Wood works: how timber is revolutionizing construction
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Welcome to today's episode of Lexicon. I'm Christopher Rudden, contributing writer for Interesting Engineering. Today we're joined by Professor Robert Hairstanz, Centre for Offsite Construction and Innovative Structures Head at Edinburgh Napier University. From net zero housing to AI-driven construction, Robert shares insights on how timber can replace traditional materials, speed up building times and help tackle the climate crisis.

So join us as we explore the future of sustainable construction, the world of digital tools and timber engineering, and why offsite manufacturing could revolutionize how we build everything, from homes to skyscrapers. Gift yourself knowledge. iE Plus is a premium subscription that unlocks exclusive access to cutting-edge stories, expert insights, and breakthroughs in science, technology, and innovation. Stay ahead with the knowledge that shapes the future. Now let's continue with today's episode.

Robert, thanks for joining us. How are you today? I'm good, thank you very much. Excellent. For our audience's benefit, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, please? Yeah, sure. So, Professor Robert Airstans, I'm

at Edinburgh Napier University where I run a research group on off-site construction and innovative structures and I have a dual working role because Edinburgh Napier partners with the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering where I'm the director for the Centre for Advanced Timber Technology which we've set up in many respects as a sister group and Hereford with respect to the one that I run in Edinburgh. Excellent okay enjoy your work there.

I do actually yes it's it's certainly it's certainly good work to be to be involved with you know you work externally internally a lot of good collaborations and it's good to do research work and see it going into practice at the same time you know

help with or enable the education of future built environment professionals so it's all part of that that mix so it's yeah you've got a lot of satisfaction through it if i was honest yeah great stuff that's the dream and like first question in um why do you believe timber is the feature of sustainable construction and what are the biggest misconceptions about its use in modern building projects bit of a mouthful yes yeah yeah um absolutely i think you know timber in many respects

is the modern construction material. We've obviously used it for a long time, but it's really coming to the fore now because of the climate crisis in many respects is really driving it. You know, construction is a major carbon emitter. It accounts for 40% of carbon emissions globally as a result of

utilises with respect to making the buildings a bit equally operationally. And timber as a material of choice can respond to that challenge as trees grow they sequestrate carbon, i.e. they walk it and they suck it out of the atmosphere. And then if you can use timber to make construction products and use those construction products either for the up-grade

retrofit of the existing built environment or to create the new buildings and infrastructure you essentially lock that carbon in longer because the carbon's now in the built environment and that built environment has to last for 50-100 years plus so that locks the carbon in so as long as you look after those buildings maintain them ensure the durability and longevity of them

there is a primary sink for carbon and equally you can design detail and make those buildings have a fabric first approach so operationally they don't require a lot of energy so ultimately they're a carbon offset in their specs and there's so many other attributes in and around that which makes sense the buildings have what they call a biophilic

design approach if you leave the timber exposed that helps create natural conditions we like to be in touch with the natural environment as well as as much as we spend the majority of our time in the built environment and ideally you're resourcing the timber locally which creates job wealth creation and all that all that good stuff so it really is the complete package if i was honest as a as a modern construction material and but of course we'll we'll

be used in combination with other materials as well you know we're all going to hybrid construction etc but timber certainly come more to the fore as as as the modern construction material okay

With regards to using timber, it's not sort of going back to the way we used to build buildings a couple of hundred years ago, is it? I mean, you're not going to get a skyscraper made out of timber, but like you say, it's more integrating it into replacing, I don't know, say steel or something with some timber where you can. Am I understanding correctly? Yes, I mean, there obviously has been moves to build the tallest timber buildings, etc., the very...

18 stories plus is what you can achieve. But that's not really where it's at. You know, yeah, these are iconic buildings and so on. There's advantages and disadvantages to it. But the first thing, first and foremost, as you say, it's substituting out what are viewed as

rightly or wrongly as the traditional construction methods but timber has ultimately been used for a long time so we can't say it's not traditional you know go back to crook frames and medieval periods or whatever we choose to do but it's yeah timber in terms of concrete and steel obviously have been the main players in terms of housing brick and block construction but really we can use timber as a substitute into there and of course with retrofitted restoration whether that's

modifying the antennas of the building or improving the fabric of the existing. And then they have such projects, new products, for example, wood fibre insulation. And if you take simple products like that, wood fibre and natural based insulation is breathable. So if you're putting that on a building, something like a solid stone building, for example, it still allows the building to breathe. So you don't end up with unhealthy buildings.

