The Forest Owners Association President is predicting massive increases in the worldwide demand for engineered timber construction.

Grant Dodson has told delegates at the Forest Institute Conference in Auckland today (Tues 13^th eds) that continuing worldwide urbanisation, coupled with the need to reduce carbon emissions from concrete and steel construction, will result in many counties encouraging mid-rise timber accommodation.

He says a recent study published by the Potsdam Institute of Climate Research projects that the worldwide demand for wood for such building will need the global plantation forest area to at least double, and perhaps triple, by 2100.

“With our high quality and efficient forest industry here in New Zealand, already absorbing carbon, there are undoubted opportunities for processing modern engineered timber products for domestic and export supply to contribute the same way,” Grant Dodson said.

Grant Dodson also told delegates here in New Zealand the demand for wood for fuel had already begun to increase. 

He commended Fonterra’s aim of converting all its powder driers from coal by 2037 and said the cooperative was leading the biofuel revolution in New Zealand.

Grant Dodson was speaking at the launch of a promotional campaign for the forest and wood processing industry.

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