A Co Cork-based company is to be involved in the development of a €9 million European Union traceability system to combat deforestation.
The project, called Sintetic, is being developed by Treemetrics, a forestry management software company, along with 20 European partners.
The scheme aims to combat deforestation by enabling people buying wooden products to trace the wood back to individual trees in the European forests they come from.
It follows an EU directive on deforestation-free products, which obliges companies to ensure their products do not contribute to deforestation.
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Treemetrics chief executive Enda Keane said the importance of the new directive “cannot be overstated”.
“We will need full traceability of all wood products in the EU, similar to what we already do with meat traceability,” he said.
“Radio frequency identification will allow standing trees and round wood to be tagged. A code will be punched on to the wood which will be scanned at the sawmill, with a bar or QR code carried through to the retail process.”
The researchers hope the scheme 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 per cent and increase the yield of high-value sawn wood products.