So it has these attributes. So it's really about how we integrate it in. And of course the UK government's got its housing targets, whether they're accomplishable or not, of 1.5 million houses in the term, which roughly equates to 300,000 per annum. In the UK, roughly 10% to 15% of those are currently built using timber methods of construction. In Scotland, it's a lot higher, if I was honest.

But there's a real opportunity in the mix there. And we're seeing a lot of the major house builders move towards the utilisation of timber as a form of construction for the delivery of housing because of the

the aspects that I've described. Principally, you can do more in a factory and equally from a carbon credentials, it performs the other approaches. And ultimately, you can deliver those houses in a more productive manner. Absolutely. And construction will be faster, right, for timber frame? Typically quicker to build and more traditional brick and block construction.

construction yeah exactly so quicker to build and and equally you can do it's you know timber as a material is lightweight easily worked you can do more in a factory environment and you can add more value to it in terms of you know you could create a timber frame but you can equally you

implement the insulation you can include the windows and doors the external and internal lining in many respects depending upon the type of cladding that you're applying to the building so you can take it up with the pre-manufactured value add scale if you think of it with the modern methods of construction sort of context but yes essentially you can do more manufacturing ultimately that allows you to build out a

more quickly or on site than traditional forms. With regards to insulation, I mean if it's made out of timber or wood product, your first instinct would be, isn't that highly flammable? It's breathable, isn't it highly flammable? So does it need to be treated or is it just a matter of compressing it really? A bit of both actually. I mean there's different forms, there's solid bar, there's blown wood fibre insulations.

Yes, you can if you needed add fire retardant to it. But ultimately it's encapsulated, so it's fully encapsulated and you would have fire breaks and internal linings, etc. in the event of fire.

Yeah, a lot of the issues that have come from fires, as we know, have been as a result of flammable insulation materials, but those insulation materials are highly toxic and they're certainly not timber. And so actually timber and wood fibre or biogenic based insulation materials can be used as a substitute for

let's just say more toxic and insulations that don't breathe and also have a high carbon impact. So there's ways and means we can use these products in a safe manner and essentially create healthier buildings. Absolutely. It's kind of a shame. Things like asbestos, that's so bad for your health because when it comes to fire protection and things, they are incredible material. But hey, that's off topic. Yeah.

Anyway, so off-site and industrialized timber construction has been getting traction. How does it compare to traditional construction methods in terms of cost efficiency and environmental impact? You kind of answered this a bit, but... Yes, exactly. So it's obviously the path we need to take.

if we're going to deliver on essentially the needs across the built environment, housing is often held up as the big need because of the housing shortage, et cetera. And certainly as a huge need there, there's obviously a lot of other needs in other areas. But in a sense, to deliver on the size and scale of that demand, you have to have productive approaches, right?

And equally, we have a skills deficit in the sector. We have an aging demographic with regards to the workforce. We have a lot of people that left the workforce during the pandemic. There's other impacts, you know, migrant labor force, Brexit, et cetera. Whatever it may be, we have a huge skills deficit. We have a productivity challenge. And ultimately,

Doing more in a factory can help in that respect. You create clean working environments. You can do things like introduce shift patterns so you can improve diversification of your workforce. You have a fixed location for the factory. It can be of a scale to supply what's necessary to the given local context. And so it's not saying necessarily massive projects

huge factories servicing all the regions of the UK. These can be smaller-based factories supplying the local context as well as larger factory bases or indeed, to some extent, pop-up factories relative to where the demand is. So we have to move down these types of approaches if we're going to deliver on the demand. There's simply no

no other way about it if I was completely honest.

So in regards to prefab sounds like to me, prefabricated parts made out of timber products, basically. Is that my understanding? Yeah, exactly. So it's prefabricated. I know that's a word that's often been, it's got a stigma attached to it. Post-war housing in their specs, prefab housing, some of which is still standing, but some of which wasn't up to scratch. It didn't have the required requirements

quality assurance wasn't done in appropriate manners but you know I'd like to think we've learned from a lot of those lessons and things are a lot more vigorous now in terms of what you can and cannot build and how you can build it and the products that we're talking about are really quality assured and have all the relative certification marks and so on so whether it's via the

build off-site performance assessment scheme, BOPAS to facilitate insurance or whether it's using CE marking or European technical approvals. And then they all have to conform with the regulatory, the building regulatory requirements, et cetera, as well. So these are fully quality assured and if anything, higher quality because we're talking here about products and systems which are ultimately precision engineered

and delivered to site in a quality assured manner so that they're not getting saturated with water or left sitting around on a construction site. You want to have just-in-time delivery and to have it upwind and watertight and fully durable in that regard.

