Climate Smart Forest Economy Program
2025 Learning Report
2025 was a year of firsts for CSFEP
Letter from the Program Director
2025 was a year of firsts for CSFEP.
In January, we launched our launched our first coalition, the Biobased Construction East Africa Coalition, bringing together partners from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. A few months later, Coalition members launched the first three pilots—advancing timber innovation, expanding timber products, and shifting consumer perceptions around timber. In June, we hosted our first funder visit to the region, travelling with Built by Nature across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.
If 2024 was the year we let go of what no longer aligned with our focus, 2025 was the year we doubled down on what works: local value chain alliances that enable small businesses to build regenerative forest economies together. It was a wild year of learning and adaptation, and we feel like we are emerging from it with an even stronger, ground-tested model.
As always, this report shares our key lessons. This year, I want to add three reflections from my own experience.
The best solutions are local
Too often, global actors try to import models from Europe or North America into the Global South. But the context is so different.
In Europe, high labour costs favour labour-efficient systems. In East Africa, where populations are young and growing, industries should create jobs. European timber industries also rely on highly mechanised factories producing complex products like cross-laminated timber. In East Africa, simpler and less mechanised factories often make more sense. They require less capital and infrastructure and can produce affordable products that better match local needs.
For too long, Africa has been framed through a “leapfrog” narrative—the idea that African countries should skip the decades of experimentation the Global North has gone through and simply adopt their ready-made solutions. But when it comes to something as personal as housing, people need space to experiment and learn.
African countries can draw inspiration from other regions. But real progress happens when global insights meet local experimentation, innovation, and leadership.
Collaboration takes time
Collaboration is slower than going alone. It takes time to agree on a shared path forward. And in coalitions of small businesses, it also takes time for competitors to become collaborators.
These timelines can feel uncomfortable in a world that values immediate results. But coalition work often proves the value of “going slow to go fast.”
This was a difficult lesson for our team in 2025. At times, we moved ahead before everyone was fully aligned. It can be tempting to act quickly when the path forward seems obvious. But coalition work does not move at the speed of individual conviction—it moves at the speed of shared ownership.
So in 2026, we are shifting our pace. We are creating more space for dialogue, alignment, and shared decision-making. Personally, setting aside my sense of urgency will not always be easy. But if we want durable, regenerative forest economies, the work must belong to all of us.
Always be ambitious
Taking time to build alignment does not have to mean thinking small.
The opportunity to build regenerative forest economies across the Global South is too important for incremental thinking. Construction sectors across many countries are already expanding to meet the needs of rapidly growing and urbanising populations. The question is not whether these industries will grow — it is how they will grow, and whether regenerative forestry can help shape that growth.
Critically, our ambition is not based on optimism alone. It comes from the entrepreneurs, community leaders, and partners across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda who are already building regenerative forest economies today. They show us what is possible.
Our role at CSFEP is to match their courage with discipline — setting clear, evidence-based goals and holding ourselves accountable for achieving them.
These reflections are only the beginning. In the pages that follow, we share what we learnt this year—and how those lessons will shape our work in 2026 and beyond.
In partnership,
Program Director
Three Lessons from 2025
Lesson #1: Get to work – with local partners
As we launched the Biobased Construction East Africa Coalition, we were clear that we wanted to ensure the Coalition wasn’t just a space for discussion. It needed to also be a place to test, build, and learn – by and for people and businesses already working on the ground.
So we created space for Coalition members to identify gaps in East Africa’s forest economy. Then we supported them in designing – and finding funding for – pilots that could test solutions.
What we learnt
Flexible, accessible funding unlocks opportunities for local leaders
Without easily deployable funding to support new ideas, only the larger organisations in a Coalition can afford to test those ideas, which limits participation – and innovation. Small, local businesses must have access to resources if we want equitable and effective outcomes.
Local action ensures local learning
When local organisations lead pilots, they retain the skills, relationships, and confidence long after the project ends. That capacity stays in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda - or any other region we are supporting.
Momentum begets more momentum
The more the Coalition achieves, the more people engage. The more people engage, the more the Coalition can achieve. Repeating this cycle helps turn the Coalition flywheel.
We need structures that allow us to pause
Working with small businesses means working with changing capacity. Sometimes the idea is right but the timing is wrong. Sometimes conditions change, and the small business leading the project needs to focus on something else for a bit. Strong structures help us ask: Is this the wrong project – or just the wrong moment?
