Summary
• Life cycle analysis may play as big a role as certification in the future.
• Resource efficiency is becoming a factor in sales.
• Companies are working with suppliers to reduce packaging.
• Timber businesses should be thinking ahead about their carbon impacts, energy and water use.
RE – Resource Efficiency – is fast becoming the new management ‘religion’ of the global business community. How would our trade react if future product pricing were to be based on the total share of the earth’s natural resources consumed in bringing products to eventual end users?
In February, the Aldersgate Group published “Beyond Carbon: Towards a Resource Efficient Future” – a report calling for policymakers to encompass a range of other key resources. The group, whose members range from Biffa to Willmott Dixon, suggests in part that ‘environmental realities’ should be reflected in product pricing by incorporating more aspects of production, recycling potential and, if necessary, disposal. “Policy-makers should decide which resources are most important, and develop controls which value them accordingly,” explained Aldersgate group director, Sir John Harman, who is former chair of the Environment Agency. “In future this may mean product pricing based on whole life cycle impacts.
“Pricing alone will not be enough, yet it will give financial encouragement to ‘circular thinking’ in the way we consume the world’s increasingly pressured natural resources. Forestry and its outputs affect the earth’s ‘natural capital’ in a number of ways. Most obvious is the effect on carbon balance, but forests also support whole ecosystems whose value to the planet has not yet been quantified. The ‘ecosystem services’ that forests provide motivated the [UN’s] REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) process.”
Key battleground
According to Christian Brash, managing director of John Brash & Co, proving the natural capital rooted in timber is one of the industry’s key battlegrounds. “Concrete and steel are way ahead of us with their data, especially on ‘end of life’ recycling. I’ve no doubt that life cycle analysis will soon play as big a role as certification in our ability to sell.”
At day-to-day level, resource efficiency brings practical cost benefits to businesses across our trade. John Brash & Co has taken resource efficiency back up the supply chain, creating its own software to improve grading and thus reduce material waste. It analyses product yield from suppliers’ different sawmills. “We’ve been able to isolate an increasing problem with resin around knots and are working with suppliers to reduce the incidence of this reaching us here in the UK,” said Mr Brash.
Resource efficiency is also becoming a factor in sales, according to Pat Burke, group purchasing director at Arnold Laver. “Pre-qualification questionnaires from the blue-chip building contractors we work with increasingly ask how we can make the contractor’s operations more efficient. Landfill and skips on building sites are constantly escalating in cost, so we offer contractors a wood waste collection service. The collected materials then feed our site heating systems. We’re thus making the best use of every resource, from transport fuel to the timber itself.”
In addition to wood waste, Pasquill Roof Trusses is working with suppliers on reducing packaging. “Suppliers incur costs for packaging which in turn become part of their price. We incur additional cost in disposing of packaging,” said managing director Stuart McKill. “Resource efficiency demands an integrated response across the supply chain.
“The credit crunch has given us an opportunity to assess and improve the skillset of our people, making us more efficient as an organisation,” he continued. “Improving our designers’ capabilities helps them to recognise the potential in different specifications, and to explore a range of appropriate materials.”
Potential savings
The Aldersgate Group report highlights potential resource efficiency savings to British business of £6.4bn per year. “Companies often focus on controlling current costs, but managers should be thinking ahead about their carbon impacts, energy and water use,” said Sir John Harman. “There will be economic imperatives to do so as resource availability and regulation tighten.
“Companies can’t future-proof themselves against every eventuality, but there is economic value in prudence. Will their business still be competitive and wealth-generating in 10 years’ time, in a world where resource and disposal costs are substantially higher? I urge the timber sector to look ahead now to where the future value of their business may lie.”
Stuart McKill at Pasquill is already doing just that. “Resource efficiency is more than just looking at materials, it’s about improving the quality of the business all round. That means acting responsibly and effectively across a range of factors, from health and safety to training staff, in our charitable actions, and also by optimising the use of material resources. Adopting this approach is helping us to create a new value model for our business – one that dovetails with our customers.”
