Intermediaries are important facilitators and drivers of sustainable transformation in many industries. Examples include industry organisations, cluster organisations and various forms of knowledge brokers, which drive the development of knowledge and practice through professional networks. In this article Antje Klitkou presents one example of how this may play out.
Antje Klitkou, research professor, NIFU
Transition intermediaries in wooden construction
In October 2022 NIFU and its partners started a research project funded by the Research Council of Norway: Inno4Tree – Addressing climate change with innovation in the forest based industry.
The project was run by NIFU, Treteknisk and the Environmental Institute of Finland, SYKE. The project collaborated with two Norwegian cluster organisations that specialise in wood-based industry: Wood Works! and Norwegian Wood Cluster.
The sustainability transition of wooden constructions depends on an interplay between technological innovations and the different actors in the innovation system, with the goal of overcoming existing path dependencies and lock-ins.
New pathways
We identified four directions for new pathways (i.e. new ways of defining objectives and organizing innovation) towards a more sustainable wood-based construction and building sector: (1) more sustainable construction processes, (2) more sustainable technologies based on timber, (3) broader market development, and (4) more dedicated institutions and policies.
The new pathways involve many associated economic activities, not just wooden construction in isolation but also forestry, design, prefabrication of materials, assembly, housing, maintenance, demolition and recapture of used materials.
The new pathways for wooden construction are interlinked. More sustainable and circular construction processes (such as the inclusion of industrial prefabrication of wooden construction elements and the recapture of used wooden materials at the end of life of a building) also require the development of new technologies and new markets.
Transition intermediaries
Norway has several specialised cluster organisations for the development of more sustainable and wood-based construction technology, like the Norwegian Wood Cluster, the Wood Works! Cluster and InnoTre in Agder. Previously, there was also the Wood innovation programme for intermediaries, run by Innovation Norway.
In Norway the industry association Treindustrien has been very active in institution building and policy development. The public procurement of municipalities has been important for the network of experts.
Transition intermediaries have close connections to the different actors in the wooden construction industry. Among these, we find knowledge providers, such as research organisations, architecture and engineering consultancies, education institutions at different levels and entrepreneurs who have gained a lot of experience in wooden construction. Municipalities and other public builders can serve as a source of inspiration and provide insight into how to organise such processes.
Transition intermediaries connect the different economic activities of forestry, construction, and housing. Moreover, the cluster organisations cooperate with the small private niche intermediaries, the network of experts and the industry associations.
Transition intermediaries evolve over time and get new roles, while older roles are taken over by other actors.
We have found that intermediaries need to broaden their horizon when lobbying for new, wood-based solutions, opening new market possibilities and addressing social problems. Transition intermediaries must break up the interlinked path dependencies and remove other barriers for new path development.
Private sector intermediaries
The case study of private sector intermediaries in Norway and Finland shows that in the wider ecology of intermediaries, private sector intermediaries must navigate mixed expectations regarding emerging sustainability requirements.
The case study revealed that in Norway, private sector intermediaries emphasise the reuse of wooden materials and buildings. Moreover, they stress the need to move the target from an increasing use of wood towards a sustainable use of materials in general.
In Finland, private sector intermediaries operate by actively encouraging policy changes in wood construction. They address regulatory gaps and socio-economic barriers such as practices favouring concrete-based construction, traditional attitudes, and inefficiency of industrial wood construction.
The intermediaries also engage in lobbying, advocacy, and networking to influence policy and sectoral practices. For example, in Norway the private sector intermediaries participate in the public discourse about securing biodiversity in our forests by linking business interests and ecological objectives.
In Finland, intermediaries are more cautious when it comes to participating in the policy discourse about forest biodiversity and the industrial practices of the forestry sector. The forest sector is dominated by mass industry and energy production, and wooden construction has only a minor share of value creation.
Innovation network
The innovation network in the construction industry is fragmented, project-based and dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises.
Municipalities organise many short-term construction projects, which makes learning across projects difficult. High fragmentation and less collaboration in innovation networks limit productivity. The discontinuous way of organising innovation in wooden construction, also called ‘projectification’, contributes to many interruptions and less active process-oriented intermediaries. Projectification refers to the governance trend of increased use of projects at all levels in society.
Unlike the traditional linear value chain, which follows a «take, make, dispose» pattern, the circular value chain emphasizes sustainability by designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems.
In the construction sector, the persistence of linear business models and of linear value chains hampers sustainability gains. They especially create disadvantages for SMEs experimenting with digital solutions.
In the future, the innovation network might change towards being more science-driven, due to digitalisation and the facilitation of circular solutions. This will require more circular value chains and business models, and new niches and new roles for intermediaries connecting multiple socio-economic systems.
The development and deployment of new technologies needs to be accompanied by changed institutional conditions and regulations that demand more sustainable solutions in the construction sector, leading to reduced GHG emissions, reduction of waste and energy consumption, and changes in the social practices of constructing. This requires competency development in all parts of the innovation system.
How should future research address the need for a sustainable transformation of the construction industry? One possibility would be that research funders prioritize projects that not only address bio-based construction materials but also circular construction value chains, exploiting the potential of recaptured building materials and supporting digital ecosystems that follow these circular value chains.
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