Timber group issues first two reports

The Timber in Construction Steering Group (TCSG) has produced its first two reports on ‘Global Timber Policies’ and ‘Timber in Construction – an Academic Study’.

Referring to the global survey, Minister of State Pippa Hackett said “the extensive analysis of a diverse range of actions around the world is an excellent baseline to shape timber policies in Ireland, which is patently one of the priorities of the group”.

She said the academic study was important in evaluating “the current approach in Ireland to teaching engineers and architects in third-level institutions on the use of timber in construction”.

The reports were commissioned by TCSG, Forest Industries Ireland (FII) and Coillte with funding provided by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

Report on Global Timber Policies

This desktop study was carried out by Built Environment – Smarter Transformation (BE-ST) and Edinburgh Napier University (ENU) in collaboration with industry experts in Ireland

It assesses the strategies and incentivisation measures that have been implemented in other countries to increase the adoption of timber in construction and outlines how these could benefit Ireland.

In all,11 countries with strong or emerging forest and wood cultures were examined. Comparisons between Ireland and countries with extremely strong wood cultures such as Sweden, Finland, Austria and Canada may seem questionable as the gap is too great to draw meaningful deductions.

However, as the report says by learning from countries such as Austria and Finland “Ireland can create a supportive regulatory environment that facilitates the adoption of timber in the construction sector”.

Comparisons with countries similar to Ireland in terms of scale and development provide a fascinating range of findings, especially Scotland and Denmark.

It is tempting to add the Netherlands but its forests have little or no productive capacity and the country’s policy “does not specifically identify an ambition to increase the use of home-grown timber utilisation, instead suggesting the continued importing of timber” as the report states.

Contrasts between Scotland and Ireland are interesting, especially in relation to timber-frame housing. While Ireland has increased its share of timber frame to 42% of the housing market, it is well behind Scotland.

“Figures show Scotland’s house building industry already utilises forms of timber frame construction for 92% of new homes built,” it states. “Scotland led the world in becoming one of the first nations to declare a global climate emergency in April 2019, setting an ambitious target to become ‘net zero’ by 2045, five years ahead of the rest of the UK,” it adds.”

Outcome two of ‘Land use, Land Use Change and Forestry of Scotland’s Climate Change Plan’ focuses on increasing the use of sustainably sourced wood fibre to reduce emissions by encouraging the construction industry to increase its use of wood products where appropriate.”

The report outlines Scotland’s ambitious Timber Development Programme. This includes initiatives such as Offsite Solutions Scotland which promotes offsite timber manufacturing.

Ireland will find some consolation when compared with Denmark. Like Scotland, Denmark has 18% forest cover but only uses 8% in construction. However, one of the report’s recommendations on fast-tracking embodied carbon thresholds for newly built homes is based on a similar initiative in Denmark.

Restrictions

Unlike other European countries, Denmark is close to Ireland in its restrictions on building medium-rise apartments. “For buildings higher than four storeys, indi­vidual technical assessments are necessary [in Denmark]. Wood buildings must endure longer burn times (120 minutes) compared to other materials (60 minutes).”

Timber in Construction –

an Academic Study

This report “emphasises the need for integrating timber-focused content into our construction and engineering curricula, to enable design practitioners to have the competencies to design with timber,” said Des O’Toole, chair of the Communications Working Group

The report’s action points include:

The TCSG was appointed by the Minister of State Pippa Hackett in October last year to create the conditions to increase the use of sustainable and safe timber in construction. Chaired by Professor J Owen Lewis, it would examine regulatory and standardisation challenges that limit Irish construction to 10m in height and it would maximise the use of home-grown timber.

During its term of ‘18 to 24 months’ the group plans to produce a number of reports to influence policy addressing five themes including timber market opportunities, building regulations, public procurement, reserach and development, education and public awareness.

During the group’s final year, it will examine key challenges facing timber construction including building regulations that limit timber construction to three storeys.

Both reports – global policies and third-level survey – provide a wide range of findings and recommendations covering education, skills and knowledge initiatives, addressing regulatory barriers and creating “Demonstrator Projects” which would showcase successful timber adoption including buildings – large and small – and “entire urban developments”.

The proposal for a “Wood First” policy if adopted would illustrate the Government’s commitment to a viable forestry and forest products industry for Ireland.

“A specific example of this would be a provision relating to a sustainability policy, similar to that implemented in France, which requires all publicly procured buildings to be built using at least 50% timber or other natural materials,” the report claims.

The report is at its weakest in assessing the totality of the forestry and forest products sector especially when making comparisons with other countries. For example, when discussing the success of the timber industry in Scotland it makes no reference to its annual afforestation programme which is consistently six times higher than Ireland’s and the basis for the industry’s success.

While the report includes a recommendation to increase timber supply it does so without acknowledging our current lamentably low afforestation programme.

Wood biomass

The report discusses the forestry industry in Sweden and Denmark without reference to wood biomass which is an inherent element in the wood chain in these countries. Sweden depends mainly on renewable wood energy while Denmark’s biomass – mainly wood – programme contributes more to its renewable energy programme than wind and solar combined.

The TCSG can justifiably claim that issues such as afforestation and wood energy are outside its brief which demonstrates the need for a Forestry Development Agency in Ireland. An FDA structure would represent the industry in its totality including the development of a sustainable construction industry.

The report discusses the importance of family-owned sawmills and offsite timber construction which “is at the epicentre of the housing sector in Sweden”.

This, the report claims “is due to a longstanding tradition of family-owned sawmilling businesses expanding into house manufacturing in the mid-20th century, supported by organisations such as the Swedish Wood Building Council”.

Like Sweden, Ireland’s sawmills are all family owned and a vital link in the forest industry chain. They and other key stakeholders support an FDA, but are not represented on the TCSG either individually or through their representative body – the Irish Timber Council. Before the group moves to the next phase, this omission needs to be rectified.