22019

timbernewsA magazine for SCA’s solid-wood product customers | www.sca.com/wood

Forest to powersustainable future

Strategic partnership in France

Students inspired by the great outdoors

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SCA. SE-851 88 Sundsvall, Sweden tel +46 60 19 30 00. www.sca.com/wood

Editor-in-chief Björn LyngfeltProduction KarMin kommunikationRepro & printing Åtta.45 Tryckeri AB, Sundsvall, Sweden To subscribe to Timber News, please contact camilla.gardlund@sca.comFeel free to quote us, but please name us as your source.

At the heart of SCA’s business is the forest – Europe’s largest private forest holding. We have developed an advanced value chain around this unique resource, based on renewable raw materials from our own and others’ forests. We supply paper for printing and packaging, pulp, solid-wood products, renewable energy, services for forest owners and efficient transport solutions.SCA Wood is the part of SCA that produces sawn solid- wood products from the forest. We are one of Europe’s leading suppliers of wood-based products, producing 2.1 million cubic metres annually. The product range is enhanced through customer distribution solutions for the wood and builders’ merchant industries.

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CONTENTSTrust in timber for a bright future 4

Strategic partnership to drive development in France 6

Using timber to cut Paris Olympics’ carbon footprint 7

Sustainable forestry provides  greatest climate benefit  8

Architecture students create oases of calm in nature 10

Movers and shakers 11

SCA Wood Magazine – a new publication from SCA 12

Cover image: Arknat participants enjoy the shelter they created. From left to right: André Berlin, Emma Arvidsson, Agnes Engström, Gustav Näsman and Ahmet Can Karakadilar.

Timber News protects the privacy of its subscribers.At sca.com you can learn more about how we process your personal data in accordance with applicable data protection legislation.If you want to unsubscribe from Timber News please contact camilla.gardlund@sca.com and we will immediately discontinue the processing of your personal information associated with this subscription.

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role of the future. Innovation and digital transformation require significant invest-ment in terms of organisation, equipment and IT. Consolidation therefore is an enabler for creating larger companies with the power to drive the necessary development.

This issue of Timber News highlights two examples of consolidation of the builder’s merchant supply chain in Europe. SCA Wood has a strong strategic focus on supplying builder’s merchants and is one of these examples. Both in-stances have similar approaches and are helping create improvements to develop services and product ranges for builder’s merchants.

My hope is that further consolidation will follow, benefitting our customers, us as suppliers and wood as a material.

Markus Henningsson, Vice President Building & Supply Solutions, SCA Wood

Consolidation of the European builders’ merchant sector has been going on for some time and

it is now hard to find small independent builder’s merchants that haven’t been bought up or aren’t part of a large pur-chasing initiative. This isn’t surprising, as consolidation is a natural process in all sectors , according to the Harvard Business Review (December 2002).

One consequence of this consolidation is greater professionalism in builders’ merchants’ purchasing, with require-ments on suppliers growing in recent years. Of course, not all of these require-ments come about because of consoli- dation, but also because of the general development of society and trends such as a greater focus on sustainability and digital transformation.

The supply chain, which includes post- processing and the distribution of wood products to builders’ merchants, remains far more fragmented, however. In con-trast, it is a sector in the early stages of consolidation, and is characterised by lots of small, often family-owned businesses.

Sweden is an exception to this rule, with distribution mainly integrated up- stream in the value chain, i.e. owned by sawmills. But there are still a large number of businesses involved. The relatively low level of processing means that, like other distribution sectors, the supply chain has low margins, which are hopefully offset by a high inventory turnover and low invested capital.

The builders’ merchant industry occa- sionally expresses frustration at the pace of development within the supply chain.

Small-scale suppliers with low margins are struggling to develop the distribution

Consolidation to ensure satisfied customers

3 | timbernews

SCA Wood unveils new timber coversSCA Wood has a new look for its timber covers and packaging from this autumn, in line with the SCA Group’s branding. It’s a key part of implementing SCA’s new graphic identity.

