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Finland’s Forestry - carbon sink?

The capacity of trees to capture carbon as compounds
during growth is enormous, consider this….

Estimates in Finland suggest that there are 10 trees in
Finnish forests for every person in the country - with a
population of just over 5.5 million, 55 million trees. At
maturity a Norway Spruce will sequester about 1 tonne
of carbon as compounds or 55,000,000 millions tonnes
of CO2 per annum.

To put this into perspective, assuming the 27 million Figure 7 - CO2 Emissions
cars on UK roads travelled 9000 miles per annum this
would yield around 38 million tonnes of CO2 to the Further, the forests themselves are not immune to the
atmosphere. effects of climate change. A warming climate changes
growth patterns, creates conditions where insect and
There are pressures though on these forests, not least fungal attack are more likely.
the process of harvesting itself, where forestry
management systems are playing catch-up with Weather phenomena, increased risk forest fires - whilst
demand in their planting programmes. we have learned much, we still have a long way to go.

Trees capture carbon through photosynthesis at a rate
of about 1 tonne of CO2 to every cubic metre of timber,
One of the ways to mitigate climate change is to find it retains this even after being felled and processed and
“new” ways preventing the release of carbon to the as a built structure - your home, holiday let or office for
atmosphere in the first instance. As the construction its long life.
sector is responsible for up to 30% of annual
greenhouse emissions it plays a key role in coming up It will only release this carbon if allowed to fall into
with solutions. decay, or upon reaching the end of a life-span and that
could be 100-150 years.
We need to search for the solutions by looking at how
we build from the materials used in construction to how At the end of its useful life your log building can be
we orient the building and heat it. We cannot totally recycled - it can be more readily recycled than almost
eliminate steel, concrete, brick and block but we can any other type of building methods used in homes
reduce our dependence. because it is mostly, well, “timber!”

Remember the term “new”, old building material - As technology develops, even if used as a source of bio-
timber we started with? Well we are increasingly looking energy, by the time your building is due for recycling
at a material that Ritsu have understood the benefits of there will be methods available to capture the carbon,
for over 30 years. preventing it’s release to the environment.
It is gradually dawning that increasing use of timber in Timber buildings can be a part of the solution, not the
construction is a part of the answer. problem.