Friday 22 July 2022

Concrete lobby takes swipe at sustainable timber

We all know that timber is a sustainable building material. It’s renewable and locks in carbon.

Not only does wood remove more CO2 from the atmosphere than it adds through manufacture, but by replacing carbon-intensive materials such as concrete or steel it doubles its contribution to lowering CO2. 
Could we return to wood as our primary building material? One architect says: 
It’s not only realistic, it’s imperative. It has to happen. In architecture you always go back to the sketch: the sketch is climate change.
The concrete industry plainly feels threatened.
 

Steve Elliott, chairman of BAR, the trade association for UK manufacturers and fabricators of concrete reinforcement products, claims: 
When you consider the destructive harvesting, industrial manufacturing process, additional chemicals and monoculture plantations it may be that too much credit has been given to timber being a green material. Indeed, it may better to keep the ‘wood’ alive rather than cut it down and build with it.
David Hopkins, chief executive of Timber Development UK refuted such "strawman arguments": 
This report from BAR really brings nothing new to the table other than a desperate attempt to smear a sustainable construction material by those sectors which have a less than positive tale to tell about their environmental impact 

There are already fully verified environmental product declarations behind all timber construction products which consider the whole supply chain. This means the impacts of timber products are measured, assessed, and verified by independent experts from forest to factory to operational building – right through to the product’s end of life. 

The truth is that timber is a renewable material which comes from sustainably managed resources – growing throughout Europe – which absorbs and stores carbon and requires very low energy inputs to process into high-performance low-carbon construction products. 

Concrete, on the other hand, requires materials such as sand – produced from dredging rivers and seabeds, destroying ecosystems and habitats in the process – and huge inputs of energy and water to manufacture. It’s a very high carbon material – and an issue which must be tackled to decarbonise construction. 

Rather than a constructive attempt to find solutions to the climate crisis, they would rather waste time dreaming up strawman arguments like this report because they know they cannot compete in a market with a greater focus on sustainability.
In other news:
 

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