Yes, Timber Really is Sustainable

Dear Editor

Sam Kennedy's letter in last week's Gl@zine (How Sustainable is Timber Really?) throws up the usual specious and confused arguments from the pvc brigade. (I recognise that probably covers most of your readers. I always was a sucker for a scrap). Let's first deal with the question as asked: Is timber sustainable? 'Timber' falls into two categories: 'Wild' and 'plantation'. The former is unquestionably a problem in which local, national, and global politics and the various interests of different parties play a major role. My view is that if the forest is seen to be of no commercial value to the dominant party, there is every likelihood that it will be cleared to grow commercial crops such as palm for oil or cattle for burgers.
Making the wild forests valuable as a long-term resource is a matter for the timber industry in particular and for the rest of us in general.

Plantations are a different matter. The forests Napoleon planted for his naval fleets are a good example of a valuable commercial crop that can be expanded almost at will to cope with anticipated demand. Admittedly, the eighty-year crop cycle demands a fair bit of foresight on the part of the owners. It's possible that Napoleon didn't see the construction industry as the primary user of his timber, but who knows? Anyone with an oak tree at the bottom of the garden knows that little ones spring up all over the place, and soon become something of a nuisance.

Softwoods are a different matter, particularly with the recent development of simple, non-polluting, commercially viable preservative treatments transforming their prospects. With a thirty-five year crop cycle (that's two crops in a lifetime) from plantations worldwide providing an income for their rural economies, the full benefits of a truly green, carbon-neutral structural material will become increasingly available to the construction industry and the arguments in favour of pvc are diminished accordingly. I already have clients seeing more than twenty-five year lifetimes from sealed units in hardwood windows with ten-year refinishing schedules. Henceforth, I expect to do the same with softwood frames, and the finishes are even better than before. No swelling or shrinkage, truly low-maintenance factory finishing, lifetime-of-building expectation, simple installation needing no woodworking skills, swift simple refinishing if you get bored with the colour, what more can you want. PVC, eat your heart out.

Ubiquitous and undoubtedly useful though it is, the manufacture of pvc is a filthy process involving some highly poisonous chemicals which damage us all. My recollection of the proceedings of a seminar at Bognor Regis around ten years ago is that pvc was subjected to a devastating attack from both Greenpeace and the BRE, with timber winning the argument hands down from every angle. Fat lot of good it did at the time. Perhaps the world is ready for something truly different. Make timber valuable, and more will be planted.

Sincerely

Keith J. Nurcombe
Director, SupaWOOD Windows