New publication: What can the bamboo industry learn from timber?

Dr. Francesca Mazzoni, Dr. Christian Binz, and Dr. Sebastian Losacker have published their new article, “What can the bamboo industry learn from timber? Resource mobilization across global innovation systems in the construction sector“ in the journal Geoforum.

The study examines how the emerging global innovation system (GIS) for bamboo construction technologies mobilizes knowledge, legitimacy, and market resources from the more mature, market-anchored GIS of timber construction technologies. The paper advances research on the geography of innovation and sustainability transitions by conceptualizing cross-system resource mobilizations, i.e. multi-scalar and transnational processes that link adjacent innovation systems.

The findings show how the spatially sticky bamboo innovation system benefits from codified knowledge, standards, and legitimacy of the adjacent timber GIS, while revealing the limits posed by different geographies of innovation and valuation. The study speaks to broader debates on accelerating the bioeconomy through the global diffusion of bio-based building material innovations.

The publication is open access and can be accessed here.