Jean-Max Peronne is currently a wood project manager at Saint-Gobain Distribution Bâtiment France. He joined this large company after graduating in engineering and is in charge of the group’s wood procurement issues.

What are your tasks as wood manager at Saint-Gobain Distribution Bâtiment France?

In fact, I don’t work directly with wood, I’m not in a production plant or in construction.

I work on the problem of the supply and management of this material. My current job involves several tasks.

The first concerns regulatory control during the creation of articles. I am also in charge of monitoring.

This involves keeping up to date in order to better understand all the issues at stake in the forestry and wood industry in France, Europe and the world.

My last activity consists of training the buyers of our brands and making them aware of environmental issues.

What is your educational background at ESB?

I followed the ESB engineering course for 3 years.

The first year is a common core where you learn all the characteristics of the material, its potential and what can be done with it.

I then chose to specialise in the international wood trade.

How do you see the material wood?

My vision of wood, since my training and then my integration into the company, has evolved a lot.

I have gone beyond the simple aesthetic aspect of the material to really understand its value and richness, particularly in terms of its resources and its exploitation.

Wood has a real environmental and symbolic value that other materials do not have.