| Roots for Growth objectives:
Product awareness and adding value
Our aim is to encourage innovation in the use of timber and timber products from Scotland. The Cluster has brought businesses together with research bodies to explore what is technically possible, and brought processors together with their customers to understand better what end-users want. These partnerships will be key to improving productivity and finding customer-focused solutions. More specifically:
- A pilot study to establish the viability of engineering Sitka spruce for use in joinery manufacture is underway.
- An examination of the opportunities for increasing use of Scottish-grown timber in construction, with particular emphasis on the timber frame market, indicates that there is potential for local timber to account for a much greater share of the current market (Opportunities for home-grown softwood in the timber-frame market).
- Trials to test Scottish Sitka spruce for its potential as a pulp material indicate that the Scottish timber has a tensile strength 30% higher than Scandinavian Sitka, which enhances its suitability for producing quality pulp. This presents a potential market advantage for Scottish-made softwood pulp as a premium grade reinforcing pulp.
Designing with timber
The Cluster has been active in building on the momentum generated by the Wood. for Good. campaign to change attitudes towards timber. For example, it has:
- Co-funded the publication of two booklets: Designing with Timber, aimed at encouraging designers to think more creatively about timber buildings and furniture, and Timber Cladding in Scotland to inspire greater interest in using timber cladding and help overcome resistance to this building technique among local authority planners.
- Supported the building of a showcase pavilion made of home-grown wood products constructed at the new Scottish Plant Hunters Garden at Pitlochry. The pavilion presents the Scottish forest industries through a celebration of the work of David Douglas, who brought to Scotland the Sitka spruce and Douglas fir and is regarded by many as the father of our commercial timber industry.
Wood as a sustainable material
The Confederation of Forest Industries with its forestry business partners, the timber trade and the NGO sector has developed a sector sustainability strategy. The catalyst for this initiative was the World Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002. Forest certification and the introduction of best practice timber processing techniques, combined with wood's inherently green credentials make a strong case for the sustainability of the industry.
Furthermore, a report has been produced on the environmental performance of the UK forest products industry from raw material to the factory gates of primary processors. This gives the facts about the good story that our environmentally-friendly industry has to tell. The report has now been disseminated to over 5,000 architects and construction industry professionals.
Market development
The Cluster is continually on the search for substantial new markets for domestic timber thus a great deal of work is being done in the construction market - the single biggest market for home-grown timber products. There are, however, some other equally important market opportunities. The use of wood for pulp and for fuel are complementary to its use for timber and there may be export opportunities that are currently being overlooked.
- Bringing timber to the market is a pre-condition of a healthy industry. Working with the Cluster team and the Timber Marketing Group, ConFor has been exploring with woodland owners and managers the benefits of cooperative marketing ventures and entering long-term contracts with buyers.
- A pre-feasibility study on the establishment of a softwood pulp mill in Scotland has validated the concept and highlighted some of the key benefits that a new mill would have.
- A partnership project between public and private bodies has been established to supply wood heat to a range of buildings in Lanarkshire.
- International benchmarking identified potential for exporting joinery components to Europe and this is being examined in more detail with a study into market potential for Scottish products in both Holland and Germany.
The focus groups established to take forward all these pieces of work have brought together industry players from both manufacturing and marketing, from processing to using timber and wood products. Opportunities are being created for networking and cooperation, for establishing links where none have existed before, and for strengthening the links that already exist. This is the basic mechanism underlying a strong and competitive cluster and will be the single biggest challenge in strengthening the Cluster in Scotland and in building on its natural home-based advantage.
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