To tackle the climate crisis and support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the use of sustainable, carbon-sequestering construction materials is essential. Bio-based materials are necessary to address this, but reliance on trees alone is insufficient, particularly in regions where commercial forestry is underdeveloped. Tropical bamboo and palm have huge worldwide potential, but particularly in Brazil, for sustainable construction and circular economic development; these are low cost and widely available. Natural bamboo (NB), in use as culms, grows faster and fixes more carbon than commercial forestry timber. Engineered bamboo (EB), used as manufactured products, has one of the lowest environmental impacts compared with traditional structural materials. Palm is also widely available in Brazil, with especially high diversity in the Amazon, and provides trunks, leaves, and varied fibers with great potential to produce construction materials at an industrial scale. 

Workshop delegates will benefit from the expertise of facilitators that are experts in the full lifecycle concepts from plantation or forest management, growth & harvesting; through material treatment & production; through engineering behaviour of the products & their use in construction. Workshop facilitators come from different universities & are members of an existing worldwide coalition of experts dedicated to promoting the use of bio-based construction materials.