Stangeskovene joins the Norwegian Wood Cluster
Stangeskovene AS was established in 1899 and comprises forest properties, production of timber and windows as well as building materials stores. In total, the Group has approximately 270 employees and a total turnover of approximately NOK 1.3 million. Most of the Group’s operations are located in Østfold, the eastern part of >Akershus and the southern part of Inland Norway. The head office is located in Aurskog-Høland in Akershus.
Interesting in several key areas
– Stangeskovene is one of the few companies that encompasses the entire wood-mechanical value chain with forestry, industry and building materials. This makes it natural for the group to participate in the Norwegian Wood Cluster, as the entire business can participate in a joint program,” says CEO Per Morten Wangen. Per Morten Wangen, Stangeskovene AS.
– For us, membership of the Norwegian Wood Cluster will be particularly interesting in the areas of sustainability with associated certifications, skills development and recruitment of the workforce of the future, standardization and increased digitization in the industry’s transaction exchange in the value chain. We therefore look forward to taking an active part in the cluster’s work and contributing to a good sharing culture,” says Wangen.
Valuable supplement
Cluster leader Berit Sanness welcomes Stangeskovene AS as a member of the cluster.
– As an integrated business, Stangeskovene will be able to contribute expertise and participate in various interdisciplinary forums within the Norwegian Wood Cluster. The Group also signals that it will be able to clarify and test conditions in various sub-projects that require integrated collaboration. Stangeskovene thus represents a valuable supplement to the current members,” says Berit Sanness.
Formally, it is the board of Norwegian Wood Cluster SA that processes applications for membership of the cluster. Stangeskovene AS was admitted as a member during the board meeting on February 6, 2024.
Educational about sustainable finance and green loans
The aim of the seminar was to provide insight into how the EU taxonomy affects the financial industry and, in particular, what products banks can offer within green loans.
– The overview from Finance Norway provided the right platform before Kommunalbanken, DNB Bank, SpareBank1 Østlandet and Innovation Norway contributed with their presentations. The banks’ presentations complemented each other well, so I think we got a lot of interesting insights through the seminar,” says cluster manager Berit Sanness of Norwegian Wood Cluster.
– In addition to the speakers delivering very interesting presentations, there was also good dialog with the participants. The feedback was also that the banks’ representatives found it useful to be updated on other banks’ work with the taxonomy and green loans, so we are pleased with that,” says Sanness.
The big picture
It’s essential for the forestry and timber industry to keep a close eye on what’s happening in the field of sustainable finance. It was therefore worth its weight in gold that Kristian Ruth, Director of Sustainability at Finance Norway, had made the trip to Mjøstårnet to give the status of sustainable finance and analyze where we are heading.
CEO Kristian Ruth gave a very good overview of the situation in the EU today and talked about expectations for the future. The legal requirements lead to a significant increase in reporting requirements and affect companies at different times depending on their size.
– Although there is a lot to get to grips with, the aim is that the EU taxonomy will simplify matters. As more companies are required to submit sustainability reports, we will have a basis for comparing companies. The taxonomy will set clear boundaries for what is sustainable and what is not. In this way, the framework of the EU taxonomy can help guide companies in the right direction,” Ruth explained.
In the coming years, a lot of sustainability information will be reported for the first time and the market’s response will be crucial.
– Our advice is that it is already wise to prepare for the coming reporting requirements regarding sustainable finance,” said Kristian Ruth.
Green in KBN from 2010
KBN is the largest lender to the local government sector and offers green loans for investments with a clear climate and environmental ambition. The taxonomy sets the framework for today’s work with green loans.
– KBN is not new to thinking about green loans. KBN made its first green loan offers back in 2010. In 2016, the first set of criteria was in place, and the criteria are constantly being developed,” said Fredrik Veggeland, Climate and Green Finance Advisor at KBN.
