2016 reasons to be cheerful

2016 in the timber industry – optimistic or pessimistic? That was the ice-breaker question in a round table discussion on prospects for the sector over the next five years co-hosted last week by TTJ and the Medite 2016 Forum. Off the top of my head, one of my reasons for optimism was that top-flight Danish worktop maker Spekva, which I’d just visited, has added modified softwood to its raw material palette. Not only that, demand for products in the timber, which is Lignia, a densified New Zealand radiata pine from Fibre7, was such that it had to rein back its sales effort to keep up.

This episode highlights that the industry is developing an ever-wider offer of products, including engineered as well as modified wood, which complement the material in its natural form, making it go further and widening its appeal and application range. Moreover these products are winning over very demanding specifiers and end users.

Spekva’s adoption of Lignia, for one, is quite an endorsement for modified wood. The company makes some spectacular products at its pristine plant in Kolding. And to say it has an eye for detail and quality would be an understatement – even the bevel of the hole where the sink fits is measured to within an inch of its life. Every worktop is bespoke, made with a mix of craft skill and ultra-modern technology and, due to its attention to wood selection, seasoning, factory climate control and packaging, wherever the product ends up worldwide, it promises a fit to within 2mm.

Spekva admits that it adopted Lignia partly as a lower price option. The green angle, with the material being based on relatively fast-growing plantation timber, also played a part. But its technical properties and the fact that it adds another material to the portfolio were key to its selection. And interestingly, what seems to appeal to customers are the science behind modified wood and its aesthetics. As a result, it’s seen less as an alternative to other timber varieties, more a rival to man-made materials.

Other TTJ/Medite 2016 round table predictions (which we’ll report in full later) were far from universally rose-tinted. Participants raised the prospect of rising global consumption, supply constraints and price rises. It was also felt the industry needed to invest still more in R&D and there was a warning that it won’t be out of the woods with the NGOs even when it’s tackled sustainability and legality. Next they’ll turn their scrutiny to the social record of the sector on a global basis.

But, overall, the round tablers were cautious through to outright optimistic for the next five years. Reasons to be positive ranged from timber’s prime suitability for sustainable, low carbon construction, to signs that the trade looks set finally to address its long-standing weakness of fragmentation in promoting itself and making its voice heard at the political level. The fact that it is developing these new engineered and modified products to enhance wood’s technical capability and get more from the resource was also seen as a major plus, with Malaysia starting to make glulam cited as further evidence of their growing significance.

And finally, in what I believe will be a widely understood exception to our rule of making this editorial comment overly personal, I’d like to pay tribute to BSW sales and marketing director Alan Wheat, who died two weeks ago. He was such a bundle of positivity for this industry – in fact the bruise from the trade-mark enthusiastic clap on the shoulder he gave me at the TTF dinner in March has only just faded! If this business has just half his energy and enthusiasm in the years ahead, it has plenty of reason to be optimistic.