The theme for our European conference this year in Copenhagen is the future for American hardwoods. This might seem like a bold title, but that’s precisely what we intended; we believe fundamentally in the potential of Europe for American hardwoods. Although some of its markets have shrunk and some applications have been lost entirely amid shifting organisational and market restructuring, within that change is a wealth of opportunity.
What is required is the time, vision and tenacity to find those opportunities and the AHEC programmes continue to do this soul-searching on behalf of the American hardwood industry. Our promotion helps to create an environment and awareness so that exporters can develop new business opportunities. We’re fortunate in that our industry doesn’t just understand the way we work, they believe in and support our approach. Together we’ve built a programme of activity around three key strands that we believe will secure a future for American hardwoods in 2016 and beyond: • To promote a broad and realistic view of what a sustainable material is
• To make sure we promote what nature provides us
• To use our knowledge of the material and work with creative industries to develop new market uses
A broad, realistic view of sustainability
Sustainability is a term misused and misrepresented across every sector, including our own. So much so, we even considered abandoning the phrase altogether. Instead we’ve spent time reconsidering what it means for American hardwoods and how we can leverage that through our programmes. We believe that sustainability isn’t just about nature growing twice as many trees as those we harvest every year (although this is the reality for most American hardwood species). Sustainability also has to be about how the material is used and the impact of that use on the environment.
That’s why we’ve commissioned studies in sustainability and legality and instigated original research on the environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) impacts of American hardwoods. We now have precise product specific data on a wide range of American hardwood environmental impacts. For example, on climate change, we know how much carbon is captured by the vast American forests, how much carbon is produced in its processing, manufacturing and shipping. And we now know the genuine carbon impact of nearly all the creative projects we’re involved in. What is more, we’re evolving and refining the way we communicate these findings and presenting them in a way that can help educate the market. A perfect example is the recent campaign; growninseconds.info We were really excited to see how many countries signed up to the Paris agreement to genuinely try and set long-term targets for climate change. However, these targets can’t be met without significant changes to emissions in the built environment, making the knowledge and information we have been collecting on the carbon impacts of using hardwood a real opportunity for our industry. From our experience working with leading professionals we know that architects and designers want to use sustainable materials and their working practices to be sustainable too. It’s a default position and natural instinct for them. Understandably, they also need to be able to make a compelling business case in order to act on those instincts.
We see it as our role, on behalf of our industry, to help them do this and provide inspiration, information and evidence that can shape their creative process. In turn these professionals become ambassadors for the use of wood. For example, it was influential architects who coined the phrase ‘wood is the new concrete’ not the wood industries themselves.
A key element of this strategy to communicate the real sustainability of American hardwoods is the American Hardwood Environmental Profiling tool, called the AHEP.
The American hardwood industry is the first sector able to provide environmental Life Cycle Data, assurance of legality and ‘growth versus harvest’ sustainability information with every container of its material. The AHEP is based on that, allowing American hardwood exporters to create a comprehensive report for each individual consignment of product delivered to any market in the world. Simply put, this report demonstrates the legality and sustainability of the American hardwood species contained in that consignment, including quantitative data on the environmental impacts associated with delivering it, anywhere in the world. This is a huge step forward in terms of real, genuine sustainability.
Promoting what nature Provides
There is a single issue (and species) which dominates our thoughts and informs our strategy in relation to what we promote and that is the question of oak.
Our historical relationship with this timber and its abundance in Europe is one reason why European markets are always fascinated by it. But the current almost obsessive focus on European oak, almost to the exclusion of other species, has long-term implications. The predilection with a single species doesn’t just limit the choice we’re offering customers, but also makes it difficult to achieve sustainability, especially when we have so many other good looking and sustainable species to offer the market. If European markets are to use more hardwood, we can’t ignore the vast and renewable resource of North America, which can comfortably meet any increasing demand.
On a personal note and as a wood scientist who has been involved in wood marketing my whole life, I struggle to understand why markets are not embracing more species. It also perplexes me that most of the European market turns its back on one of the most abundant and sustainable oak species which is of course, American red oak. In Milan last month, where we created the Along the Lines of Happiness design project, we were steaming, shaping and bending red oak in front of the international design community. They were clearly excited by its look and performance.
We have a collective responsibility to promote everything that nature provides or this exciting resource cannot be truly sustainable. Using wonderful species, such as maple, cherry, red oak and tulipwood, we believe, improves creativity, increases product options and offers a wider and more exciting choice to consumers. If we don’t do this, options for growth are limited and opportunities lost.
Developing new markets
At AHEC we strive to change the way people think about hardwood as a material. We have seen a revolution in timber construction and it’s creating all sorts of new opportunities. In collaboration with engineers ARUP, we embarked on a journey of exploration, innovation and research over 10 years ago to prove that hardwoods have a valuable role to play in this new building. Many hardwoods have a performance that can’t be ignored and can provide huge benefits to architects and engineers and that’s something we’ve been communicating through many of our projects, created in partnership with the London Design Festival, including the Timber Wave, Endless Stair and Wish List.
This year however, this strategy will culminate in a single, ambitious piece of architecture created in collaboration with Alison Brooks Architects using American tulipwood. This piece, called the Smile will demonstrate the use of industrial-sized panels of hardwood CLT (cross laminated timber). These will be produced by Merk Timber in Germany, one of the pioneers of this manufacturing process. They believe in the potential of tulipwood CLT to bring a revolutionary new element to wood construction.
When we began promoting American hardwoods in Europe well over 20 years ago, newspapers and magazines weren’t full of pictures and comment on timber towers and ‘plyscrapers’ and a myriad of other innovative wood structures. Now they are.
There is a real and genuine buzz around timber in construction; wood has become much more than a feel-good vanity material or last minute ‘green’ add-on. Whatever the economic and political future, we’re in a new age where creative ambition fuelled by technology and material knowledge will propel us forward, toward something more sustainable. There is a future for American hardwoods in Europe. It may not look like it did in the past, but it is bright. Not only that, it is within sight and, most excitingly, within reach too.
