How to skill up an engineer for cross laminated timber – with this … – The Fifth Estate

by | Oct 11, 2023 | Engineer

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Climate technology startup CLT Toolbox has recently raised $1.5 million in seed funding at a $8.5 million valuation round.
The company is a design software platform that aims to remove hurdles for structural engineers to become timber specialists in order to accelerate the transition to sustainable building materials and help decarbonise the construction industry.
New investors include BlueScope and Aconex along with Archangel Ventures, Rob Phillpot’s Gravel Road, Flying Fox Ventures, and Ecotone. Angel investors also includes Jodie Imam, Adrian Hondros and Peter Lam. 
The company claims that “In Australia we have about 10,000 structural engineers and only about 30 of them are timber specialists, with the ability to fully design a timber building end to end.”
This means there are not enough engineers to support the demand. The software is designed to solve this and reduce bottlenecks in the transition from high-emission materials by simplifying the learning curve for structural engineers by providing end-to-end education, specifications, resources, computation and design infrastructure.
The company, which has formed educational partnerships with Monash University and the University of Queensland, also says that cross-laminated timber (CLT) is currently the only renewable and sustainable material that can be used at scale and that meets Australia’s ambitious carbon footprint targets.
Its chief executive Adam Jones is a recipient of the Engineers Australia’s Victorian emerging professional of the year award and in 2019 was the winner of the future green leader of the year by Green Building Council of Australia.
Jones was previously a technical manager for CLT at XLam before starting his own company. Read more in a TFE interview with him.
Co-Founder Ringo Thomas said “The inclusion of mass timber can help us achieve the goals being set by the wider industry to reduce the impact of construction on climate change. We need more expertise and market understanding than what is currently available.”
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