Behind the Facts: Fact 5
The Wood CO2ts less campaign encourages using more wood as a way to reduce CO2 emissions and fight climate change.
The campaign is based on several core facts: each backed by evidence and research set out below. Read more about the evidence behind the facts, and use the buttons below to navigate through the facts or return to the Wood CO2ts less home page.
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Fact 5
One of the simplest ways to capture carbon and reduce CO2 in the atmosphere is by increasing the use of wood in construction “Using WiC [Wood in Construction] provides a longterm store for carbon in the built environment. The potential contribution of WiC to removals of carbon from the atmosphere depends on both the level of future house building and the extent to which timber is used as part of the construction process. Avoided emissions from the production of cement and bricks are an additional advantage of using WiC. Our scenarios are based on the number of housing starts rising to over 320,000 each year by 2050, consistent with the Government’s house building ambition, but span a range of levels of uptake of WiC: “Increasing the number of new homes built in the UK each year using timber frame construction systems from around 27,000-50,000 in recent years to 270,000 annually could triple the amount of carbon stored in UK homes to 3 Mt every year.” “A recent report from the BioComposites Centre at Bangor University found that using timber frames rather than masonry can reduce carbon embodied emissions by around 20% per building. When CLT is chosen in place of concrete structures the effect is even greater, with carbon embodied emissions reduced by around 60%.” “Global construction of buildings and infrastructure and the associated material supply caused 7 GtCO2e of GHG emissions in 2015, of which 4 GtCO2e were associated with the use of materials in construction (Hertwich 2019)… Instead of using cement, masonry or steel frames, timber, bamboo and other plant fibres can be used as building materials, which has the potential to significantly reduce lifecycle GHG emissions in materials production and carbon storage” “Building with biomass can both avoid new emissions and provide storage for CO2 captured in forestry. The potential GGR from building with biomass through replacement of conventional construction materials is estimated to be in the range 0.5 to 1 GtCO2 pa147” “Recommendation (16) Develop new policies to support a substantial increase in the use of wood in construction” |
