Summary
• wood for good in 2007 backed the BWF’s Wood Window Alliance, Timcon’s Wood in Packaging Products initiative and the Wood Awards.
• A survey by wood for good and TRADA highlighted a need for more market education about wood and its role in combating climate change.
• The campaign has developed its online learning service.
• It has also supported the launch of a construction carbon calculator.
• 2008 plans include timber cladding and glulam promotion.

The wood for good campaign has had a busy year working to influence architects, engineers and contractors to use wood as a sustainable building material. The various projects we have run, collaborated on or formed partnerships around, all stress the important role wood plays in sustainable building methods and low or zero carbon construction. This year the campaign’s promotional activity was also broadened through its support for the new Wood Window Alliance with the British Woodworking Foundation, and Timcon’s Wood in Packaging Products project.

With TRADA, wood for good also undertook an important programme of market research. This provided a clearer understanding of the needs, concerns and the barriers that may prevent builders and contractors from specifying and using wood. The results provide invaluable guidance that informed the campaign’s activity.

The two clearest issues to emerge were climate change and education about timber. The research showed that, although climate change was an issue for increasing numbers in the construction industry, few fully understood how it would affect them and their clients.

On timber education, many felt the wood industry could improve information provision. More was needed to encourage and educate those who used wood or wanted to use it more frequently in construction. And specification of timber had to be more straightforward. Both of these have been core areas for wood for good and its partners and 2008 will see further campaign projects to make wood easier to specify with confidence.

Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth documentary on climate forged a new focal point for the sustainability debate and presented the timber industry with a significant opportunity, since wood is the only truly renewable, low energy, naturally occurring carbon sink.

As a crop, responsibly-managed timber sequesters carbon dioxide and locks it into flexible, high-performing, cost-effective building and finishing products. At the beginning of the year this view wasn’t clearly understood by some in construction, but this has improved. Wood for good brought together the latest thinking and research for members, ensuring conversations with customers and policy makers could be more informed. One practical way in which dialogue on wood’s environmental benefits was promoted was wood for good’s support for the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management (ECCM) on its Building Material Carbon Calculator. This calculates the carbon footprint of a construction component or building. Based on an Excel spreadsheet using latest international research on materials’ embodied energy, this has now been downloaded from the ECCM website by almost 500 building professionals. It allows informed materials choices to be made and, of course, encourages the use of wood as it has the lowest carbon footprint of any building material.

In 2008 we need to keep building on the work the Carbon Calculator has started, encouraging debate about carbon and embodied energy. And we welcome industry views on which aspects we should concentrate.

From our research with TRADA, we also found there was a clear need for more accessible, practical data on timber performance; information that will allow people to design quickly and confidently with timber. As a result we will be creating the definitive guide to timber specification in 2008.

We have also partnered Napier University, the Royal Institution of British Architects (RIBA) and others to develop the UK’s first online learning library for wood. It launched at www.timberacademy.co.uk, with 11 modules covering topics from timber decking through to building sustainably with wood.

Each interactive module provides easy-to-understand information and key questions. RIBA has reviewed the site and made wood for good an accredited CPD provider, so architects can now use it to earn CPD time. There are already 20,000 pre-registered users of the resource, which is free for architects, engineers, specifiers or Timber Trade Federation members.

In 2008 we will do even more to ensure that anyone planning to use wood can find the information they want quickly and easily. The online learning resource will expand to include new modules on MDF, OSB, doors, windows and timber frame building.

We will also continue to promote the use of wood at the 2012 Olympics through Wood for Gold and to back the Wood Awards, a great showcase for creative and innovative timber use. In addition we will undertake special projects on timber frame building, glulam, timber cladding, wood outdoors and wood windows.

For 2008 wood for good also has its largest budget for four years. It’s a vote of confidence from our members on which we intend to build.