Anne Viljanen, Mikko Kurttila, Anne Toppinen. (2024). Retrofitting urban areas with wood: the origin of new projects in an emerging business ecosystem. Silva Fennica vol. 58 no. 4 article id 23068. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.23068

Keywords: decision-making; business ecosystem; dynamic capabilities; project initiation; vertical building; wooden retrofits

Highlights: Decarbonizing building stock requires businesses to create new solutions for markets; Wood-material based retrofits offer new possibilities but are yet rare in urban context; The city-owned housing companies are found to be most aware of seizing opportunities of climate-benefits and facelifts in the less appealing suburban areas; Actors use dynamic capabilities in niche-level projects, yet the reconfiguring stage of business models is not visible.

Abstract | Full text in HTML | Full text in PDF | Author Info

Nurturing a low-carbon residential building stock requires businesses to create new solutions for markets. Wood material-based retrofits would be one solution but have remained rare in the urban context. Our study explores the structure and dynamics of an emerging business ecosystem (BE) of wooden retrofits in Finland. We study wooden retrofit projects, from the perspective of the initial steps of local-level development. By applying the concepts of BE and dynamic capabilities, we aim to shed light on the role of actors and their early-stage decision-making and use actor mapping and qualitative analysis of 27 thematic interviews with retrofit businesses and municipal actors. Results show that project initiation has relied on individual champions seizing opportunities as a main base in building dynamic capabilities. Builders and customers are key actors of wooden retrofit projects in local BEs in Finland. The identified actors are further involved with future plans for wooden retrofits, some with ambitious deep renovation with wood. Motivations for projects are driven from urban densification strategies, improvement of suburban neighborhood attractiveness and from the efficiency of space utilization. Results further elaborate a certain degree of difficulty in the early-stage decision-making. This study contributes to the scientific knowledge of both the BE and the dynamic capability perspective by exploring a path to material-driven sustainable construction in the Finnish context. We provide new information on this emerging retrofit construction business with potentially significant international implications if scaled up more widely.

Viljanen, University of Helsinki, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, Latokartanonkaari 7, 00014 Helsingin yliopisto, Finland https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7166-8022 E-mail: anne.viljanen@helsinki.fi
Kurttila, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Research and Customer Relationships, Yliopistokatu 6, FI-80100 Joensuu, Finland https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5290-4771 E-mail: mikko.kurttila@luke.fi
Toppinen, University of Helsinki, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, Latokartanonkaari 7, 00014 Helsingin yliopisto, Finland https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0910-1505 E-mail: anne.toppinen@helsinki.fi

Click this link to register to Silva Fennica.

If you are a registered user, log in to save your selected articles for later access.

Contents alert

Your selected articles

Follow @SilvaFennica