Summary
¦ Joinery products can help builders attain CSH credits.
¦ Manufacturers should know the environmental impacts of their products.
¦ Joiners must innovate to provide low carbon solutions.
¦ The concrete industry has developed a responsible sourcing scheme.
¦ Joinery companies can improve their environment impacts by improving waste management.

Joinery manufacturers are “sitting on a great opportunity” provided by the low carbon agenda, delegates at the British Woodworking Federation’s Members’ Day on May 27 were told.

Keynote speaker, BRE chief executive and construction products leader for the Olympic Delivery Authority Dr Peter Bonfield, said construction clients and builders needed BREEAM and Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) credits and joineries could capitalise on this, especially with the increasing emphasis on refurbishing existing building stock.

“You have a magnificent opportunity in retrofit. There’s going to be big growth over the next few years and joinery is a prerequisite for delivering low carbon buildings,” Dr Bonfield told the audience of more than 80 members at the event at Loughborough University.

Need for innovation

However, to ensure timber joinery products are contenders, he said, manufacturers must innovate and know the environmental profile of their products – and do it before waiting to be asked by customers.

“One thing that’s really annoying within supply sectors is that they say ‘the customer never asked for it’. To expect customers to ask questions to get best value is naïve. What you should be thinking is how can we proactively talk to and give customers what they want,” said Dr Bonfield.

Using legal and sustainable timber contributed to CSH credits but it was “stunning”, he said, that “chain of custody is not everywhere in the industry”.

“If you are not CoC certified, don’t wait for your customer to ask for it. Your customer should not be getting into trouble because they don’t understand the vagaries of the wood world.”

Responsible sourcing

But environmental impacts go further than forest certification and he pointed to the concrete industry’s success in developing a responsible sourcing scheme, covering environmental, social and ethical impacts, to meet the 2010 Olympics supplier criteria.

“They were fabulous,” said Dr Bonfield. “They didn’t have a clue about this but they now have an industry scheme. There are now concrete companies that are certified for sustainable sourcing.

“Isn’t that odd when the timber industry has spent millions on getting forest management right, investing in certification – all that work, all that good feeling and this other sector is racing by.”

The PVCu window industry has also enhanced its environmental standing by scoring an A+ rating in the BRE’s Green Guide – the same as for timber windows. Where PVCu gained ground was in waste management and recycling. In contrast, more than half the wood used in window manufacturing is wasted.

“There’s been growth in timber windows because of demand from local authorities and all the work the BWF has done, but what’s going to happy now they’re [PVCu] equally rated?” asked Dr Bonfield. “How have you got yourselves in this position where your main competitor window is rated the same?”

Timber joinery products have inherent advantages, he said, but only if manufacturers innovate. He cited phase change materials, aero gels and vacuum glazing as the sorts of products joiners should be considering.

The timber industry as a whole also needed to provide more technical information for architects and engineers, said Dr Bonfield. Concrete and steel structures were chosen for the 2012 Olympics venues because the industries could provide technical data.

“When you are looking at risk, cost and the ease of an industry to deliver, other solutions [than timber] were favoured,” said Dr Bonfield. “The way to improve is to have more information and design guides. The construction sector is not known for taking risks.”

The day’s theme – “Business opportunities from the carbon agenda” – was explored further in the workshops that followed.

Embodied carbon

The subject of manufacturers needing to know their environmental impacts was continued by Construction Products Association deputy chief executive John Tebbit in his workshop on the low carbon agenda.

Building on zero carbon targets, embodied carbon would be the next big challenge in the carbon agenda, he said, and manufacturers would need to quantify their “cradle to factory gate” carbon impacts such as energy and water consumption and waste production and disposal.

Data needed

“When it comes to embodied energy, data is king. If you don’t have the data, someone else will invent it and it could be your competitor. If you don’t do it you are in severe danger of being disadvantaged,” said Mr Tebbit. He added that it needed to be done in a standardised way as it would be measured against other industries and manufacturers.

This raised the question as to how future timber building solutions would optimise carbon sequestration when engineered products typically contain less timber and therefore store less carbon. “If embodied carbon comes in there’s going to be some interesting competitive positioning in the market,” he said.

However, whatever the product, Mr Tebbit’s final message was unequivocal: “If there’s one thing to remember – measure, measure, measure so you can manage it [carbon],” he said.

Waste management

Managing waste is one area where joinery manufacturers can reduce their carbon impact and this was explored in a workshop led by BWF consultant John Fletcher and Ingunn Vallumroed, project manager at CO2Sense Yorkshire.

“We as an industry are poor at managing resources and waste,” said Mr Fletcher, adding that managing – and reducing – waste made good business sense.

Around 4.6 million tonnes of wood waste is created each year in the UK – 31% of it classed as clean solid waste and 41% as treated, and the latter can be a hurdle for joinery manufacturers. “It’s difficult disposing of wood because people think it’s treated, but creosote and CCA have never been used in joinery. Treatments that are used by joiners are non-hazardous,” said Mr Fletcher.

This was where the industry is working with wood recyclers to educate them on the various waste grades.

One option for joinery manufacturers is in-house biomass, which has the dual benefit of using waste and generating energy.

Ms Vallumroed pointed out that the annually rising price of landfill tax – currently £48 per tonne – meant that just throwing away wood waste was not viable. And in future, she added, there could be a ban on wood going to landfill. “If clever, the government will put in measures to make sure it goes somewhere else,” she said.

In the meantime, although board makers remained the biggest users of wood waste, the increasing demand for biomass was raising the price of wood waste, she said.