LignaAlba is a UK-based SME with a core project team of Gordon Duffy (CEO/Technical Director/Project Design Lead, Architect and entrepreneur) and Norrie MacPhail (Account Manager, Project Manager and builder/asset manager/company director and sustainability specialist), supported by industry advisors. The UK construction industry is a large consumer of timber that requires high quality softwood products. Currently a majority of construction grade timber is imported (UK being the 3rd largest importer in a global context), with demand expected to rise considerably. The UK forestry industry tends to favour the quick economic gains of destructive clearing for short-term gain. Most low-grade timber is used for the manufacture of short-life products such as pallets, potato boxes and fence posts. This approach consumes valuable natural resources and fails to prevent catastrophic climate change or improve the health and well-being of people and the planet. Unless it produces timber used for long-life carbon retention, the industry will fail to meet its global social, economic and environmental obligations. To address these issues, LignaAlba is developing a passive-solar kiln that cost- effectively dries low-grade timber to construction grade standard, with added social, economic and environmental benefits. The kiln will enable remote rural communities and businesses to produce C16- grade timber, suitable for construction/house building, from nearby forests. This will reduce transport costs and carbon emissions, help meet environmental targets and support local economies by developing skills and jobs, making them more competitive, sustainable and independent of current market limitations.