across the region, we come away with new learning. On this visit, three insights stood out:
- East Africa already produces cost-competitive biobased materials like timber and wall panels. Scaling these products now will build capacity for more advanced products–such as CLT and glulam–in the future.
- The region has abundant exotic species, such as pine and eucalyptus, ready to fuel construction. We need to support value chains for these species right now. But to ensure long-term benefits for biodiversity and climate resilience, we also need to invest indigenous species like melia.
- Many promising businesses in the biobased value chain lack access to the right capital and technical support. Strengthening this ecosystem will be key to unlocking long-term growth.
So why should Europe care about what is happening in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania?
Because to effect impact at scale, a biobased construction movement has to move beyond European cities where retrofits are the main need. It has to focus on regions like East Africa, where the majority of buildings needed over the next 10 years haven’t been built yet. By 2050, 40% of all global urban construction will take place in African cities. So what regions like East Africa choose to implement now will determine whether the world meets its climate goals.
Right now, the region faces two urgent challenges: deforestation and enormous demand for construction. Millions of people in the region currently live in substandard housing–and populations are only growing. At the same time, all three countries are battling deforestation and forest degradation. Uganda alone has lost almost half its forest cover since 1990.
East Africa has a once-in-a-generation opportunity: to meet its building needs by going green from the start. Biobased construction can help. If done well, it can reduce construction emissions, drive increased tree planting, and create jobs. But the ecosystem needs support—enabling policies, development in the manufacturing sector, and more investment across the value chain.
That’s where this coalition comes in. It’s helping to connect the dots across the value chain—from smallholder growers to manufacturers; from government ministries to architects; from small, local businesses to the right type of investors.
Our trip together reminded us that climate solutions don’t belong to one region. For two weeks, the learning flowed both ways between East Africa and Europe. As CSFEP, BbN and our many partners in East Africa build this coalition together, we’re also building something else: a shared blueprint for a future where biobased economies work for people, nature, and the climate.
About the Climate-Smart Forest Economy Program
The Climate Smart Forest Economy Program (CSFEP) partners with communities, small businesses, governments, and actors in the enabling ecosystem to create local coalitions that redesign forest-related value chains for climate, biodiversity, and prosperity. It envisions a different future for forest economies: one that restores, not depletes, natural resources; reduces, not increases, emissions from value chains; and safeguards, not exploits, interests of smallholder and forest-dwelling communities
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