What’s on the menu for 2022

Our business plan for 2022 is developed with, and signed off by, the Board. The following is a summary of the priorities and key work areas.

Members engagement

Members are at the heart of everything Confor does and in 2022 Confor will review how it communicates with and provides services to Members. This will support improved performance on Member retention and aid with recruitment. I hope the Confor team will have more meetings with Members, including face-to-face visits and events, and I’m really pleased that we now have Eliza Hibbins-Cline on board to support us with that and more.

Carbon

As a low-carbon industry which plants trees that lock up carbon in wood products, the sector has a key role to play in helping governments meet ‘net zero’ targets. The opportunities and challenges that this throws up have been central to much of Confor’s work in recent years. In 2022, Confor will prepare an industry road map for net zero that will help to pull the ‘carbon’ strands together and inform activity in future years.

Political engagement

Ambitious tree planting targets have become a must have accessory for every political party. On the positive side, this raises the profile of trees and forestry, but it doesn’t always translate to trees in the ground and there is always a danger that a narrow focus on planting can distract from wider issues of management, controlling pests and diseases, and wood supply. While Scotland is still taking the lead, Wales is showing signs of a determination to catch up and Northern Ireland is focusing primarily on the public estate.

In England, money is being allocated and civil servants employed, but delivery still appears to ignore productive forestry. There is a growing sense that biodiversity and access boxes will be ticked but decarbonising the economy and rural green jobs will be ignored. The much vaunted ‘levelling up’ agenda promoted by Boris Johnson doesn’t appear to be taking root in the mind of Lord Goldsmith, though that hasn’t stopped the Johnsons from vacationing in the peer’s Spanish villa. While we can’t offer sun, sand and sangria, our new policy and public affairs officer Maria Bellissimo will be working hard to widen and deepen our political contacts in Westminster and the devolved parliament/assemblies and press home the message that trees and timber can play a key role in a green recovery from Covid.

Business plan 2022 priorities ing it ‘on the ground’. Unfortunately, some organisations don’t appear to understand Led by the Board, Confor has identified what the purpose of the UKFS is and what the following priorities: management against the UKFS already delivers. It’s important that any proposed • Expand future wood fibre availability changes are evidence based, relevant • Promote positive attitudes towards and start from a solid understanding of sustainable productive forestry and what UKFs already delivers in terms of wood-based products economic, environmental and social ben• Aid the economic development of efits. the industry • Develop a low-carbon road map Changing Attitudes campaign • Grow and promote markets for I expect media interest in the sector to timber remain high in 2022 and perhaps even in• Improve Member retention and in crease, meaning that more than ever we crease recruitment need to ‘get our message out there’. We’re finalising our latest ‘changing attitudes’ campaign and developing resources to support Members in local stakeholder engagement.

Industry development

In 2022, Confor will seek to step up work alongside Members on industry development. Industry partnerships with government are developing in England and Wales, in addition to the existing group in Scotland, and this provides real opportunity to tackle issues such as skills and new recruits to the sector, as well as research and innovation. Confor has an internal group on statistics and as with our work on changing attitudes, we’ll be looking to resource its future work. This is only a taster of what the 2022 UK Forestry Standard Business Plan contains. If you would like to The review of the UK Forestry Standard know more, do please visit… in 2022 will be a potentially important process. The UKFS has helped position Confor business plan To read the forestry and wood processing sector the full document, use the as a sustainable and responsible indus- QR code or visit this page try, far ahead of most other sectors in the www.confor.org.uk/about-us/ UK in defining sustainability and measur- this-is-confor