Share
The Future of Timber
Investment with David Edwards
With forests taking an average fifty years to grow the ongoing impacts of climate change are making forests significantly more vulnerable to biotic and abiotic pressures. The increasing potential for damage from fire, wind, pests, or disease is inescapable. At the mercy of such stressors, why then would anyone invest in forestry and why has it been such a lucrative asset class over the past three decades?
To explore this question we spoke with David Edwards from Tilhill Forestry whose portfolio extends to 200,000 hectares of forest managed on behalf of investors and private clients. Though David acknowledges they deal mainly in the UK in upland spruce plantations he was keen to highlight that institutional and private investors in forests are primarily interested in their return on investment (ROI). In the UK this translates as spruce plantations that grow fast with relatively simple silviculture.
More episodes
View all episodes
Radical Realism with Kelly Harrison & James Solly
32:26|Kelly Harrison fro Whitby Wood is a timber design and sustainable structures specialist. Kelly has a wealth of experience in hybrid structures, adaptation and retrofit works. James Solly from Format Engineers is passionate about and experienced in the day-to-day exploitation of digital technology as a creative tool for the realisation of designs. We discuss what it is that drives Kelly and James to approach and innovate with timber the way that they do. And consider the role that innovation and engineering has in the future of forests.
Investment with Harry Stevens
23:40|Harry Stevens from BSW shares with us his unique perspective within a vertically integrated company and why volume is still king over quality when it comes to investment. With the new UK government pledging 300,000 new homes a year, there is a significant opportunity for BSW ahead. In Scotland 90% of new homes are timber framed and it isn’t a huge leap to see England up it’s timber framed domestic construction from its current 10%. In conversation with Harry we explore the investment decisions at BSW and how these decisions are connected with the forest.
Responsibility with Adam Grant & Tom Ludwig
40:59|In this episode of The Future of Timber we talk with Tom Ludwig from NatureMetrics and Adam Grant from Double Helix and consider what it means to ensure the integrity of our timber supply-chains. At NatureMetrics Tom has been working to prepare the corporate world for nature-based reporting through the use of robust high-resolution data to track biodiversity impacts. At Double Helix, Adam works in supply-chain due diligence for forest products and agri-commodities. What does transparency and more data mean for the future of timber?
Investment with Pertti Vanhanen
26:06|With an open mind we venture into a world unfamiliar to many of us, but pivotal to the timber value-chain. For all the talk of the radical, of responsibility, of forestry and of species, nothing happens unless it can be paid for. We talk with Pertti Vanhanen of the Cromwell Investment Group, a passionate advocate of timber construction, deeply rooted in the forest from a childhood spent in rural Finland, who runs a multi-billion euro investment scheme for timber construction. We wanted to discuss what thoughts the Cromwell Group have as building developers on the future of timber.
Radical Realism with Jenny Ford & Matt Stevenson
32:40|Jenny Ford from Materials in Mind is a designer and systems thinker who is revolutionary in her creative approach to waste and resource management. Jenny has worked on numerous projects that look beyond the standard procurement for timber and the creation of affordable sustainable timber housing in Bristol. Matt Stevenson from Ecosystems Technologies, a homegrown mass-timber maverick is a passionate and recognised leader in digital construction technology and low carbon building designs. In this episode we discuss Jenny and Matt's work, their unique approaches to timber as a construction material, and the future of timber from where they're sat.