Citizen views on wood as a construction material: results from seven European countries

Noora Viholainen,Anders Q Nyrud,Camilla Widmark,Katja Lähtinen,Florencia Franzini,Anne Toppinen,Hans Fredrik Hoen

doi:10.1139/cjfr-2020-0274

Abstract

Multi-story wooden buildings are hailed as a favorable means toward reducing the embodied energy of the construction sector. However, the sector’s path-dependent nature hinders acceptance of using wood in multi-story construction. As a result, research predominantly focuses on examining the perceptions of construction professionals to identify means of breaking the path dependency. We propose using citizens’ perceptions about the use of wood to inform professional decision makers. Our research thus aims to answer two questions: What are citizens’ perceptions about using wood as a construction material, and are there country-based cultural differences between these perceptions? To elicit this spectrum of citizen views, an online survey was deployed in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze 6633 open-ended responses to the survey. Respondents held multi-faceted opinions about the physical properties, environmental, social, and economic aspects of using wood as a construction material. Citizens from Finland, Norway, and Sweden expressed discernably different perspectives about the acceptability of using wood than did citizens from Austria, Denmark, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Overall, respondents from all countries expressed high approval for the use of wood in construction.

Highlights

IntroductionBuildings account for 39% of global carbon emissions; 28% are generated during a buildings’ operational lifetime (i.e., operational carbon), with the remaining 11% released during manufacturing, transportation, construction, and end-of-life stages (i.e., embodied carbon) (World Green Building Council 2019)
Buildings account for 39% of global carbon emissions; 28% are generated during a buildings’ operational lifetime, with the remaining 11% released during manufacturing, transportation, construction, and end-of-life stages (World Green Building Council 2019)
Citizen perceptions can provide invaluable information to key stakeholders involved in construction material decision making

Summary

Introduction

Buildings account for 39% of global carbon emissions; 28% are generated during a buildings’ operational lifetime (i.e., operational carbon), with the remaining 11% released during manufacturing, transportation, construction, and end-of-life stages (i.e., embodied carbon) (World Green Building Council 2019). One method of reducing embodied carbon is to reduce emissions from raw material production by substituting the carbonintensive raw materials used in construction — such as concrete or steel — with wood (e.g., see Takano et al 2015; Hildebrandt et al 2017). Though using wood is common in single-story buildings, countries in both Europe and North America support the use of wood in multi-story solutions (Hurmekoski et al 2018a). These solutions are dubbed “multi-story wooden buildings” (MSWB).

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion