Marking the beginning of a 5-year education plan for the East Anglia Timber Trade Association (EATTA), three key university lecturers from the Eastern region travelled to Sweden to update their knowledge of today’s timber production. Source: Timberbiz
The visit was arranged by EATTA as part of its new ‘Who teaches the teachers?’ program and hosted by the Industrial Solutions operations of Timber Trade Federation member SCA Wood.
The three-day trip involved visits to: SCA’s tree nursery where 100 million tree seedlings are produced each year; SCA’s sustainable forests, of which SCA owns 2.6 million hectares in northern Sweden; and Tunadal Sawmill – one of 5 sawmills owned by SCA in Sweden.
“We were delighted to be asked to host this visit by the EATTA. SCA has always been dedicated to sharing our wealth of timber knowledge with our customers, but the education we provide shouldn’t stop there,” Stephen King, Sales Director of SCA Wood Industrial Solutions said.
“We are firmly rooting our commitment to the timber industry to help engage those responsible for inspiring the engineers and architects of tomorrow. Seeing our operations first-hand will hopefully provide lecturers with the experiential knowledge they need to impart enthusiasm for wood use in construction to the next generation.”
The lecturers came from both architectural and engineering disciplines, from the University of Hertfordshire, Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Suffolk.
“The aim is for each lecturer to enliven students’ and colleagues’ interest in the timber business and in timber as a sustainable building material,” EATTA Chairman Chris James of Nason Davis said.
“Through such visits, we can get our industry’s message across directly to the specifiers and architects of the future. These three lecturers alone enable us to reach over 300 students, broadening their knowledge and increasing enthusiasm for wood amongst those teaching engineering and architecture.
“Over five years we could potentially see 1500 new specifiers favouring timber and wood products as a result of this initiative,” Chris James said.
Architectural and engineering students and lecturers across the Universities of Anglia Ruskin, Suffolk and Hertfordshire will undoubtedly benefit from this first-hand knowledge.
EATTA plans to repeat the process for the next five years until all the lecturers in the Eastern region have either visited or heard from colleagues about the operations.
