What Is the Impact of Mass Timber Utilization on Climate and Forests?
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Global Mass Timber Impact Assessment (GMTIA)
- Comparative life cycle assessments (LCAs) of functionally equivalent mass timber and conventional buildings in selected regions (Europe, China, Chile, and the US) to estimate embodied carbon and carbon storage of mass timber utilization at the individual building level for representative buildings using designs that are locally appropriate to each region, but functionally equivalent across regions. As with most LCAs, phase 1 of the GMTIA does not consider impacts on forest carbon stocks, which are explicitly addressed in phase 4. These LCAs also do not consider end-of-life treatment.
- Regional demand assessments to extend the results of individual building LCAs to estimate embodied carbon, carbon storage, and changes in wood demand at varying levels of mass timber adoption (conservative, optimistic, or extremely high adoption levels) in new construction in each of the selected regions.
- Global trade modelling using a variant of the Global Forest Products Model to estimate how changes in demand for forest products associated with increased penetration of mass timber in each region will directly and indirectly impact global forest product trade flows (e.g., if 90% of new buildings in region X are built with mass timber, where will that timber be supplied from, and will other trade flows be displaced?).
- Forest impact assessments to evaluate the spatial-temporal impact of mass timber harvests on forest composition, structure and carbon stocks in forest ecosystems associated with different predicted mass timber demand scenarios as indicated by the regional demand assessment and the global trade modelling in Phases ii and iii.
- Integration of the results of Phases 1–4 to estimate the total impact on climate and forests of different levels of mass timber utilization in the selected regions and the identification of potential risks and of conditions needed to reduce potential negative impacts. Results of all phases will also be communicated via academic articles and policy recommendations.
3. Theoretical Basis
- a
- Forest carbon stock changes: Changes in demand for mass timber may drive market level changes that increase or decrease forest carbon stocks, forest area, or both, as described above. Demand changes may also simply drive product shifts or changes in utilization rates, and thereby have no detectable impact on forest carbon stocks. These impacts are likely to vary based on geography, the forest composition and structure, existing forest management practices, magnitude of demand changes, forest tenure, forest plans and ownership, timescale, and a variety of other factors.
- b
- Forest health and climate change: Demand changes will also lead to changes in forest health (potentially positive or negative). A changing climate will also affect the health of the forest, especially as natural disturbances such as wildfire, insects, and disease increase with intensity. The implications of climate change on forest dynamics ultimately impact the amount of forest products that are produced.
- c
- Embodied carbon: Embodied carbon for the construction products refers to all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with extraction, processing, and manufacturing, transporting, and installing construction materials [33]. The harvest, transportation, and production of mass timber may have higher or lower emissions than alternative construction materials, thereby generating a negative or positive climate impact, depending upon the process and energy mix of their manufacture, transportation distances, and the emissions associated with the materials for which they are a substitute.
- d
- Carbon storage in wood products: Carbon storage occurs differently based on the type of harvested wood product. Forest products may store carbon for extended periods of time (as in the case of wooden furniture, and mass timber in buildings), emit carbon immediately (as in the case of bioenergy), or store carbon for an intermediate period dependent on recycling (for example, short-term storage in paper products). Temporary carbon storage, however, is not accounted for in traditional LCA frameworks, which tend to treat emissions as equivalent regardless of when in the life cycle they occur.
- e
- End-of-Life (EoL): There are many possible waste scenarios for building materials all of which vary depending on material, local, state, and country regulations, and existing deconstruction standards. Wood products have the potential to be (1) re-used (e.g., wooden boards salvaged from one building for use in another), (2) substituted for energy (e.g., wooden boards salvaged from a building and processed/burned to produce bioenergy), or (3) landfilled. Materials that are fully reused can have climate benefits, while wood products that decay in a landfill can decay slowly, and may produce methane, a very potent greenhouse gas [34].
4. Discussion and Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
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Pasternack, R.; Wishnie, M.; Clarke, C.; Wang, Y.; Belair, E.; Marshall, S.; Gu, H.; Nepal, P.; Dolezal, F.; Lomax, G.; et al. What Is the Impact of Mass Timber Utilization on Climate and Forests? Sustainability 2022, 14, 758. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14020758
Pasternack R, Wishnie M, Clarke C, Wang Y, Belair E, Marshall S, Gu H, Nepal P, Dolezal F, Lomax G, et al. What Is the Impact of Mass Timber Utilization on Climate and Forests? Sustainability. 2022; 14(2):758. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14020758
Chicago/Turabian StylePasternack, Rachel, Mark Wishnie, Caitlin Clarke, Yangyang Wang, Ethan Belair, Steve Marshall, Hongmei Gu, Prakash Nepal, Franz Dolezal, Guy Lomax, and et al. 2022. "What Is the Impact of Mass Timber Utilization on Climate and Forests?" Sustainability 14, no. 2: 758. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14020758
APA StylePasternack, R., Wishnie, M., Clarke, C., Wang, Y., Belair, E., Marshall, S., Gu, H., Nepal, P., Dolezal, F., Lomax, G., Johnston, C., Felmer, G., Morales-Vera, R., Puettmann, M., & Van den Huevel, R. (2022). What Is the Impact of Mass Timber Utilization on Climate and Forests? Sustainability, 14(2), 758. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14020758