Sidebar: The Urgency of Embodied Carbon and What You Can Do about It
Takeaways: Structural Wood
- The carbon impacts of wood are a source of contention, with a few scientists claiming that LCAs greatly overestimate the benefits.
- What’s good for steel and concrete is good for wood: use only what you need.
- Wood sequesters carbon as long as the materials are in use; plan for the long haul when designing with wood. Consider design for future uses and design for deconstruction (see Re-Framing Sustainability: Green Structural Engineering).
- Choose either salvaged or Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood. This helps ensure responsible sourcing—for example, reducing the risk of habitat disruption—and may also have an embodied carbon benefit.
- Mass timber is a different animal from the dimensional lumber used for light framing. Laminating adhesives and long-distance truck transportation can have significant impacts.
- Although harvesting wood can cause disruptions that release carbon and methane (a more potent greenhouse gas), managed forests are more likely to remain forested rather than being converted to other uses—an overall win.
- Mass timber buildings usually have significant quantities of concrete and steel. Don’t forget to focus on embodied carbon reductions for those materials as well.
- Look carefully at the transportation emissions from trucking mass timber.
