Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

UK — Nearly half of birch wood certified by leading sustainability schemes is misidentified and does not come from the labelled country of origin, according to new testing. The analysis raises fears that large quantities of sanctioned wood from Russia and Belarus are still illegally entering Britain. New research by World Forest ID… scrutinised the accuracy of dozens of harvesting-origin claims on birch products, which had almost entirely been approved by FSC and PEFC sustainability schemes. The samples of birch – a popular hardwood used in furniture, kitchens panels and musical instruments – were labelled as originating in Ukraine, Poland, Estonia and Latvia. But tests using the wood’s “chemical fingerprint” showed that 46% of certified samples did not come from the origin on the label. …While the tests did not specify the country where the wood was grown, experts said Russia and Belarus were the only plausible origins.

AUSTRALIA — The timber aisle in your local hardware store may look a little different if the Coalition is successful in next month’s election. As part of its tilt at government the Opposition has promised to introduce country of origin labelling on timber sold by commercial hardware outlets. In Australia there is no requirement for timber products to be labelled with the country they are from. …Opposition forestry spokesperson Jonathon Duniam said the measure would help people make an informed choice. “We should be making sure it is clear, whether it is a product that you pick up at Bunnings or Mitre 10, you can see that is a product that has come from an Australian forest,” he said. …The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) supports the idea, which chief executive Diana Hallam says would be similar to what is in place for food packaging.

Timber construction has long been widely used in North America, Scandinavia and Scotland, but has struggled for traction in England — where houses are typically still built by hand out of bricks and blocks. England’s biggest housebuilders are all now pushing to build more with timber. Behind the shift is a worsening shortage of the skilled labour that the industry will need to meet the government’s ambitious target for 1.5mn new homes by 2029, as well as looming environmental regulations that will demand better insulation and less carbon-intensive materials. Industry remains sceptical that this scale of construction can be achieved without financial help for buyers still squeezed by high mortgage rates, or an easing of lending rules. But it also probably lacks the capacity to build at this rate — the highest since the 1960s — without changing how houses are built.

This year’s Wood Protection Association (WPA) Annual Awards and Conference is themed Future-Proofing Demand for Correctly Treated Wood. The half-day conference will take place on May 8 in Leeds in conjunction with the WPA’s 2025 Awards. Among the conference speakers will be Paul Pennick, procurement director, h&b Buying Group, who will cover “What supply chain buyers want from the treated wood industry”. Mr Pennick believes the market potential for preservative-treated wood is strong. The Government’s ambitious infrastructure, homebuilding, and carbon reduction plans align with the benefits of treated wood. …Another topic will be the role of builders’ merchants in treated wood sales. …Ed Suttie, head of consultancy, BRE, will focus on “Changing service life and performance data for treated wood”. The emerging requirement for the declaration of Reference Service Life under the new Construction Products Regulation has sparked a reassessment of how service life is determined and communicated. 

Every year, over 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced. About five percent of that ends up in rivers and eventually the sea, or is thrown directly into the ocean by the fishing industry. Plastic, whether it breaks down into microplastic or not, is an unfolding environmental and health catastrophe that affects the whole planet. Many solutions have been proposed and researchers have now showcased a new material that looks and acts like plastic without the impact. The team is calling it transparent paperboard (tPB). The material is made completely of cellulose and its composition is equal to that of regular paper. The starting point is using regenerated cellulose from plants and wood (but not exclusively as they have demonstrated) and creating a hydrogel that can be shaped and is transparent.

This year’s International Softwood Conference (ISC) will take place on October 22-24 in Oslo, Norway. The popular event, which provides valuable information on international softwood markets, will be hosted by the Norwegian Wood Industry Federation (Treindustrien), in collaboration with the European Timber Trade Federation (ETTF) and the European Organisation of the Sawmill Industry (EOS). The conference itself will be on October 23 at the Clarion Hotel Oslo, in the heart of the city centre. …The conference provides an opportunity to thoroughly examine trends in the timber market, focusing on facts and figures for softwood production and consumption in the most relevant countries worldwide – not just in Europe. Before the conference, on October 22, there will be five different study tours, including the production line at Bergene Holm Haslestad… and the wood paint factory at G3 Gausdal Treindustrier.

An educational complex in France has become a showcase for an increasingly popular prefabricated building technique. Work began in May 2024 on the €80 million (CDN$125 million) 14,500 m2 school facility in the City of Sartrouville, northwest of Paris. Final project delivery is scheduled for November 2026. …From the outset, the objective was to create a facility with a reduced carbon footprint in order to achieve what in France is called Level 3 “Bâtiment biosourcé” (Biosourced Building). This requires certain minimum percentages of bio-based material per square metre of floor area. The designers took a unique approach to material selection, opting for 7,000 m² of load-bearing exterior wall panels made of wood-concrete, representing 75 per cent of the flat exterior surfaces. Wood-concrete is made from a mixture of water and wood aggregates, sourced mainly from PEFC-certified French forest operators, which is then combined with cement.