Exploring stakeholders’ perspective on climate declaration and the use of timber as a structural material in the Swedish construction industry

By 2050, the European Union aims to achieve climate-neutrality; Sweden is even aiming to achieve this goal by 2045. In this decarbonization process, the construction industry and notably the construction and production stage account for a large share of emissions. To raise awareness and decrease emissions, Sweden has introduced legislation requiring climate declarations for buildings. This is currently limited to construction and production stage. Although these efforts have been made and timber has the potential to be a low-emission structural material, its use in buildings of all types, except single-family houses, is limited. The construction industry includes many different stakeholders and there is a limited understanding of how they view climate declarations as well as barriers to and drivers for increasing the use of timber as a structural material. This study investigated the perspectives of stakeholders with a variety of stakeholder and organizational characteristics. To reduce the environmental impacts of this sector, the stakeholders highlighted the importance of the climate declaration law and the need for binding requirements. However, to increase the use of timber as a low-emission structural material, “inertia” and “technical risks associated with timber buildings” were the most significant barriers from stakeholders’ perspective. While educational programs offered by the organization were identified as an important factor in overcoming barriers. In addition, stakeholders highlighted “demands from customers” and “environmental aspects such as reducing CO 2 emissions” as the two most significant drivers for increasing the use of timber building materials in this study.