So yeah, that's fundamentally what we're talking about. It's a more productive way of delivering houses with a higher level of quality assurance ultimately. Of course. And the workers involved in the construction don't have to be obviously trained carpenters. I'm guessing quite a lot of the system can be automated or already is in the factories.

Exactly. So the factories, there's ranges of different types of factories, as you can imagine, relative to where they are and the sort of the curves of setup and so on. And essentially what is implemented within those factories is, you know, quality assured production lines and they can have varying degrees of mechanization, automation, all the way through to full robotics. And there's companies out there that do these, that

they make these production lines so they're off the shelf in many respects and they're also modular so you can sell the production line you can add to the production line relative to your capacity or level of investment and what unlocks that is security of pipeline so if you know

what you're delivering into then obviously you can invest in that process. So yeah, that's the nature of the approach. And as you said, those that are working within those facilities aren't necessarily trade joiners or carpenters. They can come from a range of different backgrounds and ideally start to go through a sort of apprenticeship type model and have a career pathway in that respect. Excellent. So from cradle to grave, these products... Excuse me, um...

what am I trying to say? So at the end they can be fully recyclable I guess, you don't have to use raw timber, virgin timber I think is the term isn't it, to actually build the initial products. You can recycle even any old timber right? In a manner, so there's nuances to that and but to take your point and certainly moving forward and more and more so the design for manufacturing assembly

And often now, with respect to circularity, it starts to disassembly and reutilization. So that's certainly something that is absolutely considered. And whether that's appropriate to be used again elsewhere or whether it's simply even like change of use within the structure itself. Because as you know,

we want the buildings to last as long as possible. And so doing, they often go through a change of use, reconfiguration, or switching products out relative to where they're at in the

and their cycle of longevity so um so yes and with regards to reusing products and systems and a manner that can be done there are nuances to that because you know the the the grading and strength stiffness of of a product after a period of time how it's at how it's performing and if it's been treated or because ultimately if you're reusing that that piece of

Timber, if you take it down to simple terms, you may have to cut it. And because timber is non-homogeneous, the minute you change the dimensions of it, then actually it has an impact in terms of how it performs. So

These aspects are certainly being explored and there's examples of producing cross-laminated timber, a mass timber product from recycled timber, etc. So in a manner, it is absolutely feasible, but it's just making sure that we do it in the right manner to ensure that what we then specify for use

yet as fully quality as she would and has the legibility and longevity required. Yeah, that makes sense. And also the health of the workers involved. NDF is obviously famously got some nasty stuff in there. And you have to break it down. So yeah, that makes complete sense. So critics argue that large-scale timber construction could lead to deforestation. How do you address such concerns about sustainable forestry and material sourcing?

Yes, exactly. It's funny how these arguments get held up, isn't it? But when we think about concrete and steel or even renewable technologies, which are photovoltaics, we don't seem to care about the mineral extraction. But if we're using timber, which is a tree grows 25 years, after 25 years generally, for

certain species, right? Most commercial species, 25 years to 30 years. You can then convert that into dimensional timber and turn it into a construction product. What we need to do is increase, and I know there's pressures in terms of land use, you know, with regards to whether it's the built environment or agriculture and forestry. So we have to plan appropriately for that and use forest information effectively.

and appropriate silvicultural practices to ensure that we are growing enough trees to service the requirement. And equally, as you say, how we can use and extract timber from the existing built environment for reutilization to ensure that we manage the resource appropriately relative to our need. But if we do that, and by so doing, we can actually sequestrate carbon

in the built environment via construction, which can then have a positive impact because fundamentally we're growing more trees than we're cutting down. And you have countries such as Sweden, which that is the case. Every tree is cut down in plan three. So that in itself tells you the kind of trajectory we want to go on. And I think they've got 60% to 70% in terms of forest coverage as compared to the UK, which is circa...

