In a first‑of‑its‑kind move, the UK’s three largest sawmillers — BSW Timber, James Jones & Sons, and Glennon Brothers — have launched a joint campaign to push domestically grown timber into construction, backed by industry bodies Confor and Timber Development UK and aligned with government policy.
“This is about securing a consistent, sustainable supply of timber material,” according to Stuart Goodall, CEO of Confor, who spoke about the campaign earlier this month. “Global demand for timber is projected to rise significantly, given its low‑carbon benefits. If the UK wants a secure, consistent, and sustainable supply of timber material, now is the time to invest in our industry.”
According to Mary Creagh, the UK’s Minister for Nature, the new campaign supports the Starmer government’s Timber in Construction Roadmap, part of a wider push to plant more trees, create green jobs, and cut construction emissions. “Our Plan for Change is focused on creating new, green jobs, planting more trees, increasing access to nature, and reducing carbon emissions,” Mary Creagh said. “We currently import 80 per cent of the timber we use, and that needs to change.”
Industry figures say the move aims to tackle a glaring imbalance: as it stands, Britain imports the vast majority of the timber it uses in construction, sending billions overseas each year and locking in carbon and lost manufacturing jobs that could instead boost rural economies. At the heart of the campaign is C16‑graded timber, a British‑produced standard the partners argue is fit‑for‑purpose for many routine framing tasks that currently rely on higher‑grade imports.
The campaign’s plan is straightforward: grow more productive woodlands, upgrade harvesting and processing, persuade designers and contractors to specify UK timber where appropriate, and make the case with demonstrator projects. A spokesman for one of the sawmillers said mills already produce significant volumes of C16 and that the problem is not supply so much as “procurement habits, specification norms and supply‑chain relationships that have hardened over decades.”
Supporters say the benefits are tangible. Using more homegrown timber reduces embodied carbon — the greenhouse gases embedded in materials and transport — and keeps manufacturing jobs in rural Britain. The policy framing is equally pragmatic: if the UK can substitute timber for some concrete and steel, it will cut emissions while creating local industrial work that has been hollowed out by import dependence.
The new campaign comes after Wood Central yesterday revealed that British Columbia was eyeing the United Kingdom as a new market for softwood amid Trump’s tariffs. As it stands, the U.K. imports 6 to 7 million cubic metres of softwood lumber annually while producing roughly 3 to 4 million cubic metres domestically, making Britain Europe’s largest softwood buyer.
“British Columbia is the second largest exporter of softwood lumber in the world, and with U.S. President Donald Trump’s continued attacks on our forestry workers and economy, we are not sitting idly by,” Ravi Parmar, B.C.’s minister of forests, said. “We are making it easier for our friends across the pond to buy our world-class lumber, and we are supporting our forestry sector to get boots on the ground in more growing wood markets around the world.”
- To learn more about the United Kingdom’s plans to scale up timber used in construction, including finding new markets for C16 timbers, click here for Wood Central’s special feature.
