Man with a message

The UK Timber Decking Association (TDA) is currently translating a Swedish smartphone app for building a deck. Users key in the vital statistics, and the app calculates volumes and dimensions of timber, and other components needed. It lists local suppliers and succinctly and simply states the technical and environmental case for timber generally, and treated timber in particular.

The app was created by the Swedish Wood Preserving Association (Träskydd) and clearly bears the stamp of its managing director, and also secretary-general of the Nordic Wood Preservation Council (NTR) and TDA board member, Mikael Westin.

A familiar figure in the UK industry, thanks to a 30-year trade association career and the UK being such a key Swedish market, Mikael has long held the view that the sector needs to be more outward looking and communicate better.

"We've tended to focus on our own activities and regard competition as the next timber trader or sawmill, rather than rival materials," he said.

Belying his passion for the industry, but perhaps helping explain his enthusiasm for clarity, telling it like it is and slicing through the detail, Mikael actually started as a lawyer.

"My first job was as court judge's assistant in the northern town of Sollefteå," he said. "It was an experience; handling divorces, marrying people, dealing with burglaries, fights, even murders. And it was a small community where everyone knew everyone else - not unlike Midsomer Murders! "

While retaining his interest in the law after this, Mikael also felt the pull of the commerial world. "It was in the blood," he said. "Our family owned a leading iron foundry machinery maker, and, before it was eventually sold, I spent several years on the board."

The chance to blend law and business came when the Swedish Wood Exporters Association (SWEA) advertised for an assistant legal adviser.

"I had no wood sector experience but, like all Swedes, had that inherent timber feeling; the wooden summer house, the love of the forest," he said. "Most of us share that connection."

His new work covered a range of legal questions then impacting international trade, notably standardised softwood contracts.

"As a result, I was working closely with overseas bodies, among them the UK Timber Trade Federation," he said. "I was also involved in arbitration, which was how more negotiations and claims were settled then."

In 1987 Mikael became SWEA chief legal adviser and, four years later, managing director. His role was to communicate international trade policy at a time when European standardisation was becoming increasingly significant, and new grading rules were emerging. "This further broadened my contacts abroad," he said, "including with UK importers and agents."

During the 90s and early 2000s Mikael additionally took on the roles of exporters' speaker at the European Softwood Conference and vice-president of the European Organisation of the Sawmill Industry (EOS).

It was also at this time that he became increasingly focused on the need to raise timber's market voice and profile.

"For this, we needed to have a more united front, and this led to the SWEA joining with the wood information and research bodies Träinformation and Träforsk to become Swedish Wood, of which I was also MD," he said. "We also collaborated on communications with the Finns and Norwegians."

Industry cohesion
The mood for greater industry cohesion also resulted in closer contacts with the Swedish Forest Industries Federation (Skogsindustrierna), representing forestry, pulp and paper, and, ultimately, its absorption of Swedish Wood. In turn, in 2003, that resulted in Mikael becoming a Stockholm-Brussels commuter

"I was appointed Skogsindustrierna's EC representative," he said. "It was another active time. REACH regulations on chemicals were coming and illegal logging and the Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade, or FLEGT initiative were a growing focus."

There were also frustrations in the role. "While, it seemed, you could do little harm at the EC, you could do things in vain!" said Mikael. "To get something on the agenda, you had to target the right person, with the right issue, at the right time. Otherwise things vanished in the system."

After three years and, he admits, some Brussels disillusion, Mikael ended his weekly commute and became a consultant. But that didn't last long.

"Träskydd needed an MD, and I applied to do the job on a consultancy basis, but was told it was full time," he said. "It became even more so in 2009 when I additionally took on the role at the NTR, which includes Norwegian, Danish and Finnish membership."

Once more Mikael found himself heading organisations with strong internal focus, but less in the way of customer and consumer connection.

"The preoccupation was treatment penetration and retention levels," he said. "We needed that technical expertise, but also to be more market facing. This was particularly the case given rising imports of low-grade east European treated timber. We couldn't compete on price, so had to concentrate on performance and communicate that to customers."

The ultimate result of this was the NTR guarantee scheme, which promises a 20-year service life for treated timber. This is based on specific penetration and retention levels for different use classes, and a tough auditing regime for companies signed up to it.

The NTR was backed by a marketing drive at 800 Swedish builders merchants outlets and a communication campaign abroad. "That led to our close relations with the UK Wood Protection Association and TDA, and eventually the decision to join the latter," said Mikael.

Next in the market facing strategy came the deck app, and that's now being followed by a consumer website under the same banner 'Bygga ute?' - 'Building outside?' - focused on use and performance of treated timber.

"The site details the NTR guarantee, and environmental information, but fundamentally consumers want solutions, so it includes where to get materials, do's and don'ts and expert blogs," said Mikael. "Visitors can also send in their deck pictures for us to post online."

Continuing frustrations for Mikael are treated timber's sometimes negative environmental media image, and criticism from non-treated suppliers. "It's so counterproductive, timber attacking timber," he said.

But overall he's upbeat, with annual production of NTR-treated pine now around 1.54 million m3, and timber being in "a strong place overall as the only renewable building and manufacturing material".

Away from the office, having summarily dropped golf after 30 years, Mikael's interests include art and antiques and reading history and biography, particularly, it seems, British. After working through his hefty History of the English Speaking Peoples, he's now reading Churchill's voluminous Second World War series.

He also just enjoys spending time with wife Lena, their student sons and dog Herkules, a Finnish Lapphund, particularly at their timber summerhouse in the Stockholm archipelago, where users of the Bygga Ute? phone app will be reassured to learn, Mikael built his own deck.