Healthy and sustainable growth – that’s what WeGrow stands for.

Wood is a raw material that is increasingly in demand on our planet and is becoming ever scarcer. Overexploitation of natural forest resources, including illegal logging of tropical rainforests, is therefore an emerging trend worldwide. The negative consequences in terms of the loss of animal and plant species and the influence on the regional and global climate are becoming increasingly clear.

In order to counteract this development, there are various approaches to solutions in addition to the resource-conserving use of wood as a raw material.

One important approach is to protect the remaining species-rich forests and to manage them in a sustainable manner.

Another approach is to increase the natural forest stands through extensive reforestation programs in order to give endangered animal and plant species back their habitat and to be able to meet the steadily increasing global demand for wood as a raw material. This approach is important and purposeful. However, noticeable positive effects on flora and fauna as well as on the global supply of wood usually only occur after a delay of many decades. This is because natural forests sometimes need up to 100 years to create diversified new habitats and to produce marketable timber assortments.

In addition to these solutions, it is possible, sensible and necessary to produce timber outside and thus in addition to the natural forest in fast-growing and very productive timber plantations. Natural forests and biotopes remain untouched and cultivable land for food production is preserved in the long term. This approach can make an important contribution to sustainably reducing the pressure of use on natural forest stands.

This is precisely where WeGrow’s business model comes in. With the sustainable plantation cultivation of the fastest-growing tree on earth, the Kiri tree, it is possible to produce marketable wood assortments within a few years, which can substitute some domestic, but also tropical wood species.

The cultivation of Kiri wood in plantations cannot achieve the ecological value of natural forests, but if it is done on previously intensively farmed areas, the areas can significantly gain in ecological value due to a variety of beneficial effects:

• Due to their rapid growth, Kiri trees absorb up to four times as much CO2 from our atmosphere as the mixed forests of temperate latitudes. Due to the use of wood in long-lasting applications, the CO2 remains bound for many years or even decades and can thus make an effective contribution to counteracting climatic changes.
• Due to the translucent leaf canopy, it is also possible to use the cultivated areas additionally as extensive and species-appropriate pasture and exercise areas for sheep, cattle or chickens or for the cultivation of agricultural intercrops, thus producing high-quality food at the same time (agroforestry I intercropping use).
• Furthermore, the very numerous and nectar-rich blossoms of the Kiri tree can provide an important source of food and thus a livelihood for a large number of endangered native insect species such as wild bees, bumblebees and butterflies.

WeGrow was founded in 2009 by Allin Beatrice Gasparian, a graduate in economics, and Peter Maximilian Diessenbacher, a graduate in agronomy. Following their vision and always keeping their goals in mind, they started out as a team of two and then together with their steadily growing team, which now numbers over 100 employees, they created all the conditions necessary to achieve their goals and realise their vision through constant hard work. The result is WeGrow AG, which includes all areas from plant production, the professional and sustainable management of the cultivated areas to the high-quality treatment, processing and international marketing of the Kiri wood.

Our goal is to use and spread the know-how we have built up over the years and the products and technologies we have developed for the economic, social and ecological benefit of our planet. But there is no time to lose. Climate change and the loss of natural forest areas are advancing. That is why it is important to continue research and develop innovative methods to further accelerate the urgently needed reforestation. This is also why WeGrow is now pursuing mixed afforestation and agroforestry projects in addition to pure field farming. With the Kiri CarbonForests, WeGrow has developed a model in which the high CO2 fixation and rapid growth of the Kiri trees can be used not only for timber production in plantation form, but also in ecologically diversified reforestation projects.