How can we transform the perception of timber construction?

A new report by EIT Climate-KIC and partners looks at the barriers to building in timber and makes recommendations to overcome them.

The built environment generates 40 per cent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. To reach net zero by 2050 and meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5C, the construction sector will need to take urgent action to reduce its embodied carbon. Using wood in construction is key. Not only does it have multiple benefits such as sequestering carbon as trees grow and mitigating emissions associated with using high-carbon materials, but it has various other benefits to the health and well-being of both people and nature.

There are still many barriers to the adoption of timber for construction. In 2022, a consortium of partners led by EIT Climate-KIC, Lendlease, and Waugh Thistleton Architects and including Politecnico di Milano, Arup and StoraEnso launched an initiative aimed at unlocking the adoption of mass timber construction in the Italian context. A new report released today describes their journey to understand the ‘Perception of Timber’ in Italy and what is needed to transform it.

Since its start, the Perception of Timber initiative has identified the main barriers to building with mass timber in Italy and engaged with more than 50 stakeholders organisations in workshops and activities so that they could work together to unlock these challenges, establish a list of clear priority actions, and co-create the first Italian Timber Living Lab: a space for developers, investors, cities, designers, insurers, and assets owners to meet, exchange knowledge and expertise and develop coordinated actions to offer solutions to the Italian market.

The Timber Perception Lab report includes seven lessons and recommendations. It concludes that while the barriers to the adoption of timber in Italy are interlinked and spread across the value chain of circular, bio-based buildings, the solutions to these barriers are within reach.

At EIT Climate-KIC, we know that single-point interventions will not be enough to solve interconnected challenges such as limited access to finance, unconducive regulation, guidance, and construction policy, value chain limited experience with mass timber products and technology or deterring mortgage and insurance premiums. Our systems innovation approach to coordination across technology, policy and regulation, culture and society, finance and economics, data and digitalisation is fundamental to achieving the necessary cross-sectoral alignment.

What is needed is for many different actors and resources to connect in order to maximise impact.

“Unlocking one barrier brings to the next set of challenges: almost never is a problem  solved at the first attempt. At the same time, for the same reason, new opportunities can arise along the way. Flexibility to react to unexpected results, contextual changes, and evolving priorities should be highly valued,” writes Mira Conci, Built Environment Lead at EIT Climate-KIC.

Learn more about what is needed to transform the perception of timber in Italy.

Read the Timber Perception Lab First Year REPORT 

The Perception of Timber initiative is supported by Built by Nature and co-funded by Lendlease.