TWG Building Extended Technical Brief 2: Public Procurement for Wooden Buildings

This extended technical brief, Public Procurement for Wooden Buildings, illustrates how six European regions are supporting the transition to low-carbon construction through public procurement. It aims to inspire policymakers at all levels.

Public procurers face a complex mix of societal, political, and economic demands. They must balance science-based evidence supporting the environmental performance of natural building materials with principles such as material and technology neutrality. In the construction sector dominated by fossil-intensive materials, promoting nature-based alternatives remains a major challenge: despite increasingly available technical and practical information on timber construction, trust in new approaches appears to remain limited in public procurement.

This technical brief is intended as a knowledge-sharing document, offering insights into the varied measures used by the public sector to encourage the construction of public buildings with wood. In order to better understand the overall framework of public procurement actions, the brief also refers to related legislation, as part of the available measures at hand.

As the following country reports will illustrate, developing a wood-building culture within the public sector is a complex and multifaceted task.

The resulting conclusions and policy recommendations on support measures for public procurement of buildings are intended to bolster the decision-making of policymakers at national, regional and municipal levels.