I recently attended the 10th Anniversary event of the children’s charity Tommy’s and there was something about the evening that couldn’t have been more pertinent to the timber industry. To raise funds they’d taken simple squares of tulipwood, donated by International Timber, and asked over 200 famous people to embellish them for auction. They raised over £500,000 which, I calculate, made the timber we’d donated worth £3m/m3! If only.
The relevant point here is all about giving timber added value. Even more important is creating a perception that it possesses an innate value for which the customer will pay. Sadly, this is not the mindset of our industry generally. For more than 20 years, we’ve been mired in a production-oriented mentality. The industry is fixated on cheap products and maximum output. It is more important to be lean and mean and drive value out of the supply chain than listen to a market that is willing to pay for added-value timber solutions.
Timber is bereft of real sales and marketing activity, product development and investment in brand value. The result is that there is no brand loyalty. But the sad fact is that we’ve never been better placed to capitalise on fashion and socio-economic trends that are giving natural materials a massive boost in desirability. Timber is a vital part of the material mix ethic being embraced by designers and consumers. Statistics show that consumers are placing greater importance on higher quality, natural home products and are happy to pay more for them.
So why don’t we reap the rewards? Multi-national chemical companies are embracing the eco-message to their advantage, while we squander an opportunity to promote the real values of timber. It is unique, it is our only natural renewable resource – and its sustainability is the reason that Tommy’s chose it.
If a charity can hit on the values of timber with such apparent ease, why do we find it so difficult?