– KBN wants to be a driving force. “We were an early adopter of green loans, and we have also started preparations for taxonomy loans. Through a pilot project in Sandefjord, we are gaining useful experience of how the taxonomy can be implemented in practice. By 2024, we hope to have five new projects that can be included in a portfolio of taxonomy projects,” said Venil Sælebakke, Climate and Green Finance Advisor at KBN.
Banks’ offers of green loans etc.
DNB Bank and SpareBank1 Østlandet talked about their facilitation of green/sustainable bonds and green loans to companies.
DNB Bank said that sustainability-related loans have been used by several global companies in the forestry/forest industry with loans from the bank.
– The criteria for green loans for the forestry and timber industry include a 30% reduction in energy consumption and that the raw material is certified. For sustainability-related loans, the following KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are relevant: greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency, pollution, waste, biodiversity, resource use, circular economy and health and safety, said Marina Bhatti Surita and Mari Gulsvik Næss, senior sustainability advisors at DNB Bank.
Agriculture and forestry account for 12% of SpareBank1 Østlandet’s corporate market portfolio. Sustainability has been on the agenda in the bank’s operations since 2008.
– “The bank has received very good feedback on corporate social responsibility and reporting. We therefore believe that we have taken a credible leadership position in sustainable banking,” said Stine Bendigtsen, Senior Sustainability Advisor at SpareBank1 Østlandet.
– One of the challenges with the taxonomy is that it relates to a carbon account of 30 years, while the typical cycle time in Norway is 80-90 years,” said Simen Borgen Messelt, Sustainability Advisor, SpareBank1 Østlandet.
Current financial instruments from Innovation Norway
Innovation Norway also has financial instruments that may be of interest for green financing.
– For our green financing scheme, we use the EU taxonomy as a framework to define whether a project is sustainable. Our environmental technology scheme may be of interest. We also support projects within the circular economy,” said Christina Seegaard, Head of Finance, Innovation Norway.
Green Growth Loan is aimed at companies that want to invest in climate-friendly solutions.
– The loan can be used to establish production of solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Co-financing with a bank is also relevant,” said Seegaard.
Part of project “Finance and sustainability”
The seminar on green loans is part of the project “Finance and Sustainability”, which the Norwegian Wood Cluster is currently conducting. The project “Finance and Sustainability” is part of the comprehensive Green Platform project “SirkTRE”, which is supported by Innovation Norway, the Research Council of Norway and SIVA. Read more about “SirkTRE” here: www.sirktre.no
The main objective of the project “Finance and sustainability” is to create increased insight into ongoing work within finance and sustainability with relevance to the forest and wood industry, both to meet documentation requirements and to exploit opportunities. This applies in particular to the consequences of the EU taxonomy. The need for sustainability reporting is central. Reuse, material recovery and recycling are among the many topics the company must consider when preparing its own sustainability report.
How climate-friendly is it to build in wood
Senior researcher Timothy D. Searchinger at Princton University is, among other things, co-author of a Nature article from 2023 entitled: The Carbon Costs of Global Wood Harvest”. He contributed with a digital presentation at the owners’ meeting, explaining why he believes timber is not carbon neutral and that the climate impacts of logging have been overlooked.
Searchinger: Timber is not carbon neutral
– Modern forestry is valuable, but not carbon-neutral. Even if a forest is used for CLT, most of the carbon will still be lost very quickly. Everything that doesn’t become timber (roots, bark, pulpwood, coppice/chips) is decomposed or burned. This carbon loss is repaid over a long period of time, but not over 30-40 years. Therefore, forestry will lead to more carbon emissions than absorption,” said Searchinger.
He pointed out that consumption is expected to increase by 54% from 2010 to 2050 in the richer part of the world.
– It has been said that wood is carbon neutral as long as we don’t cut down more than we grow. But if we harvest less, the forests will grow more, i.e. bind more carbon. “We believe that we should keep the need for wood down so that more natural forests are maintained. This is the most positive thing for climate emissions over the next 20-30 years,” said Searchinger.
