In 2018 the Department of Trade Industry and Competition (dtic) started on a journey to promote timber in the built environment to promote growth in the sector and create the much needed jobs at the same time responding to the call for sustainable green buildings.
Industry partners like Saw Milling SA, the Institute of Timber Construction, Green Building Council, Forestry South Africa, Timber iQ, other government departments like the Department of Human Settlement, Department of Works, Department of Science and Innovation, academic institutions and other stakeholders have all rallied together to support this initiative.
South Africa, just like the rest of the world, needs affordable and decent housing as well as social, and utility infrastructure. In the face of such challenges, the industry is almost under a moral obligation to transform by using sustainable materials such as timber and by making buildings more eco-efficient over time. The promotion of timber in construction is critical because South Africa is falling behind the rest of the world in using timber for buildings because it has been slow to embrace the possibilities of new engineered timbers and there is a huge potential for South African timber products to reduce the environmental impact of buildings.
Timber construction, which is sustainable and the most renewable of all building materials in every way, represents a low-hanging fruit for public and private sectors invested in lessening and mitigating their environmental impacts. The timing for the South African construction industry to take seriously the principles of sustainable building is good from a political sense and responds to Government’s Preferential Procurement Regulations under the Preferential Procurement Framework Act, Act no 5 of 2000 (National Treasury, 2012). One of the key deliverable for the industry and government is to promote and enhance market access for the locally produced engineered timber products and support policy of local content in structural timber through the designation of structural timber.
As referenced in the Forestry Masterplan 2020 the main objective of the Promotion of Timber in construction programme is to increase the use of Timber in the built environment and promote the industrialisation of the sawmilling sector to increase the production of engineered timber. The manufacturing of timber required in the construction of high-rise buildings and products like Cross laminated Timber (CLT) Oriented Strength Board (OSB, Laminated Veneer Lumber and Glulam (Glued Laminated Timber).
The timber promotion project will also support various other government initiatives aiming to promote green economy in which the forestry sector can play a major role in the transition towards a green economy, with environmental, economic and social (employment) benefits for society. The forest sector can significantly contribute to green building and the increase in the share of green jobs in the sector.
Currently less than 1% of houses and buildings in South Africa are built in timber. This means a lot of work needs to be done in order to develop pro timber policies in the built environment, educate professionals and end users on the benefits of using timber as well as capacitate the industry to start producing the required material at right quality.
Implementation of the programme has started and stakeholders have organised themselves in three working groups focused at achieving the goals above and getting the message on Timber out there.
