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Timber - embodied carbon

Often overlooked in the debate about global emissions,
embodied carbon is a term where the implications will
be little understood or even known about by many. So,
what is embodied carbon?

Embodied carbon is a calculation of all of the CO2
emitted in extracting, producing and transporting a
manufactured or processed product - including its
eventual disposal.

In a home this will include all of the materials used in the
construction: bricks; concrete; steel; timber; glass;
plastics; wiring. Steel from China for example, will travel
around 12,000 miles - this distance is measurable as is
the CO2 emitted during its journey, the ship that carries
it has a huge carbon footprint but with mixed container
loads, calculating its part in the process is ignored.

Let’s take a look at forestry, after all, timber is a
processed and manufactured product, these are some of
the various elements that will have implications on
embodied carbon:
● Creating ccess roads for vehicular access
● Harvesting equipment - plus fuel, maintenance, etc.
● Planting, thinning, disease management
● Harvesting, uses highly specialised equipment
● Transport to the mill
● The processing mill, construction. maintenance,
power, access roads, rail, docks
● Shipment of final product to other manufacturers by
ship, rail and road

Scary? Well yes, but timber has advantages over all other
building materials:

● Forests - serving as a carbon sink
● Timber - carbon capture at harvesting
● Regeneration - is an on-going process
● More trees in forests in Europe since the dawn of the
industrial age
● Energy recovery in mills using waste biomass to
provide heat on site and often, power exported to the
local grid
● Waste turned into secondary products

At a global level, buildings account for 32% or energy Figure 9. Forestry - harvesting and processing
use and 30% of energy-based GHG emissions - paying
heed then to embodied carbon is crucial.