Branko Glavonjic

The wood products industry in the western Balkan region.

Primary wood processing and secondary furniture production are strategic sectors in most western Balkan countries with regard to contribution to gross domestic product, exports, and employment. After abandoning a socialist business system in the post-Yugoslavia era, all countries in the region have developed transitional reforms to become free-market economies. Some of these reforms include changes in ownership structure, recapitalization and modernization, adapting to meet import standards of developed countries, and developing strategic linkages with supply-chain counterparts in developed countries. This article contains the results of research conducted on the current situation in primary wood processing and furniture industries in seven western Balkan countries. A common characteristic of these sectors across all countries is the century-long tradition of forestry and forest utilization. The development of these sectors will require sustainable management of the regions rich forest resources, political and economic systems that are transparent and market driven, as well as investments in production technology and employee training.

The status of chain-of-custody certification in the countries of Central and South Europe

The significance of wood and paper products originating from certified sustainable sources has been increasing worldwide during the last two decades paralleling overall interest and concern for global sustainability issues. Forest certification is a voluntary verification tool that has been gaining importance not only as an independent verification tool in the wood processing industry but also as an influencer in private and public purchasing policies and as a component of emerging wood harvesting and trade legality schemes. There are two main types of certification, forest certification for forest management and chain-of-custody (CoC) certification which tracks certified wood through the manufacturing supply chain. This study focuses on the chain-of-custody component. A multinational survey of CoC certificate holders in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia was conducted to identify the general understanding of certification concepts as environmental, economic and social tools, to determine incentives for CoC certification implementation by companies, and to identify difficulties in existing certified wood product supply chains. Results indicate that respondents demonstrated a high level of understanding of the chain of custody certification concept. Respondents also link forest certification mainly to the issues of legality, tracing the origin source of supply and prevention from illegal logging. The main expected benefits are linked to the improvement of external company image followed by business performance factors such as penetrating new markets, increase of sales volume, expanded market share and the increase of profit margin. The key problems connected to certified supply chains relate to the overpricing of certified material inputs, while respondents reported none or minimum price premiums for their certified products over non-certified alternatives.

Market of innovative timber products in Europe and Serbia and their contribution to climate change mitigation.

The paper shows results of researching the market of glued laminated timber as the most frequent innovative timber product in constructing timber framed residential facilities in Europe and Serbia. The research included the development of production, consumption and trade flows for the most significant countries in the European Union and Serbia. Additionally, the paper gives characteristics of this innovative timber product regarding dimensions, allowed deviations of dimensions defined in adequate European standard, wood species it is made of and fire resistance. The last part of the paper shows results of econometric modeling of the impact of building timber-framed houses on the consumption of glued laminated timber in Austria as one of the countries belonging to the group of the largest consumers of this innovative timber product in Europe. Taking into consideration that the substitution of classic building materials, primarily concrete, steel and aluminum, with glued laminated timber in residential construction contributes to the reduction of carbon-dioxide emission and climate change mitigation, research results of the effects of such substitution are presented in the last chapter in this paper. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. III43007: Istraživanje klimatskih promena na životnu sredinu: pracenje uticaja, adaptacija i ublažavanje]