From Barriers to Solutions for Reclaiming Wood in Construction: a Business Ecosystem Case in Finland

The transition to circular economy requires reconsidering how value is created and captured and what new roles for actors need to emerge to enable circular business ecosystems. In construction, wood has been found to have the greatest reuse capacity as a building material. Although the EU emphasizes increasing circularity of wood, the current reuse rate in Finland is at a marginal level. Previous research has shown that business ecosystems are critical for increasing wood material circularity. This study explores the involvement of various business ecosystem actors in Finland, reviews the barriers in reclaimed wood circulation, and proposes potential solutions for increasing reclaimed wood use. The analysis is based on 14 semi-structured qualitative interviews and two participatory workshops with 13 experts from various phases of a building’s lifespan. Our results emphasize that the business ecosystem around reclaimed wood is complex, yet there is a pronounced need to create more interaction among the actors from various phases of a building’s lifespan to improve the circularity of reclaimed wood. Moreover, due to the heterogenous nature of wood as a material, the involvement of intermediaries specializing in reclaimed wood at different phases of a building’s life is called for to sensitize the ecosystem actors to the possibilities of reclaimed wood. Furthermore, the strong positions of the forest industry and virgin wood resources in Finland serve to weaken the momentum for use of reclaimed wood. Therefore, our results underline the need to find solutions with leverage potential to address the barriers across market, technological, regulatory, and cultural categories.