Understand the carbon benefits of forest certification and responsible sourcing
Using more timber in your buildings makes a huge contribution to reducing carbon across the built environment and combating climate change. Making sure that the timber is responsibly sourced means it is legal, sustainable and promotes healthy future forests. Choosing PEFC certified timber helps all those in construction to reduce environmental damage.
Timber’s Role in Reducing Carbon and Promoting Circularity
When a tree grows it sequesters carbon from the CO2 that it absorbs from the atmosphere. This carbon is then stored in the timber and kept out of the atmosphere for the lifetime of the product or structure. Timber also requires far less energy during production and processing when compared to other common building materials. Therefore, using PEFC certified products can dramatically reduce this embodied carbon and also promote a circular economy as the timber can be reused or recycled when the product/structure comes to the end of its service life.
“If we are to achieve national and international targets to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, we need to measure, understand and significantly reduce the embodied carbon within the buildings and infrastructure we construct,” says Timber Development UK’s Sustainability Director, Charlie Law.
The Importance of Certification and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)
Product Stage (A1-A3) assessments understand that responsibly sourced timber, such as PEFC certified, are an important part of the whole life carbon assessment process, from planting the tree, forest management, harvesting, transportation and primary processing such as sawing, kiln drying and manufacture.
Circularity of products whole life carbon assessments and availability of Environmental Product Declarations (EPD), are all critical considerations when specifying materials in construction. EPDs are key for specifiers to design low-carbon assets, helping them accurately assess the impact of their designs and material selections, but historically limited data has been available for timber.
“Over the past few years this has begun to change,” adds Charlie. “With a continual push for more EPDs for products in construction, more data is becoming available every day – the results of major efforts made by timber suppliers. To assist concept design stage assessments, Timber Development UK has developed an EPD Database and Embodied Carbon Data for the design community by drawing on the available independently verified EPDs for timber products to calculate weighted average A1-A4 embodied carbon data. By utilising the available EPD data, and designing with circular economy principles in mind, timber can help the design community meet the challenge of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.”
PEFC: A Partner for a Low-Carbon Future
PEFC is the world’s largest forest certification system with over 298 Million ha of forest certified in 57 countries. It cares for forests ‘globally and locally’ and recognises that while the concept of sustainable forest management is global in nature, its implementation needs to tailored at local level to address specific national issues. This ‘bottom-up’ approach is at the core of how the scheme is managed. Additionally, currently around 28,800 companies across the world hold PEFC chain of custody certification providing countless forest-based products to end users in a wide range of sectors.
Utilising PEFC certified timber in construction projects reduces carbon emissions, when compared to other building materials, through the nature of the material and the sustainable forest management practices under which it is grown. Its adoption is a critical step toward achieving a low-carbon future.
To better understand the ways PEFC promotes long term climate solutions and how timber fits into the principles of the circular economy and sustainable supply chains you can attend upcoming CPD on Timber and the Circular Economy.