Calculates on a 40-year horizon and ignores substitution
Professor Erik Trømborg from NMBU said there was nothing new in Searchinger’s approach and that this is something NMBU has been teaching for 15 years. But his calculation of carbon neutrality is based on a 30-40 year cycle, while it takes 80-90 years from planting a tree until it is ready for felling in our boreal forests.
– Therefore, after 40 years, the curve shows that emissions from the forest are greater than removals. If he had extended the curve to 90 years, they would have met!” said Trømborg.
Both Trømborg and several members of the audience were critical of the fact that substitution was not mentioned in the presentation. “If we’re going to use less wood, what should we use more of?
– Should we treat biogenic and fossil carbon in the same way? What we release from the forest takes 80-90 years to sequester, and we need to be aware of that. Searchinger doesn’t discuss the alternatives, and I think the oil industry is happy about that. The global challenge is the use of fossil carbon. Is it then okay that we continue to use a lot of fossil fuels and push the problem in front of us? Trømborg asked.
Status of Skjerven Biopark
During the owners’ meeting, the participants received a brief update on the development of Skjerven Biopark. Active efforts are being made to establish an R&D center for the woodworking industry and bio-based materials in connection with Skjerven Biopark in Gjøvik. The investment in Skjerven is part of the Inland portfolio.
– “As a result of dialog with relevant users, we are now planning to split the building at Skjerven into an office building with meeting rooms, canteen and offices, as well as a test building with a lab and facilities for early-phase testing in the areas of sound/acoustics, fire, emissions and strength properties,” said Hunton Fibre’s HR director Tore Bergsveen.
– We continue the dialog with companies. As of now, 4-5 companies have initiated various types of feasibility studies. We now hope that more companies in the Norwegian Wood Cluster will join in,” said Bergsveen.
Encourages increased use of SkatteFUNN
We have had a visit from Elisabeth Sjöberg Frydenlund, special advisor at the Research Council of Norway with responsibility for Innlandet and Akershus. She holds courses in SkatteFUNN and provides guidance on the various support schemes available at the Research Council.
Support for development
SkatteFUNN is a scheme to support research and development projects in companies. If your company is involved in development projects, you can apply for SkatteFUNN and receive a 19% tax deduction on project costs. You can apply year after year, and you can apply for several projects in one and the same year. The annual limit for each company is NOK 25 million.
– This scheme is particularly suitable if the development takes place internally in the company, with the help of its own employees,” explains Frydenlund.
Simple application
This scheme is easy to apply for and has a short processing time. You must apply in the same year as the project starts, but it doesn’t matter if the project has already begun. The majority of applicants are granted a tax deduction.
– “We encourage NWC member companies to use the scheme as much as possible. You can write the application yourself, set aside a day or two and feel free to contact the Research Council for free assistance,” says Frydenlund.
Apply early
She recommends that companies apply before September 1, and preferably well in advance. “Applications tend to pile up in September, and we can’t guarantee that everyone who submits after the deadline will have their application processed for the current year,” she explains.
Read more about SkatteFUNN at https://www.forskningsradet.no/skattefunn/
Tips on how to apply: https://www.forskningsradet.no/skattefunn/sok/
You can also search for previous projects in the Research Council’s project bank
For general questions: skattefunn@forskningsradet.no, +47 22 03 75 00
Circular and inspiring at Økern
On a summery May day, a group of circularly engaged people gathered at Bylab Økern to be inspired by people who work with reuse in practice.
Emil Andresen Rygh is the general manager of the Circular Resource Center and works extensively with projects and testing to reuse materials from buildings that are being demolished or rehabilitated.
Moritz Groba is an architect and partner in OsloTRE, which has built “the country’s most reusable office building”, Save the Children’s head office at Hasle. Through these two, we got to see and learn that the road to circular solutions goes through being exploratory, fearless, patient and having good players on the team.
What is the Circular Resource Center and why was it established?
