Haneda Airport begins closed-loop timber project with Sumitomo Forestry

Haneda Airport just launched a project that treats a terminal as the starting point of a forest’s life cycle. As a push to connect urban transport infrastructure directly with forest management, Haneda Airport has luanched the Airport Forest Circle Project with the support of Sumitomo Forestry Co., Ltd. It a project that will establish a closed-loop timber resource model, while engaging airport visitors through the complete lifecycle of wood from cultivation to eventual building material.

In the the first phase of the project, low-pollen cedar saplings measuring approximately 15 centimetres in height are being displayed and nurtured in a designated kids’ space within the terminal. The saplings remain in the indoor space for roughly two months, allowing passengers to observe early-stage plant growth, before being transferred to an outdoor nursery and subsequently planted in forest areas. In the long term, mature timber harvested from these trees will return to Haneda Airport to be utilised as furniture and structural construction materials.

To ensure healthy sapling growth in an indoor terminal setting, Sumitomo Forestry used technology developed by its internal research arm, the Tsukuba Research Institute, which designed specialised lighting and cultivation soil for the display. Design and construction of the kids’ space were carried out by Aim Create Co., Ltd., an operational partner of Sumitomo Forestry. The chosen cedar strain produces less than one per cent of the pollen generated by conventional Japanese cedar trees, addressing public health issues associated with seasonal allergies while advancing decarbonisation goals.

Sumitomo Forestry’s Wood Cycle framework integrates forest management, timber processing, building construction, and biomass power generation into a unified supply chain. The company previously established its Forest and Greenery Research Center in 2014 to advise corporate and municipal partners on greening and forest management, having previously assisted cosmetics brand BAUM in implementing in-store sapling growth initiatives in 2020.