Dezeen has partnered with the Timber Trade Federation on a live talk exploring the use of tropical timber in architecture and design.

Dezeen's founder and editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs was joined by Timber Trade Federation CEO David Hopkins.

The Timber Trade Federation is the UK's leading membership body for the timber supply chain, promoting the material's sustainable potential at a global level.

It has recently organised a virtual exhibition titled Conversations about Climate Change, which showcased the winning entries of a design competition that called on entrants to design objects to provoke discussion about global warming and show the environmental benefits of responsibly-sourced tropical timber.

All of the objects in the exhibition were made with timber sourced from countries that are currently working towards being licensed via the United Kingdom and European Union's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative.

This initiative commits countries to a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) and an action plan for overhauling their legal, social, business and environmental infrastructure to combat illegal logging and timber trade as well as deforestation.

The FLEGT initiative and the Timber Trade Federation also work towards promoting the use of responsibly sourced tropical timber to stakeholders such as architects and designers.

Fairs and Hopkins discussed the work of the federation, the FLEGT initiative and the virtual exhibition at the Building Centre in London in more detail.

The talk will also explore the environmental benefits of tropical timber and how the materials specified by architects and designers today can have a positive impact on the world's forests and climate change.

Hopkins is a former environmental journalist for the Guardian, the Times, the Independent and the BBC and joined the Timber Trade Federation in 2015.

This talk was produced by Dezeen for Timber Trade Federation as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen's partnership content here.