Get Sust! Issue 48

New study quantifies timber’s carbon footprint

TRADA's latest Construction Briefing ‘Timber carbon footprints: calculated values’ finally brings some hard data to back up the oft quoted claim that timber is one of the greenest of construction materials.

Carbon footprinting is notoriously complex, so this study set out to try to cover all possible impacts, including different end-of-life options (e.g. fuel, waste etc), and took account of various options for carbon sequestration (from excluding it to including it fully).

The study – based on ‘scenarios’ for several different timber species – found that if timber is credited with the CO2 it absorbs from the atmosphere during its service life, it can have a negative carbon footprint. As the level of sequestration taken into account falls, the performance in carbon footprint deteriorates.

However, the report points out that the quantity of timber required for a given application will differ from concrete, steel or plastic, and so it is be misleading to compare 1m3 of one material with 1m3 of another. The assessment must be on the volumes/masses of the materials used for given applications.

The results are laid out in easy-to-follow tables and graphs in the Construction Briefing, which is available free of charge via TRADA’s website.

 

 

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