Emil Andresen Rygh, CEO, explained the background – a story about a private consultancy firm with a small-scale warehouse for reused building materials, a construction tent from the Government Quarter, a public-private driver company and a number of strategic partners. The end result was the companies Sirkulær ressursssentral and Ombygg.
– Together, we will help make reuse the natural first choice in the construction industry. To do this, we need pilot projects that break down the barriers. The prices of reuse solutions have fallen, but much remains to be done in terms of infrastructure,” said Rygh.
We needed strategic partners to understand the needs of the market and have brought in major players such as Statsbygg, Oslobygg, Obos, Bane Nor eiendom, Gjensidige and Entra eiendom. The aim is to share everything we learn and develop so that it can benefit the whole country. Oslo was a good place to start because of the volume,” said Rygh. The company Ombygg is the building materials store itself, consisting of a large tent with used building materials, an online store and salespeople who are in close contact with the major construction projects in Oslo. The company is testing various solutions for the temporary storage and sale of building materials, both to the professional and private markets.
Why a demountable office building
– The construction industry is called the 40% industry for a reason. It accounts for 40% of the world’s waste production, resource use and climate emissions. We need to do something about this,” began Moritz Groba from OsloTRE. The architectural firm, which was founded in 2015, works exclusively with wooden architecture and runs its own solid wood production. They have experience from their own solid wood production, but are now purely a consultancy firm with architects who design buildings from A to Z, RIBtre and advice for the link between design and production. They also have OsloPre, which delivers and assembles MT structures.
Two years ago, OsloTRE completed its work on the building that has been named HasleTre. In the commissioning and construction process, both the developers Höegh Eiendom and AF Eiendom and the tenant Save the Children were concerned with sustainability and demountability.
Linn Huse-Amundsen, Director of People and Technology at Save the Children, explained why they chose to move to a climate-friendly and reusable office building: “We belong to the world’s largest child rights organization. Most refugees today are fleeing because of climate change leading to drought and food shortages, natural disasters and war. So it’s extra important that we keep our own house in order and contribute to the lowest possible climate footprint,” said Huse-Amundsen.
Climate-friendly and demountable
Moritz Groba talked about the process of building a climate-friendly and demountable building: “We started with sky-high ambitions, but the spinal reflex in the construction industry is to do things the way we’ve always done them. So the first proposal for the wooden structure had slotted nodes with steel plates. We went back to the workshop to show, in a mock up, that we could use wooden dowels. After a hard-fought battle, the choice fell on beech dowels,” said Groba.
HasleTre is built with large, minimally processed solid and glulam elements and minimally processed wood materials. Along with the use of wooden dowels and dovetail joints that replace steel plates, screws and nails. These measures simplify dismantling, reduce the carbon footprint and increase the resale value of the components.
– But the aim isn’t to dismantle the building; we want it to be used for as many years as possible. That’s why we’ve designed the building to accommodate two tenants per floor, which has affected the location of stairwells, toilets and doors. In addition, we have built with a grid of about 5×5 meters, which leads to effective spans in the wooden structure while at the same time providing a high degree of flexibility for moving furniture and interior walls,” explained Groba.
We heard about a number of measures, from load-bearing structures with open guideways for technical infrastructure, reused absorbers on wooden slatted ceilings, goat hair carpet 80% cashmere wool, facade shingles in pine heartwood and interior walls clad with ash veneer and wooden nails.
Oslo tree inspires with award-winning building
– Winning these two awards at the same time as our two wooden buildings is a sign that the construction industry is changing. We’re moving towards a more sustainable, circular and biologically based architecture, something Oslotre has been working towards for almost 15 years. It’s great to finally be able to reap the benefits of our work,” says a clearly proud Jørgen Tycho, Creative Director at Oslotre.
Prestisjepris til HasleTre
HasleTre har vunnet prestisjetunge «World’s most sustainable commercial building 2024» på Architizer A+Awards.