Customers will start to see the new covers and packaging from October, with most products expected to feature the new branding by year-end.

Toby Lewis, SCA Wood UK Head of Sales, Terry Owen, Huws Gray MD, and Andy Wagstaff, Huws Gray FD at the SCA SmartTimber launch at the Huws Gray GIANT Trade Event.

Successful UK launch of SCA SmartTimber SCA Wood UK has launched the SCA SmartTimber con-cept. During the spring Huws Gray, SCA Welshpool’s lar-gest and longest-standing customer, launched The GIANT Trade Event, the first ever showcase of its business and suppliers. Almost a year’s planning went into the event, along with considerable promotion in the months leading up to the day, resulting in excellent attendance. It also provided a fitting arena for the UK launch of SCA Smart-Timber.

“All of SCA’s products received an overwhelmingly positive response from visiting end-users. The features and benefits of the products were instantly recognised and didn’t need to be ‘sold’. We heard lots of examples of issues currently faced by users working with softwood or MDF. The response to SmartTimber was overwhelmingly positive, and this was in many respects the ideal event for the UK launch of SmartTimber,” says Toby Lewis, Head of Sales at SCA Wood UK.

This summer SCA Wood used its SCA SmartTimber con-cept to hold three auctions on the website Tradera, selling outdoor furniture. All the furniture was built from SCA’s solid-wood products.

This autumn there is a fourth and final auction for the charity campaign. SCA influencer @villautgard has designed and built a garden sofa and table using heart pine. The material is reclaimed decking used at this year’s Biathlon World Cup event in Östersund, Sweden. There may be some marks from stones and shoes, but that hasn’t put people off bidding.

The whole campaign has a generated a lot of interest.SCA Wood donated SEK 25 per bid made on the three auctions over the summer to the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund. And SCA raised its donations to SEK 50 per bid for the final auction. SCA is also donating all the money raised by the sales, totalling more than SEK 20,000.

“It was great to be able to support something as im- portant as the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund, as well as raising awareness of our products and the SCA Smart-Timber brand,” says Vanessa Pihlström, SCA Wood Marketing Communication Officer.

Charity auction for the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund

Outdoor furniture made using reclaimed decking from the 2019 Biathlon World Cup.

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Valbo Trä is a company that’s going places. Under the management of Site Manager Fredrik Kojonen, left, and CEO Mikael Helmersson, the company is now expanding to ensure both quality and capacity.

The town of Valbo trusts in timber. Local business Valbo Trä AB has good reason to be confident about the future. Its recent acquisitions and investments speak for themselves. CEO Mikael Helmersson says there’s real confidence.

TRUST IN TIMBER

for a bright future

T here’s a lot going on Valbo Trä AB, which is based outside Gävle on Sweden’s east coast. After well over 60 years in business, the previously family-owned

business has grown into a small industrial group that nowadays is part of Persson Invest.

Today Valbo Trä calls itself “an end-to-end supplier to the Swedish builder’s merchants sector”. This involves its three planing mills producing everything from beams, flooring and decking to panelling and mouldings. Its product range also includes heartwood pine and heat- treated wood.

“We’re getting better and better at processing sawn timber and are particularly good at bespoke solutions,” explains CEO Mikael Helmersson.

He doesn’t see any slowdown in demand for the company’s products. On the contrary, wood is growing in

popularity as a material, and architects have started realising the possibilities offered by timber. Regardless of economic fluctuations, he believes wood will be used more and more.

The trend also points to more pre-painted and precision- cut products. At the same time, builders’ merchants want suppliers that are highly flexible and responsive to market needs.

This is something Valbo Trä’s owner Persson Invest focused on when it decided to expand the business to ensure quality and capacity. This resulted in two major investments. And that’s just for starters.

The first is the acquisition of Setra’s operations in Skut- skär, which, it is believed, will strengthen Valbo Trä’s position as a supplier on the Swedish builders’ merchant market. The Skutskär facility consists of two planing lines and wood treatment and painting lines.

“Around 85 percent of customers are from the same segment that we currently sell to from Valbo Trä, which provides good synergies,” notes Mikael Helmersson.

