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CIFOR-ICRAF August 13. “We can add jobs and tax
base and position Georgia as a leader
in the transition to a green economy.”
The Senate Advancing Forest

Innovation in Georgia Study Committee
was formed this year to look for ways
the state can encourage investment in
sustainable forest products that will
generate demand in the future.
Senate President Pro Tempore John
Kennedy, the committee’s chairman,
said he saw one of those options on
a state-sponsored trade mission to

France last year: sustainable aviation
fuel (SAF), a biofuel that can reduce
greenhouse gas emissions up to 85
percent compared with conventional
region and the DRC to international leading to fast-growing trees and a petroleum-based jet fuel.
markets. Set to take effect in 2028, favourable climate have combined to The European Union will require
the ban aims to boost local processing. make Georgia the number one forestry commercial aircraft to burn at least 6

The BEAC’s economic outlook, state in the nation, a $42 billion industry percent SAF by 2030, a percentage
published quarterly, is a forward- responsible for 143,000 jobs. that will increase gradually each year
looking document based on surveys However, with pulp and paper mills until it reaches 70 percent in 2050. One
of business leaders, administrative going out of business in large numbers company active in Georgia, Lanzajet, is
heads, and other key players in various due to intense foreign competition, already producing 120 million gallons of
sectors within CEMAC. It provides demand for timber is on the decline. SAF per year, Andres Villegas, president
predictions on economic activity for As a result, prices for wood are down and CEO of the Georgia Forestry
the upcoming quarter and explains to levels not seen since the 1970s. Association, told the committee.
the main influencing factors. Those are the dynamics behind a Another innovative use of wood in

push to find new markets for Georgia’s its infancy is mass timber construction
Georgia aims to boost struggling oversupply of wood in innovative clean of either multi-family residential or office
timber industry energy industries ranging from cleaner buildings made with wood to replace
Georgia lawmakers are looking for ways aviation fuel to mass-timber building more carbon-intensive materials like
to boost the state’s struggling forest construction to electric-vehicle batteries. concrete and steel. The first commercial
industry, Capitol Beat News Service “Georgia is uniquely positioned,” building in Georgia constructed with
reported. Marshall Thomas, president of F&W mass timber is at Atlanta’s Ponce City

Georgia’s forestry industry is a victim Forestry Services in Albany, told members Market, made from southern yellow
of its own success. Advanced genetics of a state Senate study committee on pine timber grown in rural Georgia.