Looking at the forest - wood - option for achieving emission targets, an increased use of timber as a building material seems to be particularly predestined, due to timber’s ability to act as a carbon sink and a CO2 store:
While a forest builds biomass, the trees absorb large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere. Wood as a building material grows predominantly without external energy, whilst storing large amounts of solar energy at the same time. Comparably little quantities of fossil fuels (indirect or grey energy) are needed to supply and process timber into a building product and to then build, maintain and dismantle timber buildings, resulting in lower greenhouse gas emissions. The CO2 stored within the timber products remains there throughout the service life of the building. Due to their excellent insulating properties, timber building parts and timber buildings show outstanding energy efficiency that protects the climate. An increase in the use of timber in the building sector would simultaneously mean a decrease in CO2 intensive building materials, thus relieving the earth’s atmosphere further of greenhouse gases. At the end of the life cycle of a timber based building product, the inherent primary energy stored within the timber can be used to avoid further CO2 emissions by using it as a substitute for fossil fuels.
With regards to the climate change mitigation effect, it should be noted, that in comparison to alternative designs, the use of 1 ton of timber during the construction of a building could avoid the equivalent of 3.9 tons of CO2 emissions. The use of timber in the building sector therefore already occupies an undisputed leading position with regards to achieving a zero or low carbon economy.
The wood - timber - option consequently represents a prime example for an almost closed-loop energy and material cycle, starting with the raw material extraction in the forest via the construction of buildings to demolishing them at the end of their life cycle.