HasleTre er et demonterbart og ombrukbart næringsbygg i tre på Hasle i Oslo. Bygget er bygget med trematerialer fra topp til tå, og holdes sammen av innovative trelåser som erstatter bruken av stål og aluminium.
Bygget er designet for ombruk i en fremtidig sirkulær verdikjede. HasleTre oppnådde hele 60% klimagassreduksjon og 80% reduksjon i stålbruk sett opp mot referansebygg. Bygget er Breeam Excellent klassifisert og ble bygget på rekordtid.
HasleTre er i dag hovedkontoret for bistandsorganisasjonen Redd Barna.
Les mer om pristildelingen HER
LUMBER 4 ble årets beste kontorbygg
LUMBER 4 har vunnet prisen for årets beste kontorbygg i kategorien Mellomstort 5-15 etasjer.
Bygget er Sørlandets første og største næringsbygg i massivtre. Bygget har vist seg å konkurrere økonomisk mot standard stål og betongbygg. Bygget på rekordtid og med en høy grad av prefabrikasjon har bygget oppnådd 53% klimagassreduksjon.
Den innovative grønnmalte og kuvede trefasaden har nådd internasjonal oppmerksomhet og LUMBER 4 var i 2023 et av de mest publiserte byggene på Sosiale Medier, globalt.
Les mer om pristildelingen HER
Om prisene
Architizer: The World’s Best Architecture er en årlig premiering av verdens mest inspirerende arkitektur.
Architizer A+Awards er verdens største prisprogram for arkitektur som fokuserer på å fremme og feire årets beste arkitektur og rom.
Inspirerende å besøke
Norwegian Wood Cluster arrangerte nylig studietur til Oslo og besøkte bl.a. HasleTre. Lovordene var mange. Det er også verdt å merke seg hvorfor leietaker Redd Barna valgte å flytte til et klimavennlig og gjenbrukbart kontorbygg. – Vi tilhører verdens største barnerettsorganisasjon. De fleste som er på flukt i dag, flykter på grunn av klimaendringer som fører til tørke og matmangel, naturkatastrofer og krig. Da er det ekstra viktig at vi har orden i eget hus og bidrar til så lavt klimafotavtrykk som mulig, sa Linn Huse-Amundsen, direktør for Mennesker og Teknologi i Redd Barna.
Les mer om studieturen til Oslo HER
I september arrangerer Norwegian Wood Cluster studietur til Kristiansand. Det er medlemmene i faggruppene Bærekraft og Fremtidige byggeløsninger som spesielt inviteres med på denne turen. – I Kristiansand gleder vi oss bl.a. til å besøke LUMBER 4 sammen med Jørgen Tycho i Oslotre, sier Berit Sanness.
Important mobilization completed
The “TRE-Standard” project has provided increased insight into ongoing standardization work of relevance to the woodworking industry and provided a basis for the industry to become more involved in long-term national and international standardization work in the future. Standards establish market requirements that have a decisive impact on which construction solutions are chosen.
Desired by businesses
– “With the TRE-Standard project, we have met a need in the industry. The background to the project was that our specialist group “Future building solutions” wanted us to take a closer look at this topic,” says cluster manager Berit Sanness of Norwegian Wood Cluster. She has been the project manager for “TRE-Standard”.
– There are many key company representatives in this specialist group. “The companies’ priorities are crucial to the project initiatives we take. The message was clear, and we followed it up,” says Sanness.
Before the project started in the fall of 2022, Norwegian woodworking companies had limited involvement in climate and environmental standards for the construction sector, regardless of materials. At the same time, national and international standards set the premises for how climate documentation is prepared and how the climate footprint is calculated for both individual materials and buildings.
Praise for Innlandet County Council
Berit Sanness praises Innlandet County Council for supporting the project financially.
