Monthly Update: February 2021

The Southern Forest Products Association (SFPA) announced that its executive director, Tami Kessler, will retire on April 2, following a nearly 45-year career of serving the southern pine industry. Tami joined SFPA in the mid-1970s and rose through its ranks to become exposition director in 2002, SFPA secretary and director of administration, and executive director in 2014. To support a seamless transition, the SFPA’s Eric Gee assumed the role of executive director on February 1, 2021.

The SLB joins the SFPA’s board and other association partners in congratulating Tami on her distinguished career. Under Tami’s leadership, the SFPA has been an incredible partner to the SLB and the development of its Association Partnership Program. The SLB looks forward to continuing this important work under Eric’s leadership and to finding new ways to align and support each organization’s mission and programs.

Read more here.

Builder magazine recently published a list of 10 medium-sized metropolitan markets to watch in 2021. The list names Salt Lake City, Utah; Nashville, Tennessee; Raleigh, North Carolina; Sacramento and Riverside/San Bernardino, California; Florida’s east and west coasts; San Antonio, Texas; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Columbus, Ohio.

Builder made its list based on the expectation that work-from-home will persist for the foreseeable future, coupled with individual markets’ housing trends, economic health, existing infrastructure, and connectivity – all of which are precursors for growth. While each of these markets fared well in 2020, Builder predicates that they will continue to grow and add momentum in 2021.

Read more here.

Home Innovation Research Labs has published the results of its 2020 Consumer Practices Survey, which sampled more than 110,000 U.S. and Canadian households to understand their home and property improvement and repair spending and projects during the year. As expected, the pandemic had a dramatic impact, with remodeling projects increasing across all categories from a few percentage points to more than 20 percentage points compared with 2019. Outdoor living structures and accessories, exterior and interior doors, and fireplaces and stoves saw the biggest jumps, at 19% or higher each. The next tier of performers – ranging from 9 to 15% year-over-year increases – covered improvements to home exteriors, interior functionality, and comfort.

Read more about the survey results here.

Despite a hard and fast stop to nearly all activity in the second quarter, the multifamily sector generally rebounded in the second half of 2020, buoyed by stable rents, strong capital markets, and steady demand. The segment’s attractiveness to capital markets comes in part at the cost of other segments, as hotel, office, and retail markets all suffer intense drops in interest because of the pandemic.

As with single-family housing, analysts see significant amounts of pent-up demand for quality multifamily housing, particularly outside of large urban cores. In general, these factors combine to offer a positive outlook for the sector in 2021.

Read more here.

Wooden components such as beams, floors, ceilings, and cladding in buildings can help increase the amount of carbon stored in the structure.

Horizon, the European Union’s research and innovation magazine, recently covered how mass timber and wood building construction can help meet global housing demand while also creating a much-needed solution to the climate change crisis. Citing research that was funded by the EU, the article notes that nearly 230 billion square meters of new housing construction will be needed over the next 40 years. If the percentage of wooden buildings in Europe alone increased from its current 10% in 2020 to 80% by 2040 and these buildings incorporated more wood, then more than 420 million tons of carbon could be stored in the process.

The article notes the urgent need to industrialize the wood products industry to enable it to become the norm in construction, including standardizing production of materials such as cross laminated timber and updating building codes, many of which were adopted before timber became a high-tech, engineered product.

Read more here.

According to experts at the IDH Sustainable Trade Initiative, a Dutch public-private partnership specializing in sustainable international supply chains, voluntary carbon trading is ready to go mainstream after roughly 15 years of model development, pilot testing, and learning. The international climate finance market is expected to reach upward of $640 billion in 2021, with big-name firms such as Walmart, Amazon, Nestlé, Alibaba, and Mahindra Group pledging to cut emissions and invest in nature as a carbon sink.

Carbon trading allows companies to buy or exchange carbon credits, which finance the removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (e.g., through forests). Companies that reduce their emissions or remove carbon from the atmosphere (or both) can then sell or trade their unused credits. IDH Sustainable Trade Initiative estimates that demand for forest carbon offsets may outstrip supply by 2025, driving prices up and potentially resulting in offset values worth $125 billion to $150 billion a year by 2050.

Read more here.

Insurance firm AXA XL’s North American Construction unit now offers an insurance option tailored for mass timber construction and risks in North America. Costly insurance premiums have been a barrier to mass timber’s uptake, particularly in tall buildings. AXA XL’s Builders Risk insurance programs will offer coverage to contractors who are experienced in mass timber and committed to using the latest technology as part of their risk management approach.

In a press release, Gary Kaplan, president of North American Construction, said, “Mass timber is environmentally friendly and as a renewable resource has a smaller carbon footprint. . . . Addressing this insurance challenge for our clients certainly also aligns with AXA XL’s corporate social responsibility efforts to reduce our own carbon footprint and support those organizations who are looking to do the same.”

Read more here.

The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) is launching an online master’s degree program in mass timber design (MMTD) soon to educate a new generation of building professionals on all aspects of mass timber design. As the only renewable primary building material, timber is uniquely positioned to help optimize embodied carbon emissions in the built environment and contribute to substantial reductions in the sector’s share of greenhouse gas emissions.

Read more about the rationale for building with mass timber here.