In partnership with the Structural Timber Association (STA), the 2024 Structural Timber Conference took place on 16 April 2024 at 30 Euston Square, London. The busy day provided various perspectives on the role timber is playing across the built environment.
Providing a focal point to celebrate timber success stories and a forum for discussion about where timber is heading, the day highlighted why timber is central to the UK’s drive to net zero, developing a mature circular economy and creating attractive, healthy buildings. With a heightened focus on building safety, circularity and sustainability, the presentations tackled the crucial question of ‘what’s important right now’ for the structural timber sector.
As pointed out by both Andrew Carpenter – acting in his capacity as board member of the Confederation of Timber Industries – and in a keynote presentation by David Hopkins, Chief Executive of Timber Development UK (TDUK), timber is spearheading a cleaner and more sustainable built environment.
Following the Roadmap
Much of the recent headlines have been grabbed by the Timber in Construction (TiC) Roadmap, where the Government made a generational commitment to increase the ‘safe’ use of timber in construction. The Roadmap aims to help reduce embodied carbon in the built environment, drive investment into tree planting, forest management and domestic supply chains and hopefully create new green jobs and bolster environmental industries.
The STA, TDUK and the Confederation of Forest Industries (Confor) were appointed joint secretariat of the TiC Roadmap, in a bid to expedite its delivery and formally began work on 1 May, having already worked together as key contributors to the development of the policy document. Crucially, the secretariat role will be tasked with leading the development and implementation of each of the seven key priorities identified within the TiC Roadmap, that cover: demand, supply, building safety, labour and skills, carbon, insurance and innovation. All three organisations were integral to the creation of the TiC Roadmap and collectively represent the full spectrum of timber industries.
“Through the secretariat role,” Andrew Carpenter had stated previously. “We also hope to bring other Government bodies and stakeholders together to support and accelerate the Roadmap’s implementation, which is crucial to ensuring the UK stays on track to meet our legally binding climate commitments.”
Part of this will be trying to increase the use of timber frame construction in England from 23% presently to 40%. Overall, the TiC Roadmap is a hugely positive development and will need a great deal of team and cross-organisational work to deliver it – its “problematic to do alone.” One thing is clear: for many outside the timber sector – or at least new to its idiosyncrasies – a lot of work must be done on risk mitigation, helping insurers and dispelling some of the bogus statements surrounding timber specification.
Certainly, there should be more promotion of the Alliance for Sustainable Building Product (ASBP) Mass Timber Insurance Playbook – an excellent document created to bridge the information gap between construction teams and insurers of mass timber buildings. Future plans on the drawing board for release by the secretariat are a Mass Timber Asset Register and a Durability Workbook.
Building Safety & Skills
A panel debate on ‘Building Safety and the Impact of the Building Safety Act’ saw Tim Galloway, Deputy Director Building Safety Programme, Health & Safety Executive, Kelly Harrison, Director at Whitby Wood and the STA’s Andrew Orriss, discuss the implications for timber.
As with many aspects of the contemporary construction world, data is driving many decisions. The problem is pulling this data together coherently. Huge amounts of product performance testing give us sufficient information – e.g. moisture control – but how can that be transparently interpreted to give the supply chain ‘real’ evidence to deliver better timber building solutions – will AI step in to solve some of these issues?
But collaboration is central to many improvements, Kelly Harrison spoke about the supply chain always being very co-operative, but the construction industry needs to be better educated on how the timber supply chain works – especially the talk turns to well-being, healthy and the natural aspects of timber environments. The STA’s Andrew Orris added that STA are working diligently with its members on the stepchange in Building Safety Act responsibilities that all parties within project supply chains will need to focus and the “monumental challenge” that the Act presents.
Throughout the day a range of schemes highlighted some of the amazing work being done with timber technology – these included The Black & White Building, National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS), New Temple Complex, Sky Pavilion and the Arbour, Brent Cross – most of which have been covered in depth inside Structural Timber magazine. These flagship schemes have the common thread of outstanding design and delivery but also epitomise high levels of understanding of timber as a material and its carbon credentials.
Circular Thinking
The main afternoon sessions centred on the future of timber, its role in the circular economy and barriers to its wider specification. Taking up the skills improvement mantle, Steve Bertasso, Assistant Professor at NMITE, outlined the Timber Technology Engineering Design (TED) short courses that they have rolled out and the centre’s wider role to “stimulate collaboration across the industry.” They are also working hard with partners to address skills gaps highlighted in the TiC Roadmap.
Have we become a throwaway society – even in the way we design and construct? This is the mainstay principle driving the circular economy. Can we recycle and reuse materials more? Can we design buildings to dismantle, deconstruct and repurpose for other uses? The afternoon panel debate: ‘Building a Circular Economy with Timber’, included Philippa Birch-Wood, Local Network Co-ordinator, UK Green Building Council, Kirsten Haggart, Associate Director, Waugh Thistleton Architects and Charlie Law, Director of Sustainability at TDUK.
Prolonging the use of a product or building with a view to deconstruct or retrofit rather than demolish is a societal imperative. But there needs to be more mechanisms to enable this to happen efficiently – digital technology can help here – with digital twins giving us a better idea of what a building contains structurally and how it can be reused. BIM has a key role in this as we seek to design for adaptability. There also needs to be concerted moves towards mandating embodied carbon targets e.g. Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden have introduced regulation on whole-life carbon emissions, addressing both operational and embodied emissions.
Finbar Charleson, Architect and Research Lead at dRMM finished the day highlighting the markets and opportunities for homegrown timber – an exciting and developing area for all those working in timber – both in construction and forestry.
Within the TiC Roadmap a new statutory woodland cover target wants to increase tree canopy and woodland cover in England to 16.5% by 2050 from its current 14.5%. This will hopefully stimulate tree planting of both hard and softwoods and reduce the over-reliance the UK has on imported timber – simply from an embodied carbon perspective, the slashing of transport emissions and costs would gigantic.
The government awarded £7.6million through the Woodlands into Management Forestry Innovation Funds to “develop new technologies and working practices that boost homegrown timber” and arguments surrounding the suitability and specification of C-16 and C-24 are plentiful, but a plentiful supply of UK Beech could stimulate a homegrown CLT and mass timber market. Certainly, these advances can add a new dimension to the forestry and primary processing sectors.
Timber sits in a sweet spot connecting the built environment and the natural environment. With more flagship schemes showcasing the best of these two worlds and proving what can be achieved with timber and bio-based materials, a zero carbon, attractive and flexible world of construction is within the UK’s grasp.
