Our cities need wooden housing

Having now been at Swedish Wood for a whole year, I feel fortunate to be part of an industry that is so important for the green transition and in an organisation
with so many knowledgeable people.

The weak economy and the uncertain international situation are hitting the Swedish construction industry hard, particularly when it comes to housing. According to the October forecast from the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning (Boverket), the number of housing starts declined sharply this year compared with last year, and the pace is expected to dip a little further in 2024. Despite this, Swedish sawmills delivered record levels of
wood products in the first half of this year, mainly due to strong exports. 2024, however, is looking more challenging.

In September, the National Institute of Economic Research forecast a deeper economic downturn, with no recovery until the second half of 2024. Nevertheless, we still need to build more housing. According to Boverket, more than 67,000 new homes are needed each year until 2030. When housebuilding picks up again, wood construction will play a key role in enabling us to accelerate the pace of climate footprint reductions. So although 2024 will be challenging, I remain optimistic about the future prospects for our industry. While we at Swedish Wood cannot influence the economy, there are many other things we can do to increase wood construction when the economy recovers, not least by promoting the possibilities of wood.

A cornerstone of this work is the Swedish Wood Award, one of the country’s largest and most prestigious architectural competitions, which we organise every four years. The next iteration of the Swedish Wood Award will be in March 2024, and this time we will follow the jury’s work in six filmed episodes that can be
viewed at trapriset.se, starting on 15 February.

I also look forward to seeing the entries submitted to »New Eyes on Wood«, an architecture competition for students, whose winning entry will feature at the Nordbygg trade fair in April 2024. The competition aims to increase knowledge about wood and to inspire creative ways of using the material. Among other things, the entries will be evaluated on their ease of disassembly, as a means of extending the lifespan of integrated wood products.

Increasing the use of wood in construction and extending the lifespan of the integrated wood products will mean more carbon is stored in our cities than is emitted. This will make cities true carbon sinks. Happy reading!