– The Norwegian Wood Cluster has strong woodworking companies from Inland Norway as members, and they supported the project. However, these companies are dependent on a much broader mobilization to safeguard the industry’s competitiveness in this area, and the county council understood this. It is therefore a credit to Innlandet County Council for seeing the importance of the mobilization work and supporting the project financially,” says Sanness.
Awakening
One of the main initiatives under the auspices of the project was a workshop at Mjøstårnet in the fall of 2023. It had high participation and was summarized as a breakthrough. A statement from one of the 40 participants, who had previously attended several meetings on the subject, summarizes the benefits of the workshop: “Now the seriousness of standardization is starting to dawn on me”.
The workshop produced acknowledgements, insights and concrete plans for action. There was broad agreement that the industry needs to do something about this by coordinating resources and focus areas.
See the review of the workshop here: Mobilization for standardization – NWC (nwcluster.no)
Key players involved in the project
Both Moelven Limtre and Hunton Fiber have been members of the project group for “TRE-Standard”. So have Treteknisk and the Timber Industry. In addition, WoodWorks! has participated as an observer.
– At a national level, Treteknisk and the Timber Industry have the key roles in the standardization area. They have therefore also played key roles during the implementation of the “TRE-Standard” project. At the same time, it has been crucially important for us to draw on the companies’ experiences. This happened not least during the workshop, where both Dynea AS and Moelven Limtre AS shared their experiences from many years of standardization work,” says Sanness.
EU Construction Products Regulation becomes central
The project’s mobilization work has raised awareness of the importance of standardization among a number of woodworking companies in Innlandet and the rest of Norway. In addition, the project has analyzed the consequences of the EU’s new Construction Products Regulation, which will be crucial for standardization work in the future. The Norwegian Institute of Wood Technology has carried out the analysis for the project.
– “The EU’s new Construction Products Regulation will lay down clear premises in the area of climate and the environment and will take precedence over standardization work,” says CEO Audun Øvrum. Audun Øvrum, Treteknisk.
The Construction Products Regulation (CPR) is a trade law that describes how construction products must be documented in order to be legally traded in the EEA. The new CPR, which is expected to be legally approved in the EU in November 2024, introduces requirements for the declaration of climate and environmental data through CE marking, which has not previously been mandatory.
The current regulations for calculating and declaring climate and environmental properties have been developed by the European standardization committee Sustainability in construction work (CEN TC350).
Ensure consistent calculations
– “The current regulations are incomplete and leave too much room for interpretation in how to calculate life cycle accounts, where allocation, mass balance and data quality requirements are key concepts that greatly affect the results of the Environmental Products Declaration (EPD),” says Audun Øvrum, CEO of Treteknisk. Audun Øvrum, Treteknisk, who heads Standard Norway’s committee for wood and wood-based materials.
The implementation of the new Construction Products Regulation entails extensive changes to the standardization processes for CE marking of construction products. This framework is being developed in a separate process (the CPR Acquis process), which aims to improve and clarify the regulations and create overall rules for how construction products should declare climate and environmental impacts, fire properties and content of hazardous substances.
Audun Øvrum explains that current calculation practices have, for example, led to Swedish EPDs for planed spruce yielding 30% lower emission figures than Norwegian EPDs as a result of different interpretations of international standards.
– We expect the consequences of the new Construction Products Regulation to be that relevant standards will be changed so that we get the same calculation practice in the future,” says Øvrum.
NWC seeks project manager wood structures
As a project manager in the Norwegian Wood Cluster, you will work with some of the country’s best and most forward-thinking companies in the forest-wood value chain. Together we will develop tomorrow’s value chain, based on renewable raw materials from the Norwegian forest.
Here you can read more and apply for the position.
Application deadline August 20, 2024.
NWC with apprenticeship offer
The target group is employees in NWC’s member companies, and the course is free of charge for the companies. We accept both internship candidates (with a minimum of five years of practice) and “Certificate of Apprenticeship” candidates (with a minimum of one year of practice), and the goal is an exam in production technology (PRT3103) in the fall of 2025 with a subsequent professional test.
