What We Do

Local farmers in Indonesia and Uganda are reforesting degraded lands. Our agroforestry approach generates a short-term income from nuts or vegetables and offers a long-term financial perspective through the cultivated timber. That means the farmers create a sustainable pool of natural resources for their communities and have  increased incomes to provide for their families.

Engagement and participation of local communities are the key to fulfilling jobs and shared economic growth. In Indonesia and Uganda, we implement Farmer Field Schools in which local smallholder farmers receive education on how to manage agro-resources. These include the cultivation, harvesting, and sale of timber. This process not only protects natural resources and combats climate change, but also creates meaningful local jobs for the farmers and secures additional jobs in the processing industry due to a sustainable supply of resources.

Local communities taking up the fight against climate change also need a say among other stakeholders. Fairventures affords them agency through education, consulting, and investments in digital tools. Smallholder farmers are receiving the equipment to manage reforestation and monitoring projects including the TREEO App to digitize and share their data.

We develop climate-friendly materials for modern mass timber construction. Buildings constructed mainly from wooden materials store large amounts of CO2 in the structure itself and bind it over the lifespan of the building. This approach has a second positive climate impact by replacing building materials such as steel and cement, which are emission-intensive in production.

Responsible consumption and production means minimal processing in cultivation and fabrication. At Fairventures, we champion locally grown timber for construction, as the production of materials such as concrete and plastic emit large amounts of CO2. As a means of forestry protection, CO2 compensation, as well as sustainable production and construction, we study and promote local woods in Uganda and Indonesia that can be quickly grown by local farmers and used in eco-friendly construction. Used in mass timber construction, timber often replaces emission-intensive materials such as steel or concrete. We are continuously working on a sustainable and fair value chain from smallholder farmers across the processing industry to consumers. 

One of the fastest ways to stop rising global temperatures is carbon sequestration. Fairventures promotes fast-growing lightwood timber species and mass timber construction of buildings with a triple benefit for carbon sequestration: absorption of CO2 in the growing trees, long-term storage in lasting timber products and buildings and substitution of emission-intensive materials like steel and concrete by timber products. In turn, such projects connect companies, governments, and private persons.

To safeguard the provision of a wide range of ecosystem services, the goal is to preserve high diversity of plant and animal life. Biodiversity is the basis for life and therefore, unsustainable land-use systems such as monocultures must be avoided. This can only be accomplished with an economically viable alternative for the local communities. Fairventures works together with farmers to reforest degraded land and increase biodiversity. The farmers use fast-growing timber species like Sengon to restore soils and site productivity. 

Climate change, poverty and biodiversity loss are global challenges with global consequences. Therefore, we believe that different countries could and should contribute to the solution of these challenges with their different strengths. Investments in reforestation in tropical countries yield faster results in climate change mitigation due to higher growth rates and provide immense co-benefits to smallholder farmers in these countries. However, there are little or no funds available locally to finance this afforestation. Therefore, we mobilize investments from countries that can afford it to reforest where it is most effective.