The forestry and wood industry is in a “Goldilocks moment” where conditions are “just right” to align industry aspirations with UK Government policies, Confor’s annual Westminster conference heard.
Stuart Goodall, Confor’s CEO, said industry could deliver a wide range of the government’s economic, environmental and social priorities – but needed confidence and policy certainty to unlock the potential.
He was optimistic the Labour Government would carry on the positive work of recent Conservative ministers and offer clear political support to forestry and wood. This would manifest itself by partnering on the Timber in Construction Roadmap which “is not a party political issue, just good sense” and the National Wood Strategy for England, as well as secure funding for woodland creation and a stable operating environment.
Mary Creagh MP, whose ministerial brief includes forestry, voiced clear support for an increase in productive conifer planting and the use of more home-grown wood in her opening address. She praised the previous government for scaling up planting to 4,500 hectares in England – part of a generational high of just over 20,000 hectares across the UK in 2023-24.
She was keen to see the “useful and important” Timber in Construction Roadmap re-endorsed and “hoped to have good news early in the New Year”, and said she wanted “a healthy, resilient and bountiful natural environment with the productive forestry sector thriving and succeeding”.
The Minister said the Labour Government’s pledge to build 1.5 million new homes in its first term would “grow demand for the safe and sustainable use of timber in construction and help reduce embodied carbon in the built environment”. This could also help reduce timber imports and “create new green jobs in the nations and regions” she added.
“Only 10 per cent of what we are planting is conifer trees, producing softwood, and we need to get this number higher,” the Minister said, also stressing that the management of broadleaf and mixed woodlands had to improve.
In conclusion, she stressed that progress could only be made if the government, industry, landowners and communities worked together towards shared goals.
Forestry Commission CEO Richard Stanford said the industry was well-positioned to support all the government’s main missions, and what it delivered mapped very clearly to all Environment Secretary Steve Reed’s 5 goals – including moving to a zero-carbon economy, supporting nature recovery and reducing flood risks.
At the end of the conference, Confor Chair Lord Duncan said conditions were ripe for the forestry and wood industry to find that alignment with Government objectives. “This is our Goldilocks moment,” he said. “Conditions are just right – we are in the right place at the right time and forestry is the answer to so many questions.
“We need to make sure the sector is heard – now – because we need to get it right now, not in 20 or 30 years.”
The need to use more timber in construction was a recurring theme, and Paul Brannen – author of Timber! How Wood Can can help save the world from climate breakdown – warned that the 1.5 million new homes Labour planned to build had to be built in a very different way to the last 1.5 million. This meant far greater use of timber, and less steel and concrete, he said.
Mr Brannen described concrete as “the most destructive material in the world” and said it was responsible for 8 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions. The need to use more timber was highly persuasive, he argued, because planting productive forestry and then harvesting and using the wood offered a triple-S benefit – sequestration (of carbon by growing trees), storage (of carbon in wood products) and substitution (of more carbon-intensive materials like concrete and steel).
Alex Goodfellow, CEO of Donaldson Offsite, said the housing market was clearly moving towards greater use of wood, but needed further support at government level.
“We’ve got a tried and tested sector here,” he said. “Give our industry some endorsement, put embedded carbon into building regulations, and let us make it work. Of all homes built in England this year, around 50 per cent have been constructed by businesses who have a timber frame arm of their organisation, or are building one. The market has already decided [to move onwards to greater use of timber construction] and is showing the direction of travel.”
The Timber in Construction Roadmap would articulate the solution clearly, Mr Goodfellow said, with pledges to improve data used by the industry, to promote the safe and sustainable use of timber in construction, increase skills capacity – and increase the sustainable supply of timber.