13 to 16 percent and so there's moves afoot and certainly a lot of pressure being put to say we need to we need to up our game in terms of um walk down from a forestry perspective and manage that appropriately particularly in light of uh climate and climate resilience as well pests diseases high wind all that all impacts the trees that we grow right exactly yeah

It's obviously a fine balance and a headache. I don't personally want, especially in a country like the UK, because there's lots of farmland as well. It's kind of a compromise and you're going to be losing potentially farmland for sustainable forestry, for carbon sequestration and sustainable buildings. It's a very fine balance.

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And that's with the whole, you know, we need to get sophisticated in terms of how we're going to do all this, right? So how we manage our resource appropriately in terms of, you know, what we build, why we build it and how we build it and do we actually need to build it, right? So, you know, because there's a huge stock out there that we need to upgrade and improve, right?

And yeah, we're going to have to add to that. Of course we are, but we need to do it in a responsible manner. Of course. Yeah, absolutely. Switching tracks a bit. I believe you've been deeply involved in upskilling initiatives for the timber sector. What gaps in knowledge or trainings did exist and how can education evolve to meet industry needs? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're right at the heart of

of a lot of that at the moment. You know, given the size and scale of what we're trying to do and achieve, given what we sort of talked about in terms of the demographic of the workforce and actually the need to move to, you know, utilisation of timber and

factory-based approaches. And there's a skills base that's required there from the installers, the directors, to the factory floor, how you manage and operate all of that, the business enterprise models that are associated with it, the professions in terms of the engineers, the architects, the quantity surveyors, ideally the value surveyors, and the specifiers of the products and systems, and even the lenders, the contractors,

the mortgage providers, the warranty, the insurance, building standards, the regulators, huge shout out. All of that requires skills in education. So there's a lot of need out there. And also within that as well, what we often...

understand or get is an necessity for holistic knowledge sets collaboration so knowledge is not just on the hard skills but also on the soft skills so just like the technical information knowledge the softer side of it in terms of you know collaboration and

how to work with others to achieve the correct end goal. So there's a huge requirement with regards to skills. And with timber and construction specifically, you may know about the UK Gov Policy Roadmap work, which was undertaken over

23 year period from the east in 2023. It was facilitated by DEFRA. I think the key thing in there that was almost like a mandate by the industry, by the sector of saying, you know, from a timorous construction sector of what needs to be done. And within that, the main priority that was identified was on skills and education indeed, given what we've chatted about.

Do you think that we've kind of lost a lot of valuable skills then since we've moved away primarily from timber construction and forestry management and stuff? I mean, this is obviously still very skilled people, but the number of skilled people in the past were potentially more than today or not.

Well, yeah, I think it's a good point. I think what it is is attracting individuals into the sector is obviously a huge challenge, whether it's the forestry sector or the construction sector. Unfortunately, these areas are not necessarily often held in the highest regard. So, you know, getting school leavers, improving the diversification of schools

of who's working within the sector has been ultimately challenging. It's not very often careers advisors take the top of the class and advise them to go for a career in construction, to be completely honest. But that's not to say there's not a place for them within construction and the deliberately built environment. So there needs to be a mindset change here in terms of, you know,

there's lots of opportunities in the mix and we want to encourage more to see that and to get actively involved. So there's certainly that aspect to it and I think you've touched upon it as well just in terms of transferable skills. So if we're going to move into these areas then we need individuals that are out there that have skills and knowledge and the correct attributes about them and

to think about perhaps a shift in career to get involved with this because there's opportunities in that regard also. Potentially very lucrative ones as well. Yeah, yeah. Winter construction. Could well be. Leading nicely to the next question, I think. So how does the Built Environment Exchange, which is a BEX program, accelerate change in construction culture and what lessons can other industries take from it?

Yeah, yeah. So, it was interesting. Built environment exchanges is essentially like a model. It's a modus operandi. It was essentially to do much of what we spoke about there. It was to provide, in the first and foremost, opportunities for individuals studying at university on

you know what we regard as your traditional tracks almost civil engineering structure engineering architectural technologies quantifying etc and expose them to the opportunities that that exist within predominantly timber and construction as a career path and and those opportunities that we sort of identify with really we can engage you with industry to give you

And in this innovation internship, we can often provide you with scholarship support for your studies, particularly if you want to go and do a master's. And equally, because of the range of projects that we're working on with employers and through

funding councils on research and innovation, we can likely give you employability opportunities either within the projects that we are running or within the organisations and within themselves. And then providing wraparound support in that regard. So triangulating them with

academic and industry mentorship and then giving them other facets to this in terms of entrepreneurship or business skills and exposure to the sector and essentially through that process accelerate their careers and all accelerate their careers provide them with network and also help in terms of giving some of that global mindset as well in terms of

you know, what is actually achievable for the career. And I've seen, yeah, some really good successes from that in terms of what these individuals are now doing with their careers and being the sort of champions of change, so to speak. Fantastic. I'll skip forward because it's pretty more related right now. So is it NMIT, N-M-I-T?