Another, significantly larger investment is the SEK 90 million being put into new production premises and planing lines on the neighbouring site in Valbo. This was previously the location of a planing mill, purchased by Valbo Trä in 2016.

The purchase also enabled logistics at the plant site, which had long been something of a bottleneck, to be reorganised and made more effective.

Site Manager Fredrik Kojonen shows us round the 3,300 square-metre production hall which will soon house the assembled planing lines. Meanwhile, in the adjacent

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Mikael Helmersson, CEO of Valbo Trä, in the new production hall where the planing lines will soon be assembled. The investment is one of a number of initiatives making Valbo Trä an end-to-end supplier to Swedish builders’ merchants.

About Valbo TräValbo Trä AB is owned by Persson Invest and consists of production units in Valbo, Edsbyn and Skutskär with a total of seven planing lines. The company also has painting and wood treatment lines.

The majority of its raw material, some 70 percent, is close-grain sawn spruce, with pine accounting for the remainder. 70,000 cubic metres of raw material is supplied by Gällö Sawmill, which is owned equally by SCA and Persson Invest.

Valbo Trä has annual sales of approximately SEK 550 million and total capacity of around 270,000 cubic metres.

80 percent of its production is sold to Swedish builders’ merchants, 15 percent consists of building components and the rest is exported to Japan.

building yet another new planing line is being commissioned.“It’s a major investment that will provide new oppor-

tunities, with considerably greater volumes per man-hour,” he notes.

Without its own forest resources, Valbo Trä is also de- pendent on securing supplies of sawn raw material. Around one-third of its raw material is therefore supplied through deliveries from Gällö Sawmill, which is owned equally by Persson Invest and SCA.

It remains for Mikael Helmersson and his colleagues to put everything in place and integrate new units and production lines into the company. The company is also due to install a new business system.

Mikael Helmersson is positive. “We’re a highly moti-vated company. So we need to find solutions that work for both our customers and our production operations,” he says.

Text: Mats WigardtPhotos: Frida Sjögren

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The perfect partner on a growing wood products market – that’s the view of Markus Henningsson, Vice President SCA Building & Supply Solutions, about the merger with France-based Innovation Solutions Bois, ISB.

Strategic partnership to drive development in France

An agreement on a merger between the two com- panies on the French building supplies market was signed in March 2019. The combination of their

respective businesses in France creates a “strong supplier that can meet the needs of demanding wood product customers on the French market”.

“SCA is a major industrial operator with significant forest holdings. We believe our customers appreciate this, even when operating under a different name,” says Markus Henningsson.

Innovation Solutions Bois is a market leader, and France’s, and one of Europe’s, largest suppliers of solid-wood prod-ucts to the building materials market. As well as being an importer and distributor, the company also processes timber, and has sales throughout France and five modern process- ing plants.

ISB imports around 600,000 cubic metres of wood products each year, and has annual sales of approximately EUR 230 million. Until a few years ago, ISB was a wholly owned subsidiary of UK-based multinational Wolseley, but is now a standalone business.

For its part, SCA Wood France supplies over 100,000 cubicmetres of wood products annually to the French

building supplies market, including flooring, decking and construction timber.

“As demands on wood product suppliers increase, operators need to be a certain size to stay ahead,” says Markus Henningsson.

Aware of the need to expand on the French market, the choice was between investing and finding a cooperation partner with which to grow.

“We looked at both of these options and decided the solution that made the most sense was a merger with ISB,” he explains.

The processing and distribution of wood products at Rochefort that was part of SCA Wood France will now come under Groupe ISB. After contributing timber operations and acquiring shares, SCA’s ownership interest is just under 40 percent, making it the largest shareholder. SCA’s Boneuil-Matours plant, which suffered a fire in 2018, is to close.

Markus Henningsson is positive about an increased presence in France, explaining that it is a stable country with a large market and growing interest in timber construc- tion. The French government has promoted wood as a priority construction material that can contribute to reducing carbon emissions and improving the environment.

