The Environment
Wood is
nature's own material. As trees grow, they help reduce climate change by
absorbing CO˛ and storing it away.
Timber
and wood products are the ultimate sustainable and recyclable materials,
requiring low energy consumption to process and are thermally efficient in use.
Some interesting facts about wood
Wood is carbon neutral
In fact, because of the carbon sink effect of the forests, wood from
sustainable managed forests can actually be better than carbon neutral.
If you use enough wood, a building can be carbon neutral – or better!
Wood has the lowest embodied energy of any mainstream building material
A tonne of brick requires four times the amount of energy to produce
sawn softwood, concrete five times, glass six times, steel 24 times and
aluminium 126 times.
Using wood instead of other building materials saves on average 0.9 tonnes of
carbon dioxide per cubic metre
3 tonnes of
CO2 can be saved by using timber frame from the 20 tonne CO2
footprint of a typical 3 bedroom detached house. Increasing the timber content,
including softwood cladding, can reduce the footprint to 2.4 tonnes – a total
reduction of 17.6 tonnes CO2.
Wood has the best thermal insulation properties of any mainstream
construction material
5 times better than concrete, 10 times better than brick and 350 times
better than steel.
Certified timber and timber products have Environmental Profiles which can
contribute to achieving higher Green Guide ratings and higher star ratings in
the Code for Sustainable Homes
Trees absorb one tonne of carbon dioxide for every cubic metre’s growth
They also
produce the oxygen we breathe - almost ľ tonne of oxygen for every cubic metre’s
growth.
Europe’s forests are growing by 661,000 ha every year
That’s an
area greater than three football pitches every hour of the day and night.
And it’s because Europe’s forest owners are governed by laws which require the
replacement of harvested trees.
Over 97% of the softwood we use comes from European forests
And over
84% of the hardwood we use comes from European forests. So, altogether over 90%
of all the wood we use comes from European forests.
Europe’s forests are an important – and growing - carbon sink
Europe’s forests provide a carbon sink for 150Gtonnes of carbon dioxide
As carbon
dioxide accounts for over 75% of greenhouse gas emissions, this is a significant
contribution to mitigating climate change.
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