Recognising the contribution of wood

CEI Bois

The COP15 conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 will play a crucial role in setting the agenda for the fight against climate change and ought to lay the foundation for including wood products in future international climate change agreements. Science on carbon storage in wood products demonstrates that an increased production and use of wood is part of the solution to tackle climate change and should, therefore, be encouraged.

Wood and wood products: sustainable and renewable

So far, the calls for action under the Kyoto protocol have been focusing primarily on cutting CO₂ emissions; insufficient attention has been given to the positive contribution of increased use of wood and wood(-based) products derived from sustainably managed forests. In addition to storing carbon throughout their whole life-cycle, including the recycling phase; these products lead to CO₂ savings by substituting for energy-intensive materials and products.

In the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Forestry, scientists stated that “a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit”. Under the current system, forest fellings are counted as emissions of CO₂, despite the fact that the majority of the carbon remains stored in the wood or the materials derived from it. Including harvested wood products in the scheme would lead to an accounting of this carbon storage benefit and give a more prominent role to wood and wood products.

There are two ways to reduce CO₂; either by cutting emissions (reducing carbon sources), or by removing CO₂ and storing it (increasing carbon sinks). Wood has the unique ability to do both.

Reducing carbon sources

No other commonly used material requires so little energy to produce as wood. Trees capture CO₂ from the air, combine it with water they get from the soil and produce the organic material, wood. This photosynthesis activity of plants and trees also releases oxygen, on which all life relies.
Not only is the production and processing of wood highly energy-efficient, giving wood products an ultra-low carbon footprint, but wood can often be used to substitute for materials which require large amounts of energy to produce.

Every cubic metre of wood used as a substitute for other building materials, such as steel, aluminium, concrete or plastics, reduces CO₂ emissions in the atmosphere by an average of 1.1 t CO₂. If this is added to the 0.9 t of CO₂ stored in wood, each cubic metre of wood saves a total of 2 t CO₂.

Increasing carbon sinks

Thanks to photosynthesis, trees trap large amounts of CO₂ and store it as wood. Some 0.9 t CO₂ is trapped in every cubic metre of wood.

Managed forests are more efficient carbon sinks than forests left to grow naturally. Younger trees, in vigorous growth, absorb more CO₂ than mature trees which eventually die and rot, returning their store of CO₂ to the atmosphere. The CO₂ of the trees harvested from a managed forest continues to be stored throughout the life of the resulting wood product.

Wood products are carbon stores, rather than carbon sinks, as they do not themselves capture CO₂ from the atmosphere. But they have an important role in enhancing the effectiveness of the forest sinks, both by extending the period that CO₂ captured by the forests is kept out of the atmosphere and by encouraging increased forest growth.

Harvested wood products:

• Europe’s forests provide a carbon store of 150-200 billion tonnes CO₂, each year growing by 661 000 ha and sinking a further 0.5 billion tonnes CO₂;
• Europe’s stock of wood products stores an estimated 220 million tonnes CO₂. Annually, the stock increases, toring a further 20 million tos CO₂;
• Substituting by wood products leads to a saving of between 0.7 and 1.1 tonnes CO₂/m³; and,
• Wood is a carbon-neutral fuel which can be used as a substitute for fossil fuels.

The European Confederation of Woodworking Industries aisbl, CEI-Bois, promotes and defends the interests of the European woodworking sector. It represents around 380,000 companies generating an annual turnover (EU27) of 270 billion euro with 2.9 million employees. Firms are often located in less industrialised zones providing a major contribution to the rural economy.

CEI Bois
W: www.cei-bois.org

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