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The global timber industry is big business. Forest industries in Australia contribute one per cent to Australia’s GDP but it seems that when it comes to timber, everything old is new again.
With the looming threat of climate change and a subsequent consumer surge toward sustainability, the recycled timber sector experiencing exceptional and rapid growth.
CEO of Timber Queensland, Rod McInnes, is confident about the strength of the nation’s timber industry and says green consumer sentiment is pushing the recycled timber sector’s growth.
“In Australia it’s (the timber industry overall) worth about $12 billion and in Queensland our industry’s worth about $2.7 billion,” Mr McInnes says. “We employ 20,000 plus people in about 1000 small to medium enterprises.”
While only a small portion of that industry is made up by recycled timber businesses, Mr McInnes believes that environmentally-conscious consumers are pushing it hard.
“People are making environmental choices about using different building materials and people see recycled (timber) as one of the options rather than using new (timber),” Mr McInnes explains.
“And timber is a product which lends itself to being recycled, so instead of seeing timber dumped in landfills or being tossed out, we see people now looking to recover that timber to use it in various building projects.”
After 10 years working in the corporate world, Michael Kennedy threw away his suit and started out small in recycled timber. Kennedy’s Aged Timbers has since become one of the most successful recycled timber businesses in the country.
“I started my business with the princely sum of $1500 in my pocket, with one staff member, which was myself,” Mr Kennedy says. “We now have 36 staff people, or vacancies for that number of people, we’re still looking for a few more. And our turnover has doubled every second year since we started.
“We’ve recently opened our new state of the art, world-class manufacturing site here at Narangba. This site has been designed using all environmentally sustainable building practices. And this site is the first of its kind in the world that has a world-class timber manufacturing complex together with a resource recovery centre.”
Kennedy’s Aged Timbers has a hand in everything from demolition to timber-cutting. The process adheres strictly to new industry standards for recycled timber, guaranteeing product quality for consumers, and Michael Kennedy outlines his methods with an enthusiasm that is catching.
“Traditionally what will happen is there will be a structure, whether it’s a house, a warehouse, a wharf … When they’ve reached the end of their commercial life, they’re deemed to be no longer serving a useful purpose, so they’re targeted for demolition, and the materials out of that will then be directed to someone like us.
“Then it goes through a range of processes depending on what use it’s going to be [made] into.
“A lot of it will be re-sawn on our specially developed cutting techniques that we have here. Then it’ll be dried, it goes through a kiln drying process, and then it will be profiled into things like flooring, decking … a whole range of timber product that we offer to the market.”
Why choose recycled? For one, it looks great.
“There’s some beautiful, aesthetic properties of using recycled timber,” Mr Kennedy explains. “As it ages - not dissimilar to a good bottle of red wine - it actually improves with age.
“It’ll get richer and deeper in colour, better in grain, and in a lot of circumstances the timber will actually get stronger as it gets older.”
It is this aesthetic appeal, not to mention the green kudos to be gained by using recycled timber, that has landed Kennedy’s some major projects. These include Cockle Bay Wharf in Sydney, Federation Square in Melbourne and Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
And while Michael Kennedy is clearly passionate about sustainability in his business, he insists that “environmentally friendly” need not mean financially unfeasible.
“It’s an industry that makes money,” he says. “Sometimes environmentally friendly projects are very nice and wonderful, but they don’t make any money and they’ve got to be subsidised. Well this sort of process does make money and is sustainable, and can sustain itself.
“In Australia, the recycled timber industry has grown very significantly over the last five to 10 years. Nationally the figures have been extrapolated out to somewhere between $250 and $300 million per year.”
The figures are impressive. It is not surprising that McInnes and Kennedy both see significant growth in the sector’s future.
“Recycled timber’s increasing its proportion of the timber industry. It’s still a very small portion, probably five or 10 per cent, but it’s growing rapidly as people get used to using recycled timber as a preference. We believe it’ll grow to about 20 per cent of the market over the next few years,” says McInnes.
Kennedy agrees.
“There’ll be an increased demand for the product, an increased professionalism from those people in the industry, and probably an increased number of people or industries that develop, in the recycled timber industry, to meet that growing demand.”
