AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands
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October 2, 2023
(press release)
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Built by Nature, a network and grant-making fund with a mission to accelerate the timber and biobased building transformation, has awarded €225,000 to circular construction foundation C-Creators to establish a system to track progress towards the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam (MRA) target of 20% timber usage in new residential projects by 2025. The 18-month project, overseen by C-Creators with a variety of partners from the public and private sectors and academic institutions, will design a methodology to collect up-to-date data from municipalities, developers, investors and housing associations to monitor uptake of mass timber and progress toward target, along with providing an overview of housing being built with mass timber in Amsterdam. The monitor is developed and executed ‘in close collaboration with the MRA. The comprehensive project will identify types of buildings, companies in the sector, materials and products used, in addition to cost and timelines of the projects. The team will also leverage the monitoring to make recommendations on how to close any gaps between the MRA target and implementation. In-depth stakeholder interviews will identify and map barriers and solutions, with the project team reporting regularly on progress through presentations, reports and visualisations. “This grant project is compelling to us on at least two key levels” according to Built by Nature CEO Paul King. “First, this involves city-wide, city-scale application, providing rigorous assessment of how ambitious targets around timber usage can be achieved. It also convenes several key players at every stage of the timber asset value chain, stimulating major cross-sector collaboration with pan-European potential.” “By monitoring progress in the use of timber in residential projects, we can measure more precisely results and barriers in reaching the 20% target in the MRA by 2025,” said Wouter van Twillert, director from C-Creators. “This city-scale project should prove significant to supporting national and metropolitan carbon reduction goals.” With the MRA target of 20% of all residential projects to be built in timber established by a public-private stakeholder group known as the timber construction covenant comprised of deputy mayors, executives from major real estate companies and academics, relevant and accessible data is recognised as vital to ensuring transparency and accountability. Along with a 60% carbon reduction goal by 2030, the Dutch government has also committed to building 100,000 new homes each year, with the modularity of industrial timber products seen as speeding up residential development time by at least 30%, according to the grant project team.
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