Depicting wood-based sectors to inform policymaking: A structural modeling approach centering on networks of markets

Abstract

The article presents a new way of conceptualizing wood-based sectors that aims to capture intra- and inter-industrial relationships in order to enable an improved understanding of structural complexities for the design of targeted governance interventions. Building on a sociological perspective that views markets as (resource) linkages, we propose a model that represents the structure of an ideal-typical wood-based sector as a network that can be adapted to specific regulatory systems. The model-building process groups wood-based products (including services and consumers) into nodes and identifies edges that connect nodes through technological conversion pathways (i.e. markets). The structural model reveals how numerous wood-based industries are linked, providing a comprehensive depiction of the sector: a total of 1582 markets link 177 timber-based product groups across 12 different production stages. The model includes Circular Economy options and comprises multiple industries only recently considered part of the wood-based sector, such as the chemical industry. Modeling the wood-based sector when accounting for intra- and inter-industrial relationships leads to an expansion of the “traditional” sequential chain structure into a non-hierarchical network structure. The proposed structural model underscores the complexity of wood-based sectors, which results – among others – from the versatile applicability of wood across production stages. We argue that more reflection is needed on the consequences of simplifying wood-based sector structures in research assumptions. For future research related to policy goals such as circularity, the article suggests a rethinking of wood-based sectors regarding sectoral boundaries and the importance of interpreting markets in their embeddedness.