SCA Timber Supply chose the perfect way to mark the 10th anniversary of its customer training programme. Besides managing director Rob Simpson cutting an enormous cake, it ran a seminar for past students on its courses highlighting the challenges facing the industry that will make training even more critical in the future.
The venue for the event, New Hall in Sutton Coldfield, was also appropriate. This 13th century manor house is not just crammed with ancient oak beams and panelling, it’s also haunted and the two presenters focused on the problems and potential for timber in building and a real spectre looming over the industry; the rapid growth of the woodfuel market.
First up was BRE chief executive Dr Peter Bonfield whose theme was the UK’s drive to sustainable construction and how timber ensures a fair share of the green building cake.
The changes he described under way in the building sector are seismic. First it is fronting up to making new housing zero carbon by 2016. In addition it is having to adapt to radical demographic change, with the increasing life expectancy forecast to result in the over 65s making up half Europe’s population by 2050.
“That means more focus on looking after the elderly in their homes and the impact that has on buildings,” said Dr Bonfield. “All this, combined with the new era of austerity, is driving the market at pace.”
There was also rising pressure on the building sector to come up with retrofit products and systems to improve the eco performance of existing housing stock.
To compete with other materials sectors in this rapidly evolving market, said Dr Bonfield, the timber industry had to demonstrate how its products solve building sector problems.
“You have to come up with solutions to the challenges facing contractors. If you wait for them to come to you, it will be a long wait.”
According to Ian Tubby of the Forestry Commissions Biomass Energy Centre, the rise of the biomass and wood energy industry is an equally significant market shift. There are already 3,000 small- to medium-scale biomass-fuelled boilers in the UK, plus eight larger scale wood-burning power stations, with another 11 planned. This adds up to a rapidly growing market for wood fibre and, as last week’s panel industry protest and our articles on page 16 highlight, current energy sector consumption is already causing price and supply concerns among existing timber users.
To meet this demand and avoid market substitution of timber for fuel, said Mr Tubby, the UK has to stop dumping millions of tonnes of wood waste into landfill and bring unmanaged woodland back into production.
At the same time, the timber sector should look at opportunities presented by the green energy market, and that doesn’t just mean selling wood waste to power generators or making woodfuel pellets. Timber companies should also explore the possibilities of setting up co-operative heat or power generating plants fuelled by their wood waste.
To minimise the threat and maximise the opportunities represented by these market changes, clearly what the timber industry will need more than ever is informed, highly skilled and knowledgeable employees.
The good news on this front is that the timber sector skills council Proskills is well on its way to establishing its qualification and training framework for the industry. Another positive is that, while cutting that 10th anniversary cake, Mr Simpson said SCA was looking forward to the next decade of its customer training courses.
