Analytics, EU – Baltic States, Markets and Companies, Modern EU, Woodwork

Without doubt, wood is one of the most environmentally and sustainable friendly material. To address global challenges such as climate change, a growing population and resource scarcity, Europe must find pathways to produce goods, food and energy by using renewable organic materials more widely. 

In this sense, the promotion of timber construction is anchored in the bio-economy concept. The European sawmills industry makes market products with a small carbon footprint, from raw material procured from sustainably managed forests. Companies process hardwood and softwood for a wide range of construction and furniture products.  

The Forum

International Forum “The Value of Wood,” was held in Brussels, in conjunction with the International Day of Forests on 21 March 2017.  The conference’s aim was simple: reduction of CO2 emissions, particularly in the construction sector, the role of wood and forests for the bio-economy and sustainable development. The Conference attracted roughly 100 participants.

The members of the EU Parliament (Paul Brannen and Henna Virkkunen, among others) highlighted the need for an increase of wood products as building materials. “Wood is the building material of the future -versatile, beautiful, and carbon neutral”, they argued. However, wood production and processing has been a key player in tackling climate change and developing a sustainable bio-economy.

The European sawmill industry, as part of the forest based industry, provides a large number of employment opportunities and career development in a wide range of occupations. Jobs are being created across the skills spectrum and in a variety of business types and sizes – predominantly the SME sector.  

The sawmill industry is the backbone of the bio-economy. Residues from sawmill processes can be converted into a broad range of wood-based products including bio-composite materials, bio-plastics, textiles and carbon-neutral biofuels. Simultaneously, the production of saw-logs, and the correlated use of by products and residues, complies with the resource efficiency principle, guarantees the highest profitability for forest owners and provides the raw materials needed for developing the bio-economy.  

Growing role of timber

Director for the environment at the French research centre (Gerard Deroubaix) offered a technical explanation of the wood products as carbon store. He recalled that the carbon footprint of construction products made of wood is, in a very large majority of cases, significantly lower than the carbon footprint of the products made of competing materials. He recalled that a recent study commissioned by the EU Commission and entitled “Climwood2030” presented calculations at European level showing that “the material use of wood products instead of functionally equivalent alternative products leads to a decrease of fossil based GHG emissions over the whole life cycle of about 1.5-3.5 t CO2 per ton of wood product”.

The role of timber in architecture is great as well; some participants (was Andrew Waugh) showed the latest achievements of building with wood. For example, he presented the Dalston Lane Project that has been the world’s largest CLT building: the ten-storey, 121-unit development is made entirely of CLT, from the external, party and core walls, through to the floors and stairs, weighing a fifth of a concrete building of this size, and reducing the number of deliveries during construction by 80%.

The ten-storey building is made entirely of CLT, from the external, party and core walls, through to the floors and stairs, weighing a fifth of a concrete building of this size, and reducing the number of deliveries during construction by 80%. Another example of the wood application is the Murray Grove. As explained by A. Waugh, the Murray Grove is the first urban housing project to be constructed entirely from pre-fabricated solid timber, from the load bearing walls and floor slabs to the stair and lift cores.

Per-Olof Weding, President of European State Forest Association emphasised that European forests are constantly growing both in size and in volume of wood. This extremely positive fact is due to an active and sustainable forest management system that ensures the production capacity and resilience of forest ecosystems as a whole.

He stressed that a vibrant European forestry sector can make the bio-economy the next major economic development and can bring real benefits to mitigate climate change.

Still questions to answer…

The bio-economy is central to combating climate change and safeguarding ecosystems.

- What services, technologies and industries in the forest-based sector are boosting the bio-economy?

- How is the bio-economy advancing the triple bottom-line of sustainability for society, environment and business?

- How can timber, wood-based products and other bio-based materials add value to the durability of buildings and the resilience of cities while bringing down CO2 emissions?

- How to make European urban construction/fabric more sustainable? 

References: = http://revolve.media/forest-city-project-2017/; = the 2016 FCP impact report sees on: http://revolve.media/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Impact-report-FCP2016.pdf