Will a Transition to Timber Construction Cool the Climate? (original) (raw)
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Wood buildings as a climate solution
Developments in the Built Environment, 2020
We conducted a systematic literature search and meta-analysis of studies with side-by-side life cycle analysis comparisons of mid-rise buildings using mass timber and conventional, concrete and steel, building materials. Based on 18 comparisons across four continents, we found that substituting conventional building materials for mass timber reduces construction phase emissions by 69%, an average reduction of 216 kgCO 2 e/m 2 of floor area. Studies included in our analysis were unanimous in showing emissions reductions when building with mass timber compared to conventional materials. Scaling-up low-carbon construction, assuming mass timber is substituted for conventional building materials in half of expected new urban construction, could provide as much as 9% of global emissions reduction needed to meet 2030 targets for keeping global warming below 1.5 C. Realizing the climate mitigation potential of mass timber building could be accelerated by policy and private investment. Policy actions such as changing building codes, including mass timber in carbon offset crediting programs and setting building-sector-specific emissions reduction goals will remove barriers to and incentivize the adoption of mass timber. Private capital, as debt or equity investment, is poised to play a crucial role in financing mass timber building.
Land use change and carbon emissions of a transformation to timber cities
Nature Communications
Using engineered wood for construction has been discussed for climate change mitigation. It remains unclear where and in which way the additional demand for wooden construction material shall be fulfilled. Here we assess the global and regional impacts of increased demand for engineered wood on land use and associated CO2 emissions until 2100 using an open-source land system model. We show that if 90% of the new urban population would be housed in newly built urban mid-rise buildings with wooden constructions, 106 Gt of additional CO2 could be saved by 2100. Forest plantations would need to expand by up to 149 Mha by 2100 and harvests from unprotected natural forests would increase. Our results indicate that expansion of timber plantations for wooden buildings is possible without major repercussions on agricultural production. Strong governance and careful planning are required to ensure a sustainable transition to timber cities even if frontier forests and biodiversity hotspots are...
This research aims to evaluate a realistic timber adoption scenario as a way of reducing carbon emissions of construction in Chile and the UK for the period 2020-2050. The study finds that a gradual increase of timber construction could complement the emission reduction targets set by traditional materials, providing the needed carbon storage. This analysis shows the urgency to define the criteria that will allow to account for carbon storage in timber construction as a natural contribution to the Paris agreement. Finally, it is worth highlighting that the construction sector also faces several economic and social problems that need to be addressed urgently. Timber adoption would reduce emissions and at the same time improve health, security, gender gap, precision, speed and working conditions in construction.
What Is the Impact of Mass Timber Utilization on Climate and Forests?
Sustainability
As the need to address climate change grows more urgent, policymakers, businesses, and others are seeking innovative approaches to remove carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere and decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors. Forests can play a role in reducing atmospheric carbon. However, there is disagreement over whether forests are most effective in reducing carbon emissions when left alone versus managed for sustainable harvesting and wood product production. Cross-laminated timber is at the forefront of the mass timber movement, which is enabling designers, engineers, and other stakeholders to build taller wood buildings. Several recent studies have shown that substituting mass timber for steel and concrete in mid-rise buildings can reduce the emissions associated with manufacturing, transporting, and installing building materials by 13%-26.5%. However, the prospect of increased utilization of wood products as a climate solution also raises questions about the impact of increased ...
More Timber in Construction: Unanswered Questions and Future Challenges
Sustainability, 2020
The built environment is one of the greatest contributors to carbon emissions, climate change, and to the unsustainable pressure on the natural environment and its ecosystems. The use of more timber in construction is one possible response, and an authoritative contribution to this growing movement comes from the UK’s Committee on Climate Change, which identifies a “substantial increase in the use of wood in the construction of buildings” as a top priority. However, a global encouragement of such a strategy raises some difficult questions. Given the urgency of effective solutions for low-carbon built environments, and the likely continued growth in demand for timber in construction, this article reviews its sustainability and identifies future challenges and unanswered questions. Existing evidence points indeed towards timber as the lower carbon option when modelled through life cycle assessment without having to draw on arguments around carbon storage. Issues however remain on the ...
High-rise timber architecture An opportunity for the sustainability of the built environment
PRO-INNOVATION: PROCESS PRODUCTION PRODUCT, 2019
Bioeconomy, circular economy, land use reduction, sustainable use of natural resources, reduction of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere and recycling are the keywords which the building world must face in the near future, as the environmental emergency can no longer be postponed. In order to disseminate in the scientific community the different possibilities of timber as a sustainable building material throughout its whole life cycle and to provide the professionals with suitable decision-making tools for a conscious design, within the cultural and scientific scenario of the recent years, the paper serves as a moment of reflection highlighting how a closer integration between different sectors (forestry, building, energy, industrial and waste management) can find, in the use of timber, an opportunity to significantly reduce the overall impact of a built environment life cycle.
This paper reports on a study examining the potential of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the building sector by substituting multi-storey steel and concrete building structures with timber structures. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is applied to compare the climate change impact (CC) of a reinforced concrete (RC) benchmark structure to the CC of an alternative timber structure for four buildings ranging from 3 to 21 storeys. The timber structures are dimensioned to meet the same load criter ia as the benchmark structures. The LCA comprises three calculation approaches differing in analysis perspective, allocation methods, and modelling of biogenic CO2 and carbonation of concrete. Irrespective of the assumptions made, the timber structures cause lower CC than the RC structures. By applying attributional LCA, the timber structures are found to cause a CC that is 34-84 % lower than the RC structures. The large span is due to different building heights and methodological assumptions. The CC saving per m 2 floor area obtained by substituting a RC structure with a timber structure decrease slightly with building height up to 12 storeys, but increase from 12 to 21 storeys. From a consequential LCA perspective, constructing timber structures can result in avoided GHG emissions, indicated by a negative CC. Compared to the RC structures, this equal savings greater than 100 %.