Comment: Clive Pinnington | 11
PANELS OUTLOOK 2025
Clive Pinnington, European Panel Federation (EPF) managing director, provides an upbeat view from Brussels on the future of the European wood-based panels sector
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023 production in the wood-based sector dropped by 6.3%, taking output back to 2015/2016 levels, after recent highs. 2024 results will be announced to the press at the European Panel Federation (EPF) AGM on June 27 in Berlin. They are unlikely to show a big rebound, but also not a significant drop either. Has the reduction thus bottomed out? Hopefully so, although anyone producing or selling in 2025 knows that the market is anything but easy. Fortunately, there is some good news on the horizon. Firstly, the decreases of 2023 in wood- based panels were less than the drops in our key consumer markets of furniture and construction. This means that wood- based panels gained relative to alternative materials in those downstream user segments. Was the same true for 2024, and will
this continue for 2025? It is hard to say until we have the data, but there has been a clear trend of this in recent years, as consumers turn increasingly to renewable materials, especially wood. There is every reason to expect this gain in market share to continue. Secondly, the European Commission
(EC) is increasingly supportive of industry. EPF was an early signatory of the Antwerp Declaration in which 25 sectors call for a greater role for industry in Europe’s future. This is about to bear fruit at the start of Ursula von der Leyen’s second mandate as President of the EC, with the 2019- 2024 Green Deal giving way to increased competitiveness and the 2024-2029 Clean Industrial Deal, a more favourable programme to manufacturing, as the name implies.
Finally, and perhaps most excitingly, the
EC is showing a willingness to set aside its traditional ‘material neutrality’ in special circumstances.
This can be seen in the 2025 Annual Single
Market and Competitiveness Report, just released in January, in which it is written that “there is a great untapped potential in expanding the use of bio-based materials, notably wood-based construction material
and consumer goods, from home-grown European forests. This would limit the use of finite resources and allow more buildings and goods to act as carbon sinks”. What’s not to like for our sector in that statement? If the above sounds like good luck, then it
needs to be stressed that it is not. Success in advocacy comes from many things, not the least of which is simplicity and consistency of messaging. EPF has talked for years of our sector’s
potential contribution to a better Europe. We have done this solo as EPF (in our five Strategic Directions, soon to be updated as our Vision, Missions and Focus Topics), as well as via coalitions (Wood4Bauhaus, WoodPoP, Circular Choices and others). The more we have sharpened our message and broadened its coverage, the greater the success we have had. Let’s be clear, ‘we’ in this case does not mean only the EPF team in Brussels. It also means all EPF members, coalition partners and anyone who has delivered this same advocacy content to legislators and regulators, probably including many readers of this article. Thank you one and all for your support. Ursula von der Leyen spoke of wood individually when launching New European Bauhaus in September 2020.
“We know that the construction sector can
even be turned from a carbon source into a carbon sink, if organic building materials like wood and smart technologies like AI are applied,” she said. Now the Commission that she runs does so
collectively via the Competitiveness Report. These are heady days for wood advocacy. Does this mean we can kick back and
relax? Far from it. We need to build on this extraordinary opportunity of ‘material recognition’ by driving harder than ever to convert these positive words and intentions into tangible results in the form of favourable legislation and regulation. This will be anything but easy, not least because advocates for our competitor materials are hardly asleep. However, momentum is a great thing and ultimately, we have the best story. No other sector can claim to be as sustainable, circular, climate positive, innovative and yes, beautiful as ours. Let us unite now in our advocacy to deliver a single message that we are a Role Model Industry, ready and willing to contribute to Europe’s progress and improvement. Let us do this together in Brussels to the EC, but also in the Members States, in the capitals of Europe, in Berlin, in Paris, in Rome, in Madrid and yes in London too. This is our time. ●
Above: EPF managing director Clive Pinnington
www.wbpionline.com | February/March 2025 | WBPI
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