Wood-based materials: Demand down

Johannes Leibetseder, Managing Director, Kaindl, Salzburg

Overall, the weakening demand in Europe presents all industrial companies with the major task of operating even more sustainably and efficiently. The synergy with Kronospan's sister plants helps Kaindl to be very close to our customers' needs with tailor-made offers. Austria is one of the most expensive production locations in Europe, which can only survive in global competition through high investments in product development, automation, digitization and decarbonization. We hope to be able to complete the approval process for the construction of a combined heat and power plant soon. In this way, we ensure a stable and sustainable energy supply for our production, offer thousands of households in Salzburg access to green district heating and improve the CO2 balance of the entire province. Multimodal logistics is another key factor in maintaining our competitiveness. With Container Terminal Salzburg, we can shift large parts of our transports to rail. This protects the environment, relieves the motorway and is ultimately cost-efficient. 

Wood is experiencing a renaissance as a building material. The global board industry will certainly continue to grow, especially since chipboard is a product with no alternative in terms of design options, sustainability and CO2 balance. We must pull out all the stops to keep the precious raw material wood in the production cycle for as long as possible. We are counting on the German government to consistently implement the cascade principle in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED III).

Larissa Kuntz, CEO Elka-Holzwerke, Morbach/GER

As a niche supplier of chipboard, we serve edge products and concentrate on fresh wood chipboard. The residual wood comes from our own sawmill. These are used in the construction sector as well as in the door industry. The decline in the construction industry in Germany is reflected in industrial and commercial enterprises. The market situation remains tense, and an improvement may be expected in mid-2025. In my opinion, the same applies here: Constructive wood-based materials will become increasingly important. Timber frame construction offers an excellent CO2 balance in contrast to a wall made of solid construction. New modular builders rely largely on wood. Particleboard as a long-established product could come to the fore again in construction due to its good ecological balance. Technologically, it offers the possibility of producing chipboard with a wide variety of wood types and calamities. However, the problem remains that plant capacities have been upgraded for a certain market, which means that in the event of sales crises, the withdrawal of quantities is too slow. Here, the industry must work together to communicate a balanced pricing policy in a sustainable way so as not to destroy confidence in timber construction.