Building The Workforce & Finance Tools For Mass Timber Growth – CleanTechnica

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Last Updated on: 1st September 2025, 11:06 am

Mass timber has passed the stage where the conversation is about whether it works. The engineering is proven, the fire testing is robust, and the carbon benefits are well understood. The remaining barriers are not about physics or chemistry but about economics, institutions, and people. For Canada to make mass timber a core part of its housing and climate strategy and to compete as an exporter, it has to address those barriers head on.

This is one of the last articles in my series examining the role of mass timber in Canada’s housing and climate future. The first piece laid out Canada’s timber moment, framing cross-laminated timber (CLT) and modular construction as the fastest lever for addressing housing shortages, jobs, and embodied carbon. The second explored how Mark Carney’s housing initiative could industrialize the sector through pre-approved designs, offtake contracts, and regional factories. The third explored the requirement for vertical integration within the industry to maximize efficiencies. The fourth showed how CLT displacement could bend the demand curves for cement and steel, making their decarbonization pathways more realistic. The fifth demonstrated that from harvest to housing, CLT already locks away more carbon than it emits, strengthening its climate case.

The sixth turned to the forestry supply chain, arguing that electrification of harvesting, transport, and processing is essential to maintaining CLT’s carbon advantage. The seventh piece addressed systemic barriers, focusing on high insurance costs and bespoke code approvals, and argued that normalizing mass timber in regulatory and financial frameworks is the key to scaling. The eighth piece, arguably one that should have been much earlier in the series, explored the various technologies in mass timber and its currently dominant form, cross-laminated timber. The ninth piece assessed the global leaders, opportunities and competition for Canada’s mass timber industry and considers lessons to learn. This piece deals with input regarding labor and financing I received over the course of the series from professionals engaged in the space.

The first and most obvious challenge is labor. Mass timber requires a different set of skills than conventional concrete or steel construction. 3D-modelers who can create accurate digital twins of projects, CNC operators who can manage advanced machinery, timber framers who know how to work with prefabricated elements, and project managers who understand the sequencing of modular components are all in short supply. Europe has national and regional training programs that feed skilled workers into the industry, and their steady output of talent has been a quiet but important reason for their success. Canada has pockets of expertise but no coordinated national approach. If the country is serious about scaling mass timber, it needs a skills strategy that brings together colleges, trade schools, universities, and industry to train thousands of specialized workers over the next decade.

The second barrier is the volatility of lumber prices. Concrete and steel have pricing systems and futures markets that give developers and contractors some degree of predictability. Mass timber does not yet have the same hedging tools or long-term pricing mechanisms. Projects can be stalled or budgets blown when lumber prices swing wildly, as they did in recent years. Developing better financial instruments, longer term contracts with sawmills, vertical integration or new hedging mechanisms is critical. Without stabilized input costs, manufacturers struggle to guarantee fixed prices for panels, and developers hesitate to commit to projects that might suddenly look uneconomic. Other commodity industries have faced similar issues and found ways to manage them. Mass timber will need the same if it is to be a reliable part of the building sector.

Insurance remains a challenge as well. While this was covered in detail in an earlier piece, it is worth noting that insurers must become comfortable with mass timber to provide competitive rates. In Europe and the United States, insurers have gradually adjusted as portfolios of mass timber buildings have grown and performance data has accumulated. In Canada, there is still a gap in insurer knowledge, and that translates into higher premiums or restrictive coverage. This is not a fatal barrier but it is one that requires education and dialogue between industry, regulators, and insurers so that underwriting reflects reality rather than outdated assumptions.

Developers face their own set of obstacles. The cost stack for mass timber is different than for concrete or steel, and that makes simple comparisons misleading. Mass timber often appears more expensive when materials are compared directly, but the economics at the project level are more nuanced. Shorter construction time reduces labor costs and can bring buildings online faster.

Operating costs can be lower due to better thermal performance. Carbon savings may become monetizable under future regulations. Yet many developers and lenders do not have the frameworks to evaluate these differences. They are used to traditional cost breakdowns and financing models. Without better education and new financial tools, mass timber will continue to look riskier than it really is.

Another issue raised by both Canadian and international professionals is the question of cash flow and upfront capital. Mass timber manufacturers typically require payments earlier in the process to secure supply and schedule production. This means developers face higher upfront capital expenditure and longer financing cycles compared to projects using steel or concrete, where payments can be staged differently. An Australian contact described this as one of the biggest hurdles in their market. For smaller developers in particular, the need to finance larger sums earlier in a project can be a deal breaker. Addressing this will require tailored financial products, government-backed guarantees, or new procurement practices that recognize the unique cash flow profile of mass timber.

What ties all of these barriers together is that they are structural rather than technical. They require coordinated responses from government, industry, and finance. A national skills program would ensure a steady pipeline of workers trained specifically for mass timber construction. Financial innovation would give manufacturers and developers the tools to manage input price volatility and cash flow demands. Engagement with insurers would reduce premiums and normalize mass timber in the risk models of the financial system. Education for developers and lenders would recalibrate expectations and build comfort with a different cost stack.

These barriers are real but not insurmountable. Other countries have dealt with them successfully. Austria and Germany built skills clusters and vertically integrated supply chains. Finland put in place a national wood building program and saw market share jump in a few years. The United States used code changes and state-level incentives to rapidly grow both demand and supply. Australia is grappling with the same financing nuances that Canada faces. Each example shows that deliberate action works.

Canada has every reason to solve these problems. The housing shortage demands faster construction methods. The climate agenda demands lower carbon materials. The forestry sector needs new value-added industries to stabilize rural economies. Mass timber addresses all three. But it will not scale on climate arguments alone. The economics, the financing, the risk allocation, and the skills all have to align. If Canada invests in solving these structural barriers, it can move from being a promising participant to a global leader in mass timber. If it does not, others will take that role while Canada continues to export raw logs and dimensional lumber instead of the buildings of the future.