Making a fire is easy, but making efficient use of wood energy at home is everything else but easy! The affected sectors of development work for the use of wood for heating and cooking are diverse- thermal insulation of housing, heating technology, consumer health and behavioral aspects of wood use along with ensuring a minimum quality of the natural resource wood, to name just a few. In fact, to foster sustainable development in this field is a complex task that can best be achieved by cross-sectoral efforts.
Workshop
Video available at Youtube
The UNECE/FAO Forestry and Timber Section launched the video “More Heat with Less Wood” during the 38th joint ECE/FAO Working Party on Forest Statistics, Economics and Management on 23rd March 2016. The video is a supplement to this workshop and is available on UNECE’s youtube channel.
The short film promotes the efficient use of wood as a fuel in households. Efficient heating technologies, combustion, pyrolysis, thermal insulation, wood storage as well as aspects of consumer health and behaviour of wood use are visualized and explained in an easy to understand manner. The video is available in English with Russian subtitles, in Albanian, Georgian and in Turkish. The translation of the video in other languages is already in progress.
The More Heat with Less Wood Workshop facilitated the exchange of experiences throughout the UNECE region on how to improve wood energy applications under given socio-economic conditions. Please take a look at the tentative agenda of the workshop.
Participants were invited to develop guidance for how to facilitate the optimal use of wood as a clean and healthy source of energy for households.
Pictures of the workshop and exhibition are available at UNECE-FAO flickr account.
On day one, the objective was the identification of the main challenges of wood energy projects for heating and cooking in households. On the second day, the goal was to identify the key characteristics of good practice wood energy projects and the role of multilateral organizations in this matter.
Day one began with an introduction to the topic. The human health, the environment, energy efficiency of wood energy appliances for heating and cooking, sustainable housing and behavior related issues of wood use at home was addressed.
Wood energy projects from different development organizations across Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Central Asia were presented.The results of the discussions were protocoled and processed by the secretariat. Day one was finishing with a wrap up of the discussion of the working groups.
On day two, the key characteristics of good practice wood energy projects for the development of a sustainable and healthy use of firewood in housing was identified and discussed.
The findings of both days are summarized in a report and guideline for good practices wood energy projects fro heating and cooking in housing of the UNECE region.
Outcomes: Identification of challenges of wood energy in households, guidance for crosse-sectoral approaches and support by multilateral organizations for the facilitation of good practice wood energy projects.
Exhibition
La Pasarelle skyway, Palais de Nations, Geneva, Switzerland
The exhibition raises awareness for health and resource efficiency of firewood use at household level. The exhibition objects and information illustrate the complexity of firewood use along the Pasarelle, a well-lit skywalk between two of the main buildings of the Palais de Nations.
The visitor can get to know the impact of thermal insulation of housing, or the installation of a new oven in combination of using the right quality of wood, for example. It will be possible to gain an understanding of different types of wood, their energy content and the effect of water stored inside it. The visitor can gain hands-on experience for understanding how to tweak the energy system of wood use at household level.
