Kris De Decker’s article How to Escape from the Iron Age? casts a stark light on one of modern society’s hidden constraints: steel. Every bridge, vehicle, wind turbine, and machine depends on it. Steel is the backbone of the industrial economy – and one of the most carbon-intensive materials we produce.

De Decker highlights a painful contradiction. To build the renewable energy systems that might decarbonise industry, we need vast amounts of steel. Yet producing that steel today depends on fossil fuels. Recycling cannot close the loop: there isn’t enough scrap, and different grades don’t easily match.

His conclusion is firm. Use lighter vehicles. Build smaller, simpler structures. Prevent corrosion. Make more use of recycled steel. Scale our systems down to fit what can be sustained.

The industrial mindset

This is sensible, but it still assumes an industrial mindset. De Decker writes as though the economy will keep on growing – just with fewer tonnes of steel. The vision is essentially industrial society, only slimmer.

But what if that assumption is wrong? What if the age of growth is over?

Steel in a shrinking economy

A shrinking economy changes the terms of the question. Instead of asking how to sustain expansion, we ask how to live well with contraction. That means fewer mega-projects, less long-distance trade, and less reliance on global steel plants tied to fossil fuels.

It is in this context that wood and other biological materials come to the fore.

The case for wood

Wood is not a perfect substitute. It has limitations in terms of scale, durability, and land use. However, those limits appear differently in a downsizing world. We will not need endless skyscrapers, superhighways, or sprawling steel-framed warehouses. What we will need are homes, workshops, halls, small bridges, and local infrastructure.

Here, wood, straw, hemp, earth, and carpentry excel. Timber structures, when well-maintained, can last for centuries. Engineered wood can carry heavy loads and span wide spaces. Local forests and sawmills can provide building materials without relying on global supply chains or fossil-fuel-based blast furnaces.

Local skills and trades

A shift toward a wood-based economy would also be consistent with localism. Carpenters, joiners, lime-plasterers, sawyers, and forestry workers would become essential trades again. Each community could use the resources of its surrounding land. Waste cycles would be shorter. Skills would be preserved and shared locally rather than outsourced to distant steel complexes.

Living well with less

The real lesson is not simply to ration steel within the old industrial frame. It is to accept contraction – and design a smaller, lighter, more local economy. In that future, wood and other plant-based materials are not just substitutes. They are central to living well within limits.

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