Perceiving New Sustainable Materials

Transparent Wood (TW) is an innovative material with potential applications in construction, automotive, electronics, and interior design. The AI-TranspWood project, a three-year Horizon Europe initiative, aims to develop AI-driven methods for designing and manufacturing transparent wood composites under the EU’s “Safe and Sustainable-by-Design” framework. The project involves international collaboration between universities, research centres, and companies, with the goal of boosting Europe’s leadership in transparent wood production. A research team from Politecnico di Torino leads the project’s Dissemination and Communication work packages, ensuring effective communication of findings and stakeholder engagement. A sensory and perceptual analysis of transparent wood was conducted to answer the following research question (RQ): How to promote the adoption and dissemination of Transparent Wood among stakeholders and civil society despite the expectation about native wood and clear plastic? The analysis followed a protocol derived from scientific literature, evaluating samples of transparent wood alongside its direct competitors: wood and transparent plastic. Eighty participants, referred to as “materials testers”, took part in a two-hour workshop where they used a sensory vocabulary tool to describe the three samples in a standardized manner. The research results provide a sensory and perceptual comparison of the materials, offering project partners valuable insights for material development and supporting researchers in promoting the acceptance of new sustainable materials not yet available on the market.