The relaunched Wood for Good campaign

Jon Stevenson: Wood for Good is changing. It had hung its hat on the environmentally-oriented Wood Co2ts Less campaign but our research suggests that, while environmental considerations are important, they’re not the only driver. People are also interested in delivery on price and performance.
We’re now developing a WFG manifesto, which will be launched at Timber Expo, and it will have three pillars – the environment, the economy and community.
At the same time WFG won’t try to do other people’s jobs and give all the technical information about timber. It will be top level and keep messages clear and simple.

David Venables: But I think you can hang the message on environmental arguments. And in those terms I think the new [anti illegal wood] EU Timber Regulation is a fantastic opportunity. It enables us to go back to environmental NGOs and say right, due diligence systems are in place to eradicate illegal timber from the EU, what about other industries, are their raw materials also legally sourced?

Camilla Hair: Sustainability is important to reputation, and we should be making the most of life cycle assessment too.

Jon Stevenson: But WFG can’t hang its hat on it entirely because, particularly for big commercial operators, cost is a key driver.

Bryan Crennell: WFG could tackle the legality issue, but that’s more for The Timber Trade Federation. I don’t think this forum is the right place.

David Venables: From AHEC’s experience, we get greatest impact when we link our core messages with activities that connect us to our target audiences, notably architects. When we talk to UK architects, TRADA and the Wood Awards get a mention, but few are aware of WFG. That’s the challenge: you have to underpin WFG with specific activities to achieve greater awareness.

Jon Stevenson: Architects and specifiers are a key WFG audience because they can drive volume. We don’t have resources to work from the bottom up, but we can target ‘lay influencers’, such as newspapers’ architectural correspondents.

Wendy Trott: But what mechanism is WFG using to understand what the industry feels should be promoted? Last year Timbmet contributed to WFG but I don’t know what it did, so I’m not sure what the industry got for its money.

Mike Jeffree: Don’t you also need a means for the industry to engage with the campaign? There was the idea of some sort of a WFG ‘Woodmark’ which grass roots companies could use.

Tony Miles: But a generalist merchant sells as much bricks and cement as timber. So if they’ve got WFG on the van, are they going to put “and bricks are great too, and cement is sound”? The big boys’ spectrum of building materials includes timber’s competitors too.

Wendy Trott: And we must promote what is good about timber and accept that there’s room in construction for everyone and not knock other materials.

Jon Stevenson: It might not be knocking copy but it has to be comparative because if you’re promoting timber frame, there are environmental and economic factors compared with steel frame you’d need to highlight.

Wendy Trott: The problem is that a lot of our customer base are in those other materials markets as well.

David Venables: We have to tread carefully, but what if we approached it on the basis of life cycle analysis and put our findings on the table as transparently and verifiably as we can? WFG could play a key role to pull together all the life cycle information that businesses could tap into. In this way we challenge other industries to be equally as transparent.