Collections
Karriere Innlandet has previous experience of similar training, both digital and session-based. Experience and evaluation of previous courses indicate that it is demanding with purely digital sessions. Therefore, the new offer will be a combination of physical sessions (2-4) and sessions on Teams (10-12). Participants must have their own computer for digital sessions and exams. The location of the physical sessions will be determined based on which companies participate, and it may be relevant to have regional sessions in addition to joint sessions.
In 2023, Karriere Innlandet Kongsvinger arranged a vocational certificate course for the woodworking industry, with Sveinar Sætherberget as facilitator and organizer. They are now strengthening the industrial side with the appointment of Jo-Andre Brenna from September 1, and will also draw in resource persons from the industry in certain subject areas.
Costs
The county council provides grants for Fagbrev-på-jobb, and the training itself is therefore free for companies. However, the company is expected to have a contact person/supervisor to assist the candidates. Any remuneration of employees for participation and travel is agreed with the company.
Info meeting
We are now looking for contact with companies that have relevant candidates for apprenticeship training. On Tuesday, September 10 at 8.30-9.00 am, NWC and Karriere Innlandet invite you to an information meeting for companies, contact NWC project manager Karl-Einar Røste for more information:
Karl.einar.roste@nwcluster.no | Mobile 480 06 715
Creating an audio data bank for wood sound
Cluster leader Berit Sanness is very pleased that Innovation Norway is supporting the new “3LYD” project, which will last until 2027. Among other things, the Norwegian Wood Cluster is working to develop the climate-friendly building and housing solutions of the future for growing markets.
Desired by businesses
Building in height is an interesting way to reduce land degradation. Mjøstårnet has shown that it is possible to build high in wood. However, the largest volumes of tall wooden buildings are in the 4-6 storey segment.
The member companies in the Norwegian Wood Cluster have identified solutions for sound (acoustics and vibrations) as one of the main challenges for building wooden buildings up to six storeys high. At the request of the companies, the cluster has therefore initiated a project that can help to achieve preaccepted solutions in the area of sound. The results of the “3LYD” project are expected to be very useful for the companies’ competitiveness.
– “The project idea has been discussed at several meetings of our specialist group ‘Future Building Solutions’ and a large number of companies have subsequently expressed their interest and helped to finalize the project plan, so the project is well anchored,” says cluster leader Berit Sanness in NWC.
Collects completed sound measurements
The project will mainly collect existing sound measurements. These are currently not available to anyone other than the owner of the sound measurements and the company that has performed the sound measurements.
– A prerequisite for access to the sound data is, of course, that the owners of the sound measurements release them for collection in a data bank. We leave that job to those who have carried out the measurements. It will probably also be necessary to obtain supplementary documentation for existing measurements, as far as this is possible, so that, for example, the design solution can be identified,” says Sanness.
Supplementary measurements
In order for the data bank to provide a basis for preaccepted solutions, there is also a need for a large number of new sound measurements. The companies involved will contribute with supplementary measurements according to SINTEF’s template while the project is ongoing.
– In addition, we want to involve bachelor and master students at NTNU. It is also relevant to link an industrial PhD candidate to the project. We think this could be an exciting assignment for the students, who will participate in a project with many companies involved,” says Sanness.
Strong expertise combined
The project group includes resource persons from SINTEF and NTNU, as well as from the companies behind the project. These include ARE Treindustrier AS, Hersleth Entreprenør AS, Hunton Fiber AS, Kontur Arkitekter AS, Norconsult Norge AS, Norsk Massivtre AS, Ny Struktur AS, Oslotre AS and Sweco Norge AS.
– “We’ve brought in top expertise in the field of sound and acoustics. In order to get the best possible data basis, we will also be inviting representatives of other consultancy firms that carry out sound measurements to join the project,” says Sanness, who says that a couple of these consultancy firms have already expressed interest in participating in the “3LYD” project.