CTI Blog - Historic day for the voice of timber industries
This blog post is by Dirk Vennix, CTI Chief Executive
It was definitely one of those historic moments. On 15 October CTI Chairman Peter Hindle MBE welcomed the new directors to the first CTI Board meeting. In his opening remarks Peter referred to timber being an important part of his personal background and the history of the Saint Gobain Group. Although he recognised that there were a number of issues in terms of sustainability and skills which had to be addressed he firmly believed timber industries had a great future and potential to grow. To this end, improving industry advocacy to the end user market would be critical.
It was a great Board meeting in so many ways. The Board members spoke passionately from their business experience. All are senior executives who represent their companies or trade association members from across the whole Timber Supply Chain, from saw mills, wood panel production and timber importers to furniture makers, paper manufacturers, builders merchants and housing construction and repairs and maintenance in interiors.
The Board is also fully behind the vision to speak as a single voice for the whole of the Timber Industry Supply Chain. They will not waver from the CTI’s mission to improve the business landscape to grow the use of timber and develop vibrant and increasingly prosperous timber industries.
And most importantly, the Board agreed a three year strategic plan. Key objectives will be to
Develop new economic measures to grow the whole timber industries supply chain
Promote timber as the most sustainable and sustainable building material and an integral part of the low carbon society
Address skills shortages in the supply chain and persuade more young people to choose a career path in the timber industries
We will be publishing the strategic plan soon and developing these policy areas in more detail at member working group meetings in November. Watch this space for more details. In other words, more history will be made.