“But our main interest isn’t necessarily in selling more timber in France,” says Henningsson. “Instead, it’s to develop a long-term strategy for a long-term presence on a key market.”

Extensive integration efforts are now underway as the two organisations merge. The new company will continue to be called ISB and will be a standalone French company. SCA Wood France will consequently cease as an entity. SCA’s continued sales of solid-wood products will take place under its own name but will be managed by ISB.

Pierre Gautron, ISB’s former owner and CEO and now the company’s chairman, instigated the merger between the two companies. He is looking forward to an increased presence in Southern Europe and more efficient distribution, improved customer service and a step-up in the develop-ment of new products.

“We have the know-how, experience and expertise to create a joint organisation,” he notes. “Everything will be in place by the summer.”

And Jerry Larsson, Head of SCA’s Wood business area, believes that together they will form a strong operator with the ability to strengthen the value chain, from forests, via Swedish sawmills, to customers in France.

“We share the same values, with an emphasis on customer value, sustainability and innovation,” he explains. “That bodes well for the future.”

Text: Mats Wigardt

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The Olympic movement’s future plans are encouraging cities’ candidacies to reflect respect for the environment and sustain- ability. For Paris 2024 this includes an Olympic village built entirely from wood.

“It’s a boost,” says industry body Le Commerce du Bois.

In his speech presenting the Olympic Agenda 2024, IOC Chairman Thomas Bach said our world is now more vulnerable and exposed than ever before. And

he emphasised that the Olympic movement is not separate from the rest of society.

So the IOC’s message is that in order to protect what is unique about the Olympic Games and also contribute to a better world, it needs to proactively take responsibility for the games being held in a way that is sustainable in the long term, in all respects.

“We also need to take responsibility,” Thomas Bach told delegates gathered in Monaco in 2014.

In their preparations for Paris 2024 the organisers are heeding this message, with the aim of cutting carbon emissions by 55 percent compared with London 2012.

The Paris Olympics will be an excellent opportunity to showcase France’s progress and expertise in fossil-free housing, according to the project’s management group, France Bois 2024.

To achieve the ambitious goals and specifications, the project has mobilised companies involved in the develop-ment, design and construction of multi-storey timber buildings throughout France.

The Olympic village will consist of 314,000 square metres of new housing space built using glulam and CLT (cross-laminated timber). The exterior of the buildings will be clad in wood panelling. The buildings will be up to eight storeys high and after the Olympics they will be reused as housing and offices.

The estimated volume of construction timber needed for the entire project is around 60,000 cubic metres. Exterior panelling and decking will be in addition to this.

France Bois 2024’s aim is for half of the construction components required to be made from French forest raw material. The remainder will have to be purchased from other suppliers in other countries.

Constructing the Olympic village from wood will reduce the carbon footprint in the demanding Paris environment. And it will ensure a more attractive setting for the sports-men and women attending the games. It will also provide a significant boost for the French timber construction industry.

Text: Mats Wigardt

Using timber to cut Paris Olympics’ carbon footprint

Photo: Canstockphoto

Utilising all of the treeSCA has established an industrial ecosystem that generates the greatest possible value

in and from forests through renewable products and a resource-efficient value chain.

SawmillsThe most valuable part of the tree is processed by sawmills into solid-wood products. Some of this becomes window components, painted panels or shelving. Just over half of each log is turned into solid-wood products. The remainder becomes woodchip for pulp production or sawdust that is turned into pellets. The bark is used for energy production.

Pulp and paper millsSCA’s fibre operations produce chemical and mechanical pulp, printing paper and packaging paper. Pulp and paper mills are supplied with the wood that can’t be turned into sawn timber and with sawmill chips. Bark is used for energy production. Heat is recycled and steam used for electricity generation. By-products such as tall oil and turpentine are processed into biofuel and chemicals. As well as pulp, a sulphate pulp mill also produces large amounts of renewable energy.

Wind powerSCA’s 2.6 million hectares of forest contain a large number of good wind turbine locations. SCA is preparing wind power projects and lets land to power producers and green investors that generate and sell green electricity.