Yeah, I'll say it. So given your work... Yeah, inmate. Inmate. What advice would you give young professionals entering the construction and engineering fields today?

Yeah, be agile. Keep an open and global mindset as we touched upon. Collaboration is absolutely key. I think the younger generation are normally better at that, if I was honest. So don't silo yourself. I think the technical skills are obviously very important. Do pick those up, but also do give...

absolutely you know make sure that you're doing the software or meta skills or we wish to call them and the mix of that builds your network and make sure you build your networking and and

and have the confidence to go out there to speak to others that are working in the sector, et cetera, to seek out those opportunities because there are a lot of opportunities and find your pathway, find the pathway to which gives you the most enthusiasm and where you think you can make the most difference. And I think working on a collaborative basis will help you to achieve those goals.

Absolutely. Yeah, your net worth is your net worth, I think. Yeah, yeah. Right, that's right. Okay, then. With the rise of digital tools like BIM and AI-driven construction planning, how do you see technology reshaping timber engineering and off-site construction? Yes, yes. I think...

It's really interesting. I was in a conversation earlier on today about this actually with somebody who was working in the sector and the need to sort of embrace the digital technology and digital techniques of which there are a vast array. And what's interesting, particularly in more established large organizations is they're probably using

different tools for the same job just because of how it's evolved. You know, because individuals have been trained up in different softwares, et cetera, they're applying them to their given job and somebody's doing the same thing but with a different tool. And then the interfacing and interoperability of that is difficult. So certainly we'd hope that AI can help to resolve some of those interfacing and interoperability challenges as you can imagine. Yeah.

there's a with what we spoke about in this conversation is essentially this whole seed to building piece and that's you know vertically from seed to build asset all the bits that are at play from cutting down the tree to turning it into dimensional timber through the sawmill to add value to it to create the engineered products

to then taking those engineered products and consolidating them into parallelized or volumetric solutions and having them installed, the logistical arrangements of that on site. Then you've got the maintenance of that built asset and how it's performing. All of that needs to have traceability and digital tools are going to be key to that and this whole golden thread.

whether you're measuring embodied carbon or whether you're looking at it operationally, whether you're looking at the cost of the system, whether you're looking at enterprise resource planning in terms of the products and systems that you're using through the factory. So a huge amount to take place there in terms of digital, how these systems all interface with each other is going to be critical. And then I would just add on to that. Again, we spoke of it as digital.

the climate piece because climate will change how our buildings perform will correspond to have to change and equally the crops that we grow will be impacted so we need to try our best to be

resilient to that and for our infrastructure and buildings to be resilient to that and equally for the resources that we're using to have resilience to respond to those requirements. So we have to predict that somehow and that's going to require modelling and techniques to make sure that we continue to innovate and optimise to make sure that what we do in the future is

it's capable of responding to what our future will be. Absolutely. I'm presuming blockchain technology will probably come in handy in the traceability, cradle to grave of different materials in the whole building, especially with BIM. When I've spoken to architects before, they're really hot on blockchain, especially for transferring information, making things quicker.

Exactly. So I think as you've alluded to here, that's why the skills and education actually what's required in the sector is much greater, much louder than it's currently perceived. So all of that is within the mix. But in so doing, having the digital skills, et cetera, is great, but it's also having that knowledge and understanding of

you know what this what the sector is and and how all those parts interconnect absolutely absolutely um okay so you've been recognized as a pioneer of the year i think for the 2024 off-site awards i think that's right uh what breakthroughs or projects are you most proud of and what's next uh for your work in timber construction

Yeah, yeah. I think, I mean, if I was being honest, I think that obviously what you're most proud of in terms of the breakthroughs, et cetera, are essentially the individuals that you've worked with and collaborated with at all the different levels and seeing certainly some of the individuals that have come through, you know, the educational process and being engaged with those projects and certainly where they are now in their careers and the difference that they're making is obviously great.

makes you exceptionally proud, right? So that's amazing to see. So the journey that they've been on and the products and innovations and work that they've supported come into fruition has been excellent. So I think that was one of the aspects of that award in itself. Sure, it was recognition of

of me building it was recognition of the broader collaboration piece and we do fundamentally collaborate for impact and I think that's why those awards were given and I think within that there's been some really good products and systems that we've worked on. I mean the recent project with Transforming Timber

which was like a decades-long research looking at UK resource and how to make homegrown mass timber products from it and cross-laminated timber, glue-laminated timber, nail-lam, dowel-lam, which is seeing those products come to fruition and now be commercialized and that operation is now scaling up.

