At the Pfeifer Group’s traditional New Year panel debate, a star-studded line-up of experts looked ahead to the economic, logistical and raw materials challenges facing the timber industry. 2024 proved tough for the sector due to the weak state of the economy, and the hard times look set to continue for companies into 2025.
“Although the general mood is a bit more upbeat than last year, we’re facing structural challenges that won’t be going away any time soon,” said Gerd Ebner, editor-in-chief of the journal Holzkurier, summing up the mood in the industry. Joining him on the virtual panel to discuss trends and developments were Michael Pfeifer (CEO of the Pfeifer Group), Leonhard Scherer (Head of Sales – Sawn Timber), Claus Greber (Head of Sales – Timber Construction) and Christof Bader (Head of Group Logistics). Everyone agreed that the economy appears to have bottomed out and a return to some form of stability is on the cards – yet the industry remains under heavy strain.
The major challenges are chiefly affecting the construction sector, the downturn in which has also hit the timber industry hard. Yet there are positive signs coming from the infrastructure construction segment, especially in Southern Europe: in Italy alone, for instance, some 850 timber-built schools and nurseries are set to be constructed over the next few years. Whilst sales of sawn timber and formwork products were satisfactory, the packaging sector is coming under increasing pressure, with demand for transport pallets falling significantly due in particular to the crisis in the automotive and supplier industry and the trend towards electromobility. Fiercer competition and cuts to subsidies are also weighing heavily on the biofuels market in Germany. Viewed over the long term, however, wood will remain a key raw material for the future. Ebner explained:
Thanks to its versatility and the fact that it is available locally, wood is a vital component of the transformation into a lower-emission economy.
CEO Pfeifer Group
Besides the issues specific to the industry, global developments such as the war in Ukraine and the prospect of trade tariffs are impacting world trade. In particular, the tariffs announced by Donald Trump could hinder European exports and disrupt global trade considerably. On the world markets, the portents for the timber industry are mixed: whilst the US and the MENA region are sending out positive signals (“green light”), Europe is continuing to flatline and China remains out of bounds due to its close links with Russia. A faint glimmer of hope is emerging in Japan, which is at least showing small signs of an upturn. In the US, meanwhile, the anticipated boom in construction will push up demand for wood, with the availability of logs and the price trend constituting key factors. “2025 will be shaped by global challenges and local strategies,” concludes Michael Pfeifer. “With some parts of the industry under heavy strain and others anticipating a new dawn, optimism is still the order of the day.”
The family-run Pfeifer Group recently completed an ambitious programme of investment to keep its sites efficient and high-performing. The new sawmill in Kajaani in northern Finland and the waste wood recycling plant in Uelzen, Lower Saxony, which was commissioned in mid-2024, particularly stand out in terms of scale.
The new sawmill in Kajaani in northern Finland
The waste wood recycling plant in Uelzen, Lower Saxony
Pfeifer Holding GmbH was founded in Austria in 1948 and is now in the hands of the third generation of its owner family. Headquartered in the Austrian town of Imst in Tyrol, it employees 2,600 people at 13 sites in Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic and Finland. Around 5.4 million solid cubic metres of timber is cut every year in the Group’s fully integrated sawmills. This is then processed along the entire value chain into sawn and planed timber, concrete formwork panels, formwork beams, cross laminated timber, glue-laminated timber (glulam), glued solid wood panels, pallet blocks, briquettes, pellets and green electricity.
In its “Pfeifer Talk” series of online talks launched in 2020, the company regularly invites experts to have their say on all manner of different topics connected with the timber industry and the world of work during the Fourth Industrial Revolution. You can watch the panel debate – and many other presentations – for free on the Pfeifer Group’s YouTube channel: