Imagine using wood in ways you might not expect – clothes woven from wood fibre like viscose and lyocell, timber replacing concrete and steel in buildings, transparent windowpanes made from wood, or even biodegradable wooden satellites. This isn’t science fiction - it’s a rapidly expanding reality that shows how wood-based solutions can lower greenhouse-gas emissions.
The Grow the Solution campaign highlights how wood from sustainably managed forests can play a powerful role in climate action, and challenges the outdated idea that we must choose between protecting forests and using them. By championing responsibly produced wood, the campaign points to a new possibility: healthy, well-managed forests can both thrive and provide renewable materials the world needs.
Small everyday decisions add up to big climate benefits, and everyone can join this movement. By choosing wood, we can help grow a solution that builds a more sustainable future.
Would you believe a forest can change the world?
Sustainable wood isn’t just a material - it’s one of nature’s most powerful climate solutions. By choosing wood over concrete, steel, plastics, and synthetics, we can cut emissions, protect ecosystems, and build a greener, healthier future for everyone.
Help spread the word and don’t forget to use the #GrowTheSolution hashtag!
Download and share videos, social media cards and posters from the #GrowTheSolution Trello Board.
Using wood from sustainably managed forests means we can create homes that don’t cost us the Earth.
Built with wood, cities could become extensions of our forests, helping to combat climate change and keep the planet healthy. Wood is renewable and stores carbon for its lifetime.
Wood can be a material of the future, helping to build a bioeconomy for the planet's health, replacing concrete and steel in building construction and helping to build carbon-neutral homes, offices and schools.
Materials derived from trees are being developed as sustainable substitutes for plastics, building materials, fabrics, medicines and other everyday items.
Wood helps provide safe drinking water, food and shelter - but wood can do much more and is a renewable resource when forests are managed sustainably.
Replacing more of the plastic things we use every day with wood-based products from sustainably managed forests can help combat climate change and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Choose sustainable wood for people and the planet.
From fibre to packaging, building materials & even waterproof sinks - innovation in forestry has been on show in Rome, at the From Seeds to Food exhibition, the World Food Forum and the FAO Museum and Network MuNe.
Grow the Solution is the work of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests Communicators’ Network Joint Initiative, with the support of the Federal Republic of Austria and the Government of Canada.
Led by FAO, the project 'Strengthening global advocacy and awareness on the role of sustainable wood value chains and their contribution to SDG12 through the work of the Joint initiative of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) Communicators’ Network' was funded by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Regions and Tourism of the Federal Republic of Austria, with support from the Regional Forest Communicators Networks.
These messages are aligned with the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 12 (Responsible consumption and production) and the objectives of the United Nations Decade for Ecosystem Restoration.