With the looming threat of climate change and a subsequent consumer surge toward sustainability, the recycled timber sector experiencing exceptional and rapid growth.
CEO of Timber Queensland, Rod McInnes, is confident about the strength of the nation’s timber industry and says green consumer sentiment is pushing the recycled timber sector’s growth.
“In Australia it’s (the timber industry overall) worth about $12 billion and in Queensland our industry’s worth about $2.7 billion,” Mr McInnes says. “We employ 20,000 plus people in about 1000 small to medium enterprises.”
While only a small portion of that industry is made up by recycled timber businesses, Mr McInnes believes that environmentally-conscious consumers are pushing it hard.
“People are making environmental choices about using different building materials and people see recycled (timber) as one of the options rather than using new (timber),” Mr McInnes explains.
“And timber is a product which lends itself to being recycled, so instead of seeing timber dumped in landfills or being tossed out, we see people now looking to recover that timber to use it in various building projects.”
After 10 years working in the corporate world, Michael Kennedy threw away his suit and started out small in recycled timber. Kennedy’s Aged Timbers has since become one of the most successful recycled timber businesses in the country.
“I started my business with the princely sum of $1500 in my pocket, with one staff member, which was myself,” Mr Kennedy says. “We now have 36 staff people, or vacancies for that number of people, we’re still looking for a few more. And our turnover has doubled every second year since we started.
“We’ve recently opened our new state of the art, world-class manufacturing site here at Narangba. This site has been designed using all environmentally sustainable building practices. And this site is the first of its kind in the world that has a world-class timber manufacturing complex together with a resource recovery centre.”
Kennedy’s Aged Timbers has a hand in everything from demolition to timber-cutting. The process adheres strictly to new industry standards for recycled timber, guaranteeing product quality for consumers, and Michael Kennedy outlines his methods with an enthusiasm that is catching.
“Traditionally what will happen is there will be a structure, whether it’s a house, a warehouse, a wharf … When they’ve reached the end of their commercial life, they’re deemed to be no longer serving a useful purpose, so they’re targeted for demolition, and the materials out of that will then be directed to someone like us.
“Then it goes through a range of processes depending on what use it’s going to be [made] into.
“A lot of it will be re-sawn on our specially developed cutting techniques that we have here. Then it’ll be dried, it goes through a kiln drying process, and then it will be profiled into things like flooring, decking … a whole range of timber product that we offer to the market.”
Why choose recycled? For one, it looks great.
“There’s some beautiful, aesthetic properties of using recycled timber,” Mr Kennedy explains. “As it ages - not dissimilar to a good bottle of red wine - it actually improves with age.
“It’ll get richer and deeper in colour, better in grain, and in a lot of circumstances the timber will actually get stronger as it gets older.”
It is this aesthetic appeal, not to mention the green kudos to be gained by using recycled timber, that has landed Kennedy’s some major projects. These include Cockle Bay Wharf in Sydney, Federation Square in Melbourne and Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
And while Michael Kennedy is clearly passionate about sustainability in his business, he insists that “environmentally friendly” need not mean financially unfeasible.
“It’s an industry that makes money,” he says. “Sometimes environmentally friendly projects are very nice and wonderful, but they don’t make any money and they’ve got to be subsidised. Well this sort of process does make money and is sustainable, and can sustain itself.
“In Australia, the recycled timber industry has grown very significantly over the last five to 10 years. Nationally the figures have been extrapolated out to somewhere between $250 and $300 million per year.”
The figures are impressive. It is not surprising that McInnes and Kennedy both see significant growth in the sector’s future.
“Recycled timber’s increasing its proportion of the timber industry. It’s still a very small portion, probably five or 10 per cent, but it’s growing rapidly as people get used to using recycled timber as a preference. We believe it’ll grow to about 20 per cent of the market over the next few years,” says McInnes.
Kennedy agrees.
“There’ll be an increased demand for the product, an increased professionalism from those people in the industry, and probably an increased number of people or industries that develop, in the recycled timber industry, to meet that growing demand.”
