Identifying drivers and barriers for market growth within the industry producing wooden multi-family houses : Land allocation process for future growth

Sammanfattning: At present, Sweden is experiencing a housing shortage, which Swedish authorities expect to continue until at least 2025. Producers of wooden multi-family houses have a relatively small market share compared to those who use traditional building materials. Limited ability to meet the increased building demand restricts possibilities for development regarding innovation, bio-economy and sustainability. Swedish municipalities are responsible for planning the building development in their regions based on their projected requirements and strategies. Combining this with a desire to develop sustainable building solutions based on wood increases complexity in the public procurement process. Currently, public building developments are achieved through the Public Procurement Act or land-allocation activity, depending on the development strategy. This normally involves developing local strategies regarding, e.g. design, material choice and geographical development. Identifying drivers and barriers in the industry and market enables improved market entry activities related to public building initiatives using wood-based solutions. Hence, improving transparency in land-allocation activity generates possibilities for companies to respond successfully to requests from municipalities. This knowledge is used to better understand the required strategic development for companies, the government and municipalities to increase use of sustainable building materials such as wood in Swedish multi-family housing projects. Results show that the industry experiences barriers associated with municipalities' actions and knowledge related to wood as a building solution. Further, concrete’s strength as a building material is an issue, since municipalities tend to opt for familiar solutions. Furthermore, the way in which municipalities manage land-allocation activity is perceived as insufficient, with limited information, a subjective evaluation process, and uncertainties regarding their roles in the process. These factors contribute to ambiguity and sub-optimisation for developers proposing wood-based building solutions.