Bringing ecosystem thinking to sustainability-driven wooden construction business

Lowering environmental impacts by material choices is proposed as a way to promote urban sustain ability transition, and one solution is building more wooden multi-storey constructions (WMCs). In the construction industry, however, there is a strong path dependency towards applying well-established construction materials and methods, as well as partnerships. To gain understanding of network-based collaboration, learning and end-user involvement in novel wooden construction business, the study uses qualitative methods and employs business ecosystem approach in the analysis. The studied WMC business case revealed that barriers of collaborative business ecosystem development include both the lack of clarity in the shared goals between actors and weak end-user involvement. Moreover, neither companies nor end-users fully recognize sustainability aspects around WMC. Enabling factors such as smooth communication and building trust among business actors during planning and building were recognised. The study suggests that a broader business ecosystem approach, including the living and use of the building, offers a mindset shift for developing sustainability-driven logic alongside profitable construction business and creating value for consumers. (c) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).