Wood industry 'has to keep eye on ball'

New Zealand's wood industry, like the All Blacks, needs to play a proactive, expansive game if it wants to regain lost ground and come out on top.

So says Network PR's Geoff Henley, manager of the New Zealand Wood Programme.

"We need to play an expansive game to secure winning points."

Henley compared the industry to All Blacks' recent play - putting in an incredible performance early in the Tri-Nations tournament then defaulting to a defensive game and losing to South Africa and Australia.

"It is easy to take your eye off the ball, stop shaping and defining the game and default to reacting instead of initiating and working as a bunch of individuals instead of a team," he said.

Speaking at the Forestry Industries 2011 Conference at the Rotorua Energy Events Centre yesterday, Henley said wood used to be the dominant material in construction, but had lost ground to steel and concrete and to specialist products such as brick claddings and aluminium windows.

"In cladding we now only have 15 per cent market share. For windows it is less than 3 per cent and in flooring we have about 25 per cent. It has been a slow process of erosion."

Henley reiterated comments made this week by Bruce Easton of Resource Management Services Asia Pacific about the need for a more co-ordinated and collaborative approach to promoting wood in construction.

"We have been presented with a challenge and, too often, we have not been able to see off the competitors."

He said there was a danger wood could become confined to character or appearance uses, relevant to only a very small proportion of the residential and commercial markets.

Henley said the situation was not unique to New Zealand and there was a growing body of knowledge and experience in the likes of Britain and Europe the industry should be using to turn the situation around.

Factors such as sustainability, renewability and carbon storage were all things the industry should be promoting.

He said the problem lay with the people and the industry, not the product, and pointed to lessons to be learned from campaigns and changes in focus in sectors such as red meat and fertilisers.

Since the Christchurch earthquakes Henley said there had been a growing awareness of the qualities of wood that made it a safer, more seismically resilient building material, even for multi-storey buildings, but the industry had to present a united front and be part of the discussions about rebuilding in Christchurch and construction in other centres.

"Christchurch has the opportunity to create a city of the 21st Century almost from scratch.

"Discussions on wood's role are well advanced, but industry needs to be actively involved in this thinking." Henley said it was not just about selling product now, but also about positioning wood well for the future.