Amazing things happen in the forests of Finland! The country is home to an ever-growing, carefully stewarded and sustainable forestry sector.
From our perspective, one of the most important aspects is that the forests supply our manufacturer with the timber they need to create the amazing log houses which we in turn supply to 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 150 million trees every year, including four trees for every tree that is cut down. In all, over 26 million hectares of Finland are forested. The volume of timber in the forests in Finland is currently increasing by around 100 million cubic metres per year (which is evidently the equivalent of 40,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools).
The forests are increasingly being managed to improve biodiversity as well.
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?
Wood is also being used as a replacement for single use plastics (such as disposable cutlery).
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 Helsinki, 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 fifth 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.