Innovation is key

The world is changing fast, too fast for some and not fast enough for others, it all depends on your perspective. Globalisation, whether we like it or not, has linked our economies into one interdependent financial ecosystem, where a developing country’s thirst for growth can profoundly alter the manufacturing base of another. And the trend is only accelerating: now China; next India; and then Africa.

The world is changing in other ways as well and not for the better. We have always been part of a global ecosystem that turns out to be as sensitive to change itself as our economy. And the change is man-made, not natural. Our thirst for growth, powered by fossil fuels, has led to a change in the carbon cycle that is causing global warming and, consequently, climate change.

So where does this leave us who work with timber? How do we not just survive globalisation, but thrive? And how will we reduce our impact on the environment?

In the UK, at least the industry has seemed to be able to survive doing what it always has. It gets by. It responds when it needs to and remains a relatively comfortable place to be. We can feel good about the environment, because our products grow on trees. But is this enough? Probably not.

I regularly receive e-mails from Chinese companies offering to supply timber for our projects at rates cheaper than we can source in Europe, let alone the UK. As an industry, we seem happy to thumb our noses at the other material industries claiming the high ground on sustainability because we work with a renewable one. As an architectural practice, when we want to find innovative timber technologies we will invariably be talking to German, Danish or Swedish companies.

So we need to be able to compete globally and do better environmentally. How? We can innovate. We are no less creative than our German or Danish cousins when it comes to engineering. Added-value engineered timber solutions are being conceived all the time; there is no reason why they could not be delivered by UK companies. I often hear some say that we simply do not have enough forestry. Not true. We do, but it is fragmented and not currently managed for production levels that could support innovation. Others say we can’t get the grade of timber we need. Again a red herring; the grading system is arcane, opaque to most and an ill-informed architectural profession continues to specify inappropriately.

Eurban’s solid timber solution is an example of the kind of innovation I know could be developed here in the UK. The system creates a monolithic sheet of high performance, engineered timber out of ungraded timber off-cuts that would normally be chipped for boards or fed into the plant’s biomass boiler. The idea was originally developed by a smaller company that saw an opportunity to innovate. James Jones &?Sons, here in the UK, has just joined forces with Binder Holz of Austria to form Binder Jones with a similar system they intend to manufacture in the UK. This trend towards innovative value-added, engineered timber is great news and I am sure will continue. TRADA’s series of case studies on the innovative use of timber in buildings shows great examples of what can be done when designers and contractors combine their collective skills.

There are also plenty of opportunities that could drive this trend for innovation further. The UK government is spending upwards of £42bn on its Building Schools for the Future programme, and we are pushing at an open door when it comes to the use of timber. The Olympics loom large on the horizon and my role as chair of Wood for Gold allows me to engage with the Olympic Delivery Authority, designers and contractors on how timber will play a powerful role in Olympics venues and beyond into the legacy it leaves behind.

Timber, as we all know, is renewable and helps reduce our impact on the environment in significant ways. It works as a carbon bank, it is beautiful, strong and can be used in many different ways. Let’s not forget that it was nature that delivered this innovation, not us. Our job is to sustain that innovation through good stewardship of our industry and the environment, and to work even harder on how we can match nature’s innovation.