Olympics race is on for timber

The timber sector may already be falling behind the plastic, steel and concrete industries in the competition for a slice of the building products business generated by the 2012 London Olympics. To get its share it needs to work together and act now.

This was the message from TRADA chief executive Andrew Abbott this week.

Addressing the London Softwood Club, Mr Abbott said that the Olympics represented a “massive opportunity” for the construction and building products sectors.

“UK construction output is around £100bn a year and it’s estimated that the Olympics will add 10%,” he said.

He added that the boost to construction would not end in 2012. A major emphasis for the London Games will the the event’s “legacy” . This will involve further major construction work, as developments such as the athletes’ village are converted to long-term use.

“This work takes us up to 2020,” said Mr Abbott.

In his view, the biggest opportunities for timber and wood products were in the legacy projects; but the industry could not take any business for granted.

“These are being billed as the sustainable Games, so timber, as the most renewable building material, should have a huge advantage,” he said. “But it’s not as simple as that. Sustainability is now about more than renewability; it involves a range of factors, from waste minimisation, to community engagement. And other industries are playing up their sustainability strengths. Steel is emphasising its low CO₂ content, concrete its use of recycled aggregates and plastic that it does not contribute to deforestation. At the same time there’s still a message going out that it’s bad to kill trees – so to some extent timber is already on the back foot.”

To tackle the marketing and PR of these big, cohesive rival industries, he said, the fragmented timber trade must act in concert.

He pointed to the Olympics strategy group including the TTF, TRADA, BWF, UKTFA, wood. for good, ConFor and the Forestry Commission, as a good start.

“But the whole industry needs to get involved. We’ll need strategic alliances between companies, to define the roles each of us can play, and understand what we can deliver as an industry and set out to do it. The question is, do we have the wherewithal to mobilise ourselves?”

Mr Abbott also said the industry needed to deliver a coherent message to government and to speak with one voice.

“In my view that should be wood. for good,” he said. “It has the brand identity and we should get behind it.”