BioenergyThe energy supply for SCA’s production facilities consists almost exclusively of bioenergy. By-products are used to generate heat and electricity. SCA also produces energy which it supplies externally in the form of green electricity, district heating, unrefined and refined biofuel, and is assessing the possibilities of producing biofuel.

Once the trees have matured, they are converted into prod- ucts such as solid-wood products, pulp, paper and, in particular, renewable energy. These products can replace

products with a larger carbon footprint; wood instead of con-crete, steel and aluminium, paper instead of plastic and biofuel instead of fossil fuels. The power of the forest allows us to make a real contribution to a sustainable future.

Sustainability is reflected in everything SCA does. For instance, we manage our forests responsibly to ensure they are at least as rich in biodiversity, experiences of the natural environment and raw materials in the future as they are today. We undertake targeted conservation measures like restoring wetlands, and we

Global warming is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Forests and forest products are key elements of the solution. Thanks to the way we manage our forests, growth each year is much higher than the combined total of the trees we harvest and trees that die for other reasons. Our trees capture carbon dioxide as they grow. Each year our forests capture a net amount of 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

have five diversity parks, which are large areas with greater diversity than the rest of the forest land. These parks are aimed at continuing to develop even more sustainable forestry in all respects.

We have developed a forest-based industry that makes optimum use of the raw material from the forests of northern Sweden. This applies to both wood from our own forests and wood we buy from private forest owners. We use all parts of the tree to produce solid-wood products, pulp, biofuel and packaging and printing paper.

For SCA, sustainability work is also about optimising the pro-duction processes of our sawmills and operations to reduce our emissions and waste, to save energy and other resources and minimise transportation to make them more environmentally sustainable. This is all part of an effective value chain that we call our industry ecosystem. Sustainability also involves generat- ing value for our customers, creating jobs and giving back to the communities where we operate.

For the first time, SCA’s annual report this year provides figures on our climate impact.

The key components are the amount of carbon dioxide cap-

Sustainable forestry provides greatest climate benefit

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Pulpwood

Branches and treetops, and wood for energy

Saw timber

Wind turbines

Bioenergy

Electricity

Heat

Pellets

Biofuel

Pulp and paper mills

Tall oil, black liquor and bark

Sawmills

Woodchip Bark and sawdust

Pulp

Paper

Sawn timber

yy

Sustainable forestry provides greatest climate benefittured by our growing forests, fossil carbon dioxide emissions from all our business operations and the impact of our products replacing products with a larger carbon footprint.

This last factor is, of course, the most difficult to calculate. Our products are used in many countries and for many applica-tions. But we have been very cautious in our calculations. It is highly like that the positive effects are much greater than we have estimated. For instance, we have not factored in that a timber-framed house can store carbon for perhaps a hundred

years before it is demolished and the wood recycled and reused for energy production. But even taking this cautious approach to calculations, the positive climate impact of SCA’s business amounts to 8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. That’s more than all of Sweden’s annual road haulage and domestic aviation emissions combined.

As an SCA customer and cooperation partner, you are helping create a better future.

Text: Camilla Gårdlund

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Forest, sea and mountain were the three inspirations for this year’s Arknat architecture festival on northern Sweden’s High Coast. The two-week event brings together urban planning and architecture students from around the world to design and construct timber shelters. It’s a way of returning the forest to the natural environment. The shelters become meeting places that add creativity to the outdoor experience and encourage more people to enjoy the tranquility of nature.

It was the third consecutive year that Arknat had been held. The work took place at The Outdoor Village on Sweden’s High Coast, under the ever-present northern Swedish summer

light. Design, construction and assembly outdoors meant long working days for the 15 participants, who were divided into three different groups.

This year’s participants came from countries including the UK, Turkey and Russia, along with students closer to home from Sweden, Norway and Finland.

The idea for the event came about when Martin Björklund of Sweco heard a talk by outdoor enthusiast, entrepreneur and founder of The Outdoor Village Jerry Engström, on his vision for more people to discover and experience the great outdoors.

