DOI: 10.20935/acadenvsci8463 ISSN: 2997-6006

Building trust in timber construction: stakeholder perceptions and barriers to adoption in Mexico

Marcelo Olivera-Villarroel, Lucero García-Franco, Alejandro Rodea-Chavez, Christopher Heard, Daniel Rozas-Vásquez, Paola Ovando
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Introduction: The construction sector faces growing pressure to reduce embodied emissions while maintaining technical performance, affordability, and long service life. Timber may contribute to lower-carbon construction, although its environmental value depends on forest origin, management practices, processing, durability, and the duration of carbon storage in buildings. This study examines stakeholder perceptions of timber construction in Mexico and the conditions associated with its credible adoption.

Materials and methods: An exploratory mixed-methods design combined a survey of 33 respondents, thematic coding of open-ended responses, and three semi-structured expert interviews. The analysis covered material selection, reported applications, environmental perceptions, certification awareness, and the technical, institutional, and cultural conditions associated with confidence in timber construction.

Results: Timber was selected for housing design or construction by 14 respondents (42%). The most frequently reported applications were cladding, selected by 24 respondents (73%), and structural uses, selected by 21 (64%). Twenty-eight respondents (85%) rejected the proposition that timber use necessarily implies forest destruction, while 18 (55%) reported awareness of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. Confidence was most often associated with education, dissemination, and cultural change, mentioned in 16 responses (48%); technical and structural performance, in 10 (30%); and durability, treatment, fire, humidity, and biodeterioration, in 9 (27%). The interviews also emphasized material classification, quality control, supply chain coordination, certification, and professional experience.

Conclusions: Timber adoption in Mexico emerges as a process of conditional trust. The evidence supports partial and component-specific adoption rather than generalized substitutions of concrete, steel, or masonry. A comprehensive assessment must measure environmental performance through legal and sustainable sourcing, energy production, transport, durability, maintenance, and end-of-life pathways, while accounting for the characteristics of functionally equivalent alternatives. This exploratory study does not quantify national mitigation potential or the availability of construction-grade timber.

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