Tracing tech wood work wonders
A Cork-based global leader in forestry management software has announced it is working to develop a system enabling full traceability of wood products.
Treemetrics’ €9 million SINTETIC project aims to combat deforestation by enabling customers buying wooden products to trace the wood all the way back to individual trees in the European forests they come from.
Funded by the European Union, the project follows an EU Directive on Deforestation-Free Products, which obligates companies to ensure their products do not contribute to deforestation.
Treemetrics, whose headquarters are on the Cork MTU campus, will be centrally involved in developing the new digital platform.
The system will work using radio frequency identification which will allow standing trees and round wood to be tagged. A code will be punched onto the wood which will be scanned at the sawmill, with a bar or QR code carried through to the retail process.
Treemetrics will work with 20 European partners on the project.
"The importance of this new EU directive cannot be overstated,” said Chief Executive of Treemetrics Enda Keane.
“We will need full traceability of all wood products in the EU, similar to what we already do with meat traceability,” he added.
The project researchers hope SINTETIC will increase the number of EU forested areas under active management. The project also aims to reduce overall transportation costs and related greenhouse gas emissions by 5% while increasing the yield of high-value sawn wood products.
Project coordinator Gianni Picchi, CNR researcher and adjunct researcher at CTFC, said: “SINTETIC will establish an innovative system to trace forest products and interrelate the data generated along the whole value chain.
“The ambition is to create a service that is paid by the economic benefits it provides to all the players of the forest sector, but that can also generate data and models to better protect and manage the European forests.”
In 2022, Treemetrics signed a €1.2 million contract with the European Space Agency to utilise satellite imaging, data analytics, and its advanced forest measurement technology to provide more accurate forest carbon credit estimates.
The company has been providing technology-based solutions to the global forestry industry for the past 18 years, providing solutions to clients in over 40 countries by utilising mobile applications, remote sensing, data mining, and satellite communications technology.