“Sweco runs lots of workshops in universities and we wanted to get outdoors. We saw this as a unique opportunity to encourage our future urban planners to work creatively with wood and the endless possibilities the material offers,” says Martin.

“This is the prototype for our Beachfront shelter. It’s going to be great working on the full-scale version,” says Emma Arvidsson who is studying landscape architecture at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala.

Martin Björklund and Jerry Engström are the brains behind the Arknat architecture festival.

Architecture students create oases of calm in nature

11 | timbernews

Arknat isn’t just two weeks of creativity. It’s also a chance for the students to estab-lish enduring networks for the future. Sustainability is the watchword, and the pro-cess leads to greater understanding.

“I’m the only engineer here among all the building and landscape architects, so for me this is a great opportunity to get an insight into the approach of designers and architects for when I’m applying my knowledge of structural strength,” says Gustav Näsman, engineering student at Chalmers University of Technology.

When Timber News visited Arknat the participants had just attended a lecture by SCA, one of the festival’s sponsors and the supplier of all the timber for the shelters they are designing. There’s also a lot of discussion of safety issues before the partici-pants begin construction.

“I’ve learnt a huge amount about different types of timber and how the entire trunk is scanned to use different parts of the wood for different purposes,” says Emma Arvidsson, who’s studying landscape architecture.

There’s a nice atmosphere and the environment is ideal for fostering creativity, sur-rounded by a lake, attractive buildings and green summer meadows at the southern foot of Skule mountain. There’s a lovely aroma of stir-fry as the 15 students glance over design sketches and technical drawings, getting ready for the after-dinner shift.

Following this year’s architecture festival, which saw three new shelters built, there are now nine shelters in the High Coast area. They stand as a reminder to get out into nature and enjoy the forest.

Text & photos: Katarina Norström

John Grundström and Martin Björklund from Sweco give a detailed safety briefing before the students get to work.

Obi Okoye from London, who is taking a master’s degree in architecture at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, is keen to work with sustainability issues in the future, take responsibility and make a difference.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

Andreas Nyström has been recruited as a Sales Representative for the Scandinavia region. He previously worked at Setra and has extensive experience of a range of positions in the sawmill industry, most recently as a raw materials purchasing manager.

Sophia Wang has taken up the role of Assistant Sales Manager at SCA Wood Hong Kong. She will focus on sales of solid-wood products in China and South-east Asia and will support customer service administration.

Johan Larsson has been appointed Pur-chasing Manager at SCA Wood Building and Supply Skandinavien. Johan joins from Swedish Wood, where he was a project manager.

Samuel Waller is the new Assistant Busi-ness Manager at Munksund Sawmill. His role also includes production planning.

Malin Schytte is the new Manager of Munksund Sawmill. She was previously a factory manager with the tooling division of Gestamp Hardtech AB in Luleå. Malin has an MSc in Engineering Physics.

Craig Duncan has been appointed Group Supply Chain Business Analyst at SCA Wood UK. He will be responsible for ana-lysing SCA Wood UK’s supply chain and will be involved in producing sales and product planning forecasts.

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SCA Wood Magazine – a new publication from SCAThe start of next year will see the launch of SCA Wood’s new customer magazine. Its working title is SCA Wood Magazine and it will replace the current Timber News. The magazine will repre-sent a step-up in terms of both design and content. The new publication will cover both the wood industry and lifestyle topics.

“SCA Wood Magazine aims to provide our customers with engaging articles about both our business and our customers. We want to inspire and offer articles, interviews and advice that are both relevant and of benefit to all readers. Our customers should feel they can also use the magazine in their communication with their own customers,” says Markus Henningsson, Vice President SCA Wood Building & Supply Solutions.

“Alongside the new magazine, we will also be more active across our digital channels. But we know that printed communication is appreciated by our clients, so we are adding a printed magazine,” continues Markus.

The new magazine will be published twice a year and delivered free of charge to subscribers. If you would like to read SCA Wood Magazine, you can subscribe at www.sca.com/timber-news