It was perceived that that could never be done because of the perception of UK timber being of too low quality, not dimensionally stable enough. We don't have the supply chain. There isn't going to be the demand in the market. It will cost too much. It will never compete with import product, etc. And now it is happening. Now it is taking place. And it's been underpinned all the way by demand.

by students or learners or those within the educational environment. And that journey keeps going. And because the products and systems are scaling up, then the requirement for the research innovation and the professionals to work in that space has more requirement as well. So that's highly, highly fulfilling.

Excellent. Far too modest, I'm sure. You probably deserved it. Right, looking ahead, do you see timber and off-site construction becoming the dominant methods for housing and infrastructure globally? What needs to happen to make that a reality? I think what we will see is a more, what I would say would be a more biogenic response to the built environment, using more renewable natural capital for its delivery.

because it has to be renewable natural capital going back to what we were saying during the conversation there's still some perceptions about we'll cut down all the trees and we won't have anything but if we think about the system effect of what we're doing and think of the broader system

Ultimately, we need to upgrade and maintain our existing stock. Ultimately, we're going to have to create more. And if we're doing that globally, we're doing it in a whole range of different contexts and we have to do it in a responsible manner. And most likely that's going to be through the use of renewal natural capital and capital that can renew itself quicker than the lifetime of when those products and systems are being used.

So it's trying to get more in sync with essentially how the natural environment performs, right? Rather than us being, as we tend to be, just on a consumption driven, not necessarily thinking about the ramifications of that consumption. So yes, and I think timber will be a key component

biogenic or natural product within that mix simply because of what we've described but there's other products whether it's hemp based insulation cork I know that's stilt but cork you can use that for rendering there's mycelium fungus that's being looked at for insulation products straw bale whatever it may be so there's a range of products and systems that are being looked at

timber will be selling out the four of that and equally within that we're still going to have to use other products. We're still going to have to use concrete, steel, whatever it may be but ideally you'll use less of them, ideally use reclaimed or use them whether or not as carbon intensive.

It's interesting. It's more philosophical, really, than anything else. But the more we are looking at sustainability, it seems like we are going back, re-looking at the past more, so like timber construction or sales for ships, turbine. It's fascinating how

kind of useful and great those products were perhaps you were too eager to cast them off for modernity like steel and concrete i just think it's quite interesting yeah yeah no you're there i think it's it's a good parallel to draw you know and it you know it's like how he ripped up all the tram lanes in favor of cars and then went oh way there actually

You know? So it's, yeah, you're absolutely right. There's certainly ways and means that we thought

were antiquated were actually what they were and then it's a reinvigoration of that I think it's how we couple that reinvigoration with the modern tools that are at our disposal to help with that as you touched upon with the whole digital AI piece etc so it's how you combine these things appropriately to get to a position where it's more regenerative and responsible Absolutely and

more beautiful buildings please yes exactly and as you say a lot of these buildings these timber based buildings are fundamentally pretty iconic buildings and you know the studies are

showing you what we know even if we're in a timber based building it's more biophilic it's more natural based etc it's a more pleasurable place to be essentially smell the sight everything about it really the touch it's just exactly

It's just canning, right? Yeah. It helps in that regard. The difference between a traditional English pub or Scottish pub and a wine bar. They're just not the same. That's right. Anyway, that's the end of my questions. Is there anything else you'd like to add that you think is important we haven't touched on?

I was just dying to, I mean, I think it was an enjoyable conversation. And I think it would be really interesting just to see where all this takes us over the next generations with regards to how we're going to make the difference with regards to construction, built environment and using more natural resources for the delivery of it. So yeah, thanks very much for giving me the opportunity. In that case, thank you for your time, Robert. That was very, very interesting.

Perfect. Okay. Thank you. Also, don't forget to subscribe to IE Plus for premium insights and exclusive content.