Why Not Wood? Benefits and Barriers of Wood as a Multistory Construction Material: Perceptions of Municipal Civil Servants from Finland

Abstract

As the construction sector continues to be associated with highly energy-intensive practices leading to excessive carbon emissions, governments in many countries are promoting a shift towards greener building practices, like the use of wood in multistory construction (WMC). Meanwhile, local-government actors (e.g., municipalities) often act as important gatekeepers of urban development given their authority to oversee or approve zoning and land-use plans. Despite this fact, they are not much focused on in existing WMC research. This qualitative interview study serves to fill a gap by studying municipal civil servant perceptions regarding WMC, using Finland as a case study. Civil servants were asked to elicit their personal opinions on WMC, and what they perceived as favorable or unfavorable about using wood as a multistory construction material. Results show increasing support for WMC, and that this is due to key benefits made possible by the technical qualities of engineered wood products in emerging WMC projects. These products permit both the adoption of rapid construction practices that enhance citizens’ quality of living, and also the sourcing of local renewable building materials that support local industries. On the other hand, barriers to the use of wood were identified, such as inadequate information distribution, a limited number of WMC industry actors, and inefficient policy measures.

Collaboration and shared logic for creating value-added in three Finnish wooden multi-storey building projects

“…In the future research, there is a need for deepening the understanding of the sustainability issues affecting the acceptability of wood among different types of consumers, as also voiced by Lähtinen et al (2019a). The role of the public sector, including municipalities responsible for city planning and zoning, can also be decisive in constructing a test-bed (via norms, regulations and innovation policy tools) for new business networks and ecosystem-based trials (see also Franzini et al 2018, Lähtinen et al 2019b. Consequently, analysing aspects from external (so-called socio-political legitimacy) view, and investigating which external drivers for sustainability originates from, would be interesting (see also Hurmekoski et al 2018, Toppinen et al 2019.…”

“…Additionally, an interviewee in Case 2 underlined that for them it had been highly important that "the city has not complicated [the project] in any way" (Architect/main designer, Case 2). Hence, the municipalities may have had a greater role in the business ecosystems and creating legitimacy than to what the initial descriptions of the actors give credit for (see Franzini et al 2018).…”

Multiple Criteria Assessment of High-Rise Timber Buildings

“…From the economic perspective, timber products are a cost-effective solution since they are structurally efficient, light weight, easy and quick to install at the construction site (QWEB, 2015). Higher speed of assembly is also linked to reduced labour hours and project cost (Franzini, Toivonen, & Toppinen, 2018).…”

Institutional and policy frameworks shaping the wooden multi-storey construction markets: a comparative case study on Austria and Finland

“…The role of regulatory environment has been emphasized as an important enabler, and a potential barrier, for the development of WMC (Lindblad and Schauerte 2017, Franzini et al 2018. Building regulations appear still to be one of the key institutions influencing the market shares of WMC (e.g.…”