Timber industry must work faster and smarter

The timber industry has already done much to improve the way it is perceived by the outside world. One of the most important developments recently has been its acceptance that exercising due diligence to ensure its products are from environmentally-sound sources must be an integral part of its offer.

Besides companies taking this on board themselves, it has also resulted in some dramatic changes to the UK Timber Trade Federation’s (TTF) Constitution, with due diligence becoming a mandatory condition of membership. Given that due diligence is a pan-European issue for the timber sector, culminating in new EU legislation passed in early July, this has been an important factor in allowing the UK to increase its sphere of influence internationally.

This is excellent progress and I am convinced it will help ensure the industry has a vibrant future in an increasingly environmentally-aware global market, in particular, enabling it to make a meaningful contribution to a new era of minimal environmental impact, low carbon building. But there is more to do.

We have the unique ability as an industry to make a positive contribution to the environment – replenishing our basic raw material as we continue to grow, and in many cases enhancing the forest structure and design as replanting takes place. Ours is an industry that adds to the world’s Natural Capital, whereas many competing raw materials are extracted by industries that destroy the earth’s natural resources, with no cost being accounted for in the price of the product as a consequence of this finite depletion. This is a further compelling advantage when we sell the message about the value of wood; as an industry we are responsible for the cost of replenishing the resource we harvest and that cost is already built into our products.

Wood for Good

The Wood for Good campaign is promoting these inherent generic values of wood and is getting the message across to our end users who, I believe, now increasingly understand wood’s compelling carbon credentials.

We should also focus on making buying timber and wood products more straightforward. While our customers may understand the carbon benefits, they lack confidence to embrace wood more fully. Crucially, many end users still find gaining access to wood more difficult than other competing products. Some Building Regulations present the potential user of wood with a complex array of specifications, whilst for the same end use, steel as a choice is quite straightforward. Obtaining building quotations for predominately wooden structures as opposed to steel, brick and concrete, also remains a challenge for the end user. If you want to build in wood you have to be a tenacious customer. We have educated and excited the end user with the credentials of wood and now we have to mobilise it more effectively and provide easy access to our product by moving closer to the one-stop-shop approach.

Engineered solutions

Wood is still generally provided in its basic physical form, and the lack of engineered products means that our customers turn to other industries to provide the answers, which we could, in all likelihood, provide. This is holding back the development of the industry. The lack of industry commitment to research and development is being challenged, although some progress is being made by engaging with some organisations, such as Edinburgh Napier University, where some very valuable work is happening. To succeed we need to work faster and smarter as our financial resource is more limited than other industries.

I have recently been appointed president of the TTF and I see it also playing a key role in taking the industry forward. It is now well positioned, has a strong voice and has the critical mass of sector representation to get the attention of the opinion formers and regulators and champion the industry on the important issues. It has already successfully steered it through many of the difficulties of the sustainability debate. It must now show leadership in helping the industry improve its ability to mobilise wood products, to satisfy the increasing demand generated by the successful campaigns highlighting the compelling inherent values and carbon credentials of wood.

In this business we have a raw material with fantastic potential, we have some brilliant people and we have the ability to shape our own future. I have high hopes we will see it take up the challenges it faces and build towards an enduring future, both on an individual company basis and as an industry.