Bpifrance announces the second closing of its Wood and Eco-Materials Fund at €80 million, with Eiffage joining the investor group

With its successful second closing at nearly €80 million, the Wood and Eco-Materials Fund restates its ambition of bringing together a group of stakeholders committed to providing support and guidance to SMEs and mid-market companies in the French wood and biosourced furniture and furnishings sectors. The Wood and Eco-Materials Fund, which targets all participants in the primary and secondary processing, timber construction, wood packaging, furnishings, fittings, wood energy, paper/cardboard, wood innovation and bio-sourced materials, is now supported by the Eiffage group. It is a major European actor in the construction sector and had already invested in the first-generation Wood Fund in 2009. Today it is renewing its commitment at a key time for these sectors as they face up to very strong demand for low-carbon and biosourced construction sector, major adjustments to production capacity and issues with accessing and managing natural resources sustainably.

The wood and bio-sourced material construction sector provides concrete and immediately available solution to current challenges:

• major demand for low-carbon solutions;
• emergence of off-site building and dry building techniques for industrialising construction processes and reducing worksite nuisance;
• effective timber and bio-sourced materials insulation solutions;
• structuring of short supply chains fostering local job creation and reducing the carbon footprint linked to materials shipments;
• support for the wood and eco-materials sector using resources from sustainably managed forestry resources.

“Bpifrance, a long-time advocate of the need for companies to embrace the energy and environmental transition, including under a mass-scale Climate Plan, is pleased to welcome the Eiffage group as a new investor of the Wood and Eco-materials Fund” commented José Gonzalo, Executive Director of Development Capital at Bpifrance. “The strengthening of the Wood Fund 3 illustrates our willingness to support the French wood construction and bio-sourced materials sector and to kickstart its drive to be carbon-neutral by 2050.”

Read the press release