Amazing things happen in the forests of Finland! (No, we’re not talking about Santa or Finnish Forest elves or any of that stuff – this time.)
Finland is home to an ever-growing, carefully stewarded forestry sector, which supplies our manufacturers with the timber they need to create the amazing log houses we build for our clients.
Finland’s trees make up more than half of Europe’s protected forests, and woodland covers about 75% of the country. The Finns plant 150m trees every year, including 4 for every tree that is cut down.
As well as producing timber for the manufacture of Finnish log house kits – which is pretty important as far as we’re concerned – we were surprised to find out that the wood is used for some really diverse things, like wash basins and sinks, and wound dressings!
Finland has a very active and innovative biotech sector which is coming up with some amazing applications for timber and wood derivatives. Imagine, a plucky little satellite made of plywood, sent up into space with a selfie stick and camera to record what happens to it in orbit, so that scientists can look into whether wood could be used in the construction of space-going structures! Or a substance extracted from coniferous wood being used in batteries for electric cars? Isn’t this fantastic?
And of course, wood has a multiplicity of uses in construction, and has a far lower carbon footprint than traditional construction materials such as concrete. The Finns are striding ahead with timber construction by building a Wood City in an area of their capital city that used to be a container port.
It’s no surprise really to learn that the Finnish Forestry Sector accounts for a 5th of Finland’s exports, and directly employs around 64,000 people. The industry is actively looking to become carbon neutral or even carbon negative, and is already working on new production plants with this aim in mind.
Scandinavian Homes are proud to work with our partner Hirsiset, secure in the knowledge that we are promoting a more sustainable way of building forever homes.