THE FOREST TRUST LBG

Their core work

The Forest Trust (TFT) is a UK-based NGO that works with companies and communities to drive responsible land use and sustainable sourcing across global supply chains — particularly in forestry, agriculture, and land-dependent commodities. Their EU research participation reflects this operational mandate: in the GROW Observatory they contributed expertise on land, soil, and water monitoring using citizen science and sensor networks, while in COUPLED they engaged with the science of "telecouplings" — the distant, cross-border sustainability consequences of land-use decisions. TFT serves as a practitioner bridge in research consortia, bringing field-level implementation experience that most academic partners lack. Their value proposition is translating research outputs into on-the-ground change in supply chains and land governance.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their first H2020 project (GROW, 2016) was grounded in practical, field-level work: sensors, soil moisture, crowdsensing, and participatory tools for land and water management — applied environmental monitoring with a strong citizen engagement angle. Their second project (COUPLED, 2018) marks a conceptual shift toward systems-level policy research, examining how land-use decisions in one part of the world drive sustainability consequences elsewhere — a more abstract, governance-oriented framing. The overall trajectory is from direct environmental monitoring toward the analytical and policy infrastructure needed to govern land use at a global scale.

TFT is moving from hands-on environmental sensing toward policy-level research on global land-use governance, making them a well-suited partner for projects addressing sustainable supply chains, land-use policy, and the environmental footprint of agricultural commodities.

How they like to work

TFT has participated exclusively as a consortium member across both H2020 projects, never taking a coordinating role — consistent with an NGO that contributes domain expertise and stakeholder access rather than research leadership. Despite only two projects, they engaged with 39 distinct partners across 15 countries, indicating they were embedded in large, internationally diverse consortia. This pattern suggests they are sought for their practitioner credibility and real-world networks, not for administrative or technical project management.

TFT built a notably wide network — 39 unique partners across 15 countries — from just two projects, suggesting they joined large, multi-country consortia rather than small bilateral collaborations. Their geographic spread across 15 countries points to a genuinely pan-European and likely international research network.

What sets them apart

TFT occupies a rare position as an operational NGO with direct industry relationships in responsible sourcing that also participates in EU research — most comparable organisations are either pure academics or pure advocacy bodies, not both. Their existing connections to companies implementing sustainability standards give them credibility as an impact pathway that research consortia need but rarely have. For projects targeting real-world uptake in land-use, agriculture, or supply chain sustainability, TFT offers something a university partner cannot: a direct route to implementation.

Highlights from their portfolio

• GROW
  GROW Observatory was a large citizen science initiative deploying sensor networks for soil and water monitoring across rural and urban agriculture — TFT's most keyword-rich project and the clearest signal of their environmental monitoring expertise.
• COUPLED
  COUPLED tackled the conceptually ambitious challenge of operationalising telecoupling theory to address sustainability problems in global land use, placing TFT at the intersection of systems ecology, policy research, and responsible sourcing practice.