2007

POPULARISES WOOD USE IN BUILDING

The European Confederation of Woodworking Industries (CEI-Bois) has developed a strategy which provides for the extension of wood and wood product use in building. This is a long-term programme that is directed towards a wood market increase and in the course of time wood will become one of the most widespread building materials. Wood is a very handy but still complex building material. Therefore the confederation thinks that it should help such persons as customers, architects and building engineers, who work in the building sector, to better know the different usage features of this material.

Up to now the attention of European and many different country associations has been paid to wood marketing and society informing. The confederation thinks that now it is time to initiate cooperation with key persons of the building industry mentioned above and stimulate their interest in using wood for building on governmental level. This can be achieved by participation in different kinds of certification, standardisation, law development and other juridical file alignment. It is not a secret that a number of wood-processing companies are rather small and it is very difficult for them to take on such burden alone. That is why all interested associations should undertake initiative and actively participate in solving these questions.

Unfortunately Latvia is among those European countries that do not use wood in buildings and interiors much. People come across different kinds of synthetic and chemical materials too often and because of that Latvijas Valsts Meži joint-stock company tries to popularise the use of wood products. The company is one of the Forest and Wood Product Research and Development Institute founders. At the institute’s laboratories different wood quality tests as well as researches of new wood product use in building are carried out and suggestions regarding wood product use technical and legislative obstacle elimination are offered.