When Aaron started The Good Builder, he expected the hard part would be building an audience. Instead, one of his first lessons came from a quiet meeting in a Brisbane café with someone who had spent decades inside Australia’s timber and forestry sector.
That meeting was with Christine Briggs, a Queenslander and long time timber industry leader who now works with WoodSolutions, a national industry initiative focused on technical guidance, research and practical tools for designers and builders. In a recent episode of The Good Builder podcast, Ng spoke with Briggs about the future of timber framing, why sustainability messaging is still underused by builders, and how “what’s behind the walls” may become a bigger trust signal in a sector struggling with confidence.
The conversation was part industry education, part marketing workshop, and part reality check for a building market that is increasingly shaped by social media scrutiny, shifting regulation, and clients who want proof, not polish.
A career built on relationships, not slogans
Briggs described her pathway into timber as “by accident”, starting as a graduate about 35 years ago when CSR owned timber businesses. But what kept her in the sector, she said, was not just the product. It was the people.
Timber and housing, she argued, share a similar DNA. They are relationship driven industries where reputation is built slowly and lost quickly. They also share a productivity challenge, a growing reliance on better data, and an increasing need to communicate clearly with everyday customers.
That focus on fact and credibility is central to how WoodSolutions positions itself. The organisation is built around research and technical guidance, and Briggs stressed that accuracy matters because the work is linked to government supported initiatives and industry trust. In her words, there is no room for greenwashing.
The trust problem is no longer theoretical
Early in the episode, Ng raised a recent issue he had seen in the market: reported instances of corrosion in steel framing inside relatively new homes. He framed it as a broader warning, not an attack on a single product category. If hidden structural issues emerge after handover, fixes are rarely simple, and the reputational damage can spread far beyond one builder or one supplier.
Briggs responded cautiously, noting that every material has challenges and that performance is shaped by both product choice and building practice. Her point was practical: the National Construction Code exists to define how homes should be built, and materials need to be specified and installed with the real climate and conditions in mind.
But the exchange highlighted a bigger theme. In a world where homeowners share defects in Facebook groups and the news cycle moves fast, the structure of the home is no longer invisible from a marketing perspective. It is becoming part of the trust conversation.
“We’ve been building with timber for thousands of years”
Ng’s interest in timber framing is partly about longevity. Timber has a long history in housing, and in Australia it remains a dominant structural material for detached homes. Briggs’ message to builders was simple: if you are already using timber framing, you do not need to reinvent your construction model. You just need to talk about it.
WoodSolutions is not a commercial supplier and does not sell a single brand of timber. Briggs said the aim is to support the category and provide builders with consistent messaging and tools, without pushing exclusive agreements or forcing supply chain changes.
That independence matters in a market where builders are wary of being boxed into a single product pathway. The value here is education, proof points, and the ability to communicate benefits without turning the conversation into a sales pitch.
The numbers that stop people mid sentence
One of the most shared moments in the episode was Briggs outlining a set of timber framing statistics she says she uses regularly because they “blow people’s minds”.
The figures are based on research and reporting from the timber sector and WoodSolutions partners. In summary:
- The weighted average amount of structural timber used in an Australian house frame is roughly 14 cubic metres.
- A Forestry and Wood Products Australia article describes this volume as being able to be “grown” in around 150 seconds, based on plantation regrowth rates.
- WoodSolutions has also promoted a comparison that the carbon stored in that typical volume is equivalent to offsetting 126 one way Sydney to Melbourne flights.
For builders, the point is not to become climate scientists. It is to have a simple, repeatable way to explain why a timber frame is not just familiar, but also renewable and measurable.
A carbon certificate builders can hand to clients
To make that easier, WoodSolutions has launched a free online carbon calculator designed for the construction sector.
In the podcast, Briggs explained two practical use cases:
- A business level certificate
Builders can enter their company name and number of annual builds to generate a certificate that estimates carbon stored through the use of structural timber framing. - A home specific certificate
Builders can generate a certificate for a particular home that can be handed over at practical completion as part of the client pack.
WoodSolutions says the tool is intended to help builders make sustainability tangible for clients, without adding admin burden or needing specialist knowledge.
It is also a subtle shift in how handover is treated. Many builders already provide digital warranty packs and maintenance guides. A personalised certificate adds an emotional layer: a reminder that the home is not only an asset, but a decision with a footprint.
“Culture and brand are the same coin”
A major part of the episode moved away from timber and into a broader theme: why builders struggle to communicate what they do well.
Briggs’ view is that brand is not just advertising. It is culture made visible.
If the internal team does not believe the message, she argued, it cannot be delivered with confidence to customers. That includes sales consultants, supervisors, and even trade partners. In her experience, sustainability stories can also support recruitment, because businesses that lead with values often attract stronger talent.
Ng connected that idea back to home building marketing. Too much content, he argued, focuses on glossy visuals and fixtures while skipping the structural decisions that shape durability, performance, and long term client confidence.
WoodSolutions’ campaign line is built around that exact gap: “What’s behind the walls matters”, positioning the frame as a trust signal rather than a hidden detail.
Where timber framing fits in the customer journey
One of Briggs’ more practical insights was about timing. Builders often assume clients are not interested in structure, and in many cases clients do defer to the builder. But she believes interest is rising, especially among younger buyers and sustainability conscious households.
She outlined several moments where timber framing messaging can naturally fit:
- Design centre visits where clients are already choosing inclusions
- Frame stage walkthroughs where the structure is physically visible
- Handover where a carbon certificate can become part of the closing experience
The goal, she said, is not to force a technical conversation. It is to give builders options for when and how they introduce it, based on their own process and client type.
Timber beyond detached housing
Briggs also pointed to where the timber story is heading next.
With more policy and planning attention on medium density housing, she expects greater focus on timber in mid rise projects and hybrid systems. WoodSolutions materials have highlighted that timber based systems can be designed for taller applications depending on the building solution and approvals pathway, and that engineered timber is now part of the mainstream conversation in commercial and multi residential construction.
In other words, timber framing is no longer just a volume housing topic. It is increasingly a broader construction productivity and sustainability topic.
Diversity, safety, and profitability
Toward the end of the episode, Briggs spoke about another long running focus in her career: gender diversity and inclusion in manufacturing and construction.
Her argument was blunt. Safer businesses make more money. More diverse businesses tend to perform better long term. She referenced research and broader business commentary that supports those links and said the real challenge is doing it genuinely rather than as a box ticking exercise.
Ng added his perspective from building sites, arguing that the industry needs stronger culture and better leadership to support apprentices and reduce burnout. Both agreed that as construction becomes more technology driven, outdated assumptions about who “fits” in the sector become harder to justify.
What makes a good builder in 2026
When asked directly what makes a good builder, Briggs avoided the easy answer.
Yes, she supports structural timber. But her deeper definition of a good builder was about legacy. Builders create the homes people build their lives around. That carries responsibility, whether a company builds five homes a year or five hundred.
A good builder, she said, thinks beyond the immediate job and considers the long term impact of what they build, how they build it, and what footprint they leave behind.
In a time when the industry is under pressure from cost, labour shortages, regulation, and rising consumer expectations, that mindset may be the real differentiator.
Because trust is no longer earned through a render and a tagline. It is earned through what sits behind the walls, and whether a builder is willing to explain it.
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