Metla Project 3288

Eco-competitiveness of forest products and marketing

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Duration: 2000-2002   Keywords: environment, ecological marketing, green markets, sertification, wood construction

Objectives

The purpose of the study is to analyse the eco-competitiveness of the Finnish forest products in the export market compared with other materials and products produced by the competing countries. Forest certification and wood construction are given special attension in the study. The need and value of the forest certification and the different certification systems for the industrial customers, consumers and forest owners will be found out by survey-research. In the wood construction this study aims to identify the eco-competitiveness and other characterstics of wooden products compared with other materials. The other aim is to identify the information that the customers are interested in regarding wooden products and how this information could be best provided for customers on construction sector. The main objective in this study is to produce information how the marketing of forest products must be developed to improve the competitiveness of wood. This will be done by analysing both market environment and forest industry and their industrial customers from the point of view of marketing and customer relationships.

Results

German building material companies believe that use of wooden products will increase on the German market area. Parquets, laminates, wooden houses, prefabricated components, and building boards are considered to have the strongest growth (2-10 %) during the next five years. The general image of wood seems to be good compared with other materials. The main competence of wood is based on its visual properties, style, and environmental quality. The weaknesses of wood are based on supplier characteristics and markets: price and supply of wood products are considered more unstable compared with other building materials. In this survey-research the respondents groups were German and Austrian building material retailers, wood products wholesalers and DIY-markets (totally 75).

Project leader: Valtonen, Kari
The Finnish Forest Research Institute, Helsinki Unit, Unioninkatu 40 A, 00170 Helsinki
Phone: +358 10 211 2237 Telefax: +358 10 211 2104
E-mail: kari.valtonen@metla.fi

Other researchers: Enroth, Raija-Riitta, HE (2000-02)

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Updated 31.12.2005
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