Lesson #2: Always be building trust and relationships
A value chain coalition like the one we’ve built in East Africa connects actors who depend on each other but rarely share space: tree growers, sawmillers, architects, contractors, finance professionals, even policymakers. Adding to that complexity is the fact that many of our members and partners are in different countries, since the Coalition stretches across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Creating a safe space for them to work together first means intentionally creating time for leaders to build trust and relationships.
What we learnt
Replicate what’s already working.
We’re already learning to look back at our most successful meetings and ask “what were the conditions that built trust?” Then we design future gatherings around those ingredients.
Virtual meetings should be a complement to in-person meetings
Virtual meetings allow us to work together on tight timelines and budgets. But in-person meetings, with their informal opportunities to socialise, build trust and relationship in ways that virtual meetings cannot. We’ve learnt that this is critical, and it is one of our top priorities for 2026.
Relationships are the currency of systems change work
Changing systems requires strong relationships across the system. If trust is missing or some voices are weak, the work gets immeasurably harder.
Equity requires intentional design
Those at the start of the value chain – foresters, fellers, sawmillers – often hold the least power and capital. To ensure that their voices shape decisions, we must always be thinking about what additional resources or support they may need to participate fully.
Lesson #3: Tell stories early and often
Throughout 2025, we worked to tell the stories of individual Coalition members as well as about the Coalition’s work together. That storytelling helped to build a shared identity among current partners – and attract new partners. As the year went on, we began to see storytelling not as simply as the thing to do once success is achieved; but rather, as a tool to build momentum.
What we learnt:
Ensure Coalition members have resources and tools to tell their own stories.
There is no replacement for having people tell their own stories, yet few of the organisations we work with – many of them small businesses – have the resources and tools to do this themselves. So in 2025, we began to fund this storytelling. For example, in May, we sponsored studio OMT architects to exhibit their biobased designs at the Time Space Existence Exhibition at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale – sharing East African innovation on a global stage.
Bring funders to the field
In June, we travelled across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania with one of the Coalition's funders, Built by Nature. Over two weeks, the small businesses in the Coalition could tell their stories directly to a key actor in the biobased construction field – on factory floors, in forests, and in model homes. Suggesting a two-week trip felt like a big ask. But the depth of engagement it enabled simply would not have been possible through a report or virtual meeting. We see real value in creating more of these shared field experiences, and we intend to build more of them into our work in 2026.
Use research to amplify local voices
When contributing a chapter for the Principles for Responsible Timber Construction report, we centred Coalition members’ own words and used lessons from East Africa to illustrate what a regenerative forest economy can look like. We were initially cautious about asking members to contribute their time. But to our wonderful surprise, the response from Coalition members was the opposite of reluctance. They engaged deeply and were energised to see their ideas and perspectives showcased as part of a global report. It was a powerful reminder that our role is not to speak on behalf of the Coalition, but to create platforms where their voices are heard. We are committed to building more of these opportunities in 2026.
Emerging insights
1
Actors in the enabling environment are as critical as actors in the value chain
For example, in East Africa, small non profit tree growers’ associations connect almost every smallholder tree grower; giving them enormous power to shape what species are grown, how successful forestry is in these regions, and how well supply is connected to biobased construction.
Likewise, academic institutions have a key role to play in training building professionals. They can ensure students graduate with the skills – and passion – to work with biobased materials.
And whether or not building inspectors have the skills and knowledge to apply current codes to biobased buildings has a huge impact on whether developers are comfortable using these products.
2
Getting financing right is going to be key to supporting small businesses in the biobased construction ecosystem.
The sector needs a capital pipeline that grows with businesses: R&D grants for early innovation, growth capital for scaling, and affordable finance for end users. At the same time, the Coalition can play a key role in reducing investor risk by focusing on strengthening grading practices, building codes, and procurement policies.
We need to bridge tree growing and construction for this market to work.
The missing link right now is in manufacturing. We must create space for innovation, testing, and certification if we are going to connect locally-grown timber to local construction markets.
In doing so, we must scale up use of today’s materials – largely exotic species such as pine and eucalyptus – while investing in product development from indigenous species for biodiversity and long-term resilience.
3
THANK YOU
CSFEP is able to do our work – building regenerative forest economies through local value chain coalitions – because of the partners who stand with us. Some of you provide funding. Some offer thought partnership. Some of you help amplify our work. Some align your work with ours, to accelerate impact. Each of you plays a role in what is possible. Together, we are proving that regenerative forest economies can grow in the Global South – and we are deeply grateful for your partnership.
Special thanks to CSFEP’s 2025 funders, Trafigura Foundation and Built by Nature.