Comparison of Thailand’s timber-construction ecosystem with Sweden identified interconnected gaps in policy, value-chain coordination, standards and forest perceptions, with transition actors mediating multiple material pathways.
Key findings
- At macro level, policy coordination and demand strategy were weak; at meso level, value chains and technical standards were fragmented; at micro level, forests were understood primarily as livelihood resources. These gaps reinforced one another, while transition actors enabled reclaimed, plantation, tropical engineered-wood and hybrid pathways.
Why this matters globally
The study adds tropical specificity to sustainability-transition theory and shows that building decarbonization requires system design rather than a single material substitution.
Thai researcher contribution
The Chulalongkorn University team collected value-chain evidence in Thailand and benchmarked Sweden with documented ethics and interview procedures.
Limitations to consider
The 12 Thai informants were purposively selected, while Swedish evidence relied more on secondary data and informal discussion. Cross-country comparison does not estimate policy effects, and no life-cycle carbon calculation was performed.