Paul Brannen, Director of Public Affairs at CE-BOIS and author of ‘Timber! How wood can help save the world from climate breakdown’ outlines some key steps to pushing timber higher up the policy making agenda in the UK.
Clearly it remains early days for the new Labour government, likewise for the new European Parliament and Commission. However, as each day passes, I become that little bit more concerned that no major governing political figure on either side of the Channel has yet to publicly articulate – since the summer elections – that there will be no end to climate breakdown unless we switch to using a majority of nature-based materials in the built environment. Specifically, much more timber.
My hunch is that the folks in Brussels will articulate first, probably via timber’s number one champion in the EU, the re-elected president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. That she ‘gets it’ is demonstrated in part via her own initiative the four-year-old New European Bauhaus, which aspires to creating a built environment that is sustainable, affordable and beautiful. Additionally, we also have her on record stating, “…we know that the construction sector can even be turned from a carbon source into a carbon sink, if organic building materials like wood… are applied.”
This side of the Channel no such political champion for an increased use of sustainable wood to tackle climate breakdown has emerged – so far. Ed Miliband’s focus is on decarbonising the electricity grid which while clearly important could – worryingly – be achieved successfully without addressing by one iota energy use by the built environment. Hopefully, the new Labour government will be up for the switch to timber for the sake of the climate. If so, what should they do to encourage a greater use of timber in construction? Six specific steps should be taken by the government:
- Implement the 2022 Environmental Audit Committee’s proposal to legislate for mandatory, whole-life carbon assessment of all new buildings, including the amount of stored carbon, as part of the planning permission process
- Set maximum standards for the carbon footprints of newbuilds and their energy use, which can then be tightened over time as we aim for net zero in 2050
- Incentivise the use of nature-based materials, such as timber in construction, including insulation: in part by recognising that the storage of carbon in buildings is a climate benefit
- Facilitate education about the use of nature-based materials across the whole of the construction-value chain
- Increase the homegrown sustainable wood supply by increasing commercial forest planting
- Implement the last government’s Timber in Construction Roadmap which includes working with industry and academia to identify opportunities and barriers to the use of timber in retrofit and promote best practice and innovation by 2027.
I would add a caveat at this point: if I were the Labour government, I would want to know categorically that there is enough sustainable timber to facilitate a big shift to timber. Here we need to tread carefully as a glib ‘of course there is’ answer, will rightly receive a mauling from environmentalists, which in turn will undermine political support.
Answering this perfectly legitimate question in a comprehensive and convincing way ended taking up much more space than I had expected in my recently published book: ‘Timber! How wood can help save the world from climate breakdown’. This was because the answer comes in multiple parts, including: harvesting closer to the net annual increment, planting more forests, growing more plantations, working towards 10% trees on farms in an agroforestry setting, increasing material efficiency, greater recycling and upcycling of wood, building-on-top with timber, reducing demolition, eventually sourcing timber once again from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine (only when Russia’s illegal occupation of Ukraine ends) and optimising every log via X-ray and scanning at the sawmill.
Labour is right to state that there is no magic money tree. There is however – when it comes to tackling climate breakdown – a magic timber tree. A Labour government should be able to deliver the homes the country desperately needs and at the same time, turn the built environment into a carbon sink rather than a carbon emitter. A win-win for Labour, the country and the climate.
‘Timber! How wood can help save the world from climate breakdown’ was published in June 2024 and is available at: www.waterstones.com/book/timber/paul-brannen/9781788217354
