Wood has many attributes that make it well suited to sustainable design. Wood products have low 体现碳 compared to other building materials, which indicates fewer greenho使用 gas emissions, and they continue to store carbon absorbed by the trees while they were growing. Low 体现碳 + stored carbon = lower carbon impact. Wood is also natural and renewable. It can contribute to energy efficiency and biophilic design, 而且经久耐用, 适应性强且可重用. Explore the sections below for resources that can help you make informed sustainability decisions.
Use these Resources to Inform Your Building Material Choices
Practical guidance on whole building life cycle assessment, 生物碳, 碳储存, environmental product declarations, 和更多的.
专家建议
Introduction to Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment: The Basics
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is 使用d to quantify environmental impacts over the lifetime of a product or system, from initial extraction of raw materials through manufacture, 分布, 使用, 最后的处理.
How do we build sustainably and achieve carbon-reduction goals while also meeting the housing and infrastructure needs of a growing population? 一个答案是更多的木结构建筑.
根据建筑2030, buildings are responsible for nearly 40% of global greenho使用 gas (GHG) emissions. 体现碳.e., GHGs associated with materials and construction processes throughout the lifetime of a structure—accounts for about 11%, and most of this (9%) is related to the 使用 of concrete, 钢铁.1 体现碳, especially upfront emissions associated with manufacturing materials and constructing the building, 可能很重要. The upfront energy associated with a traditional non-wood building is roughly equal to the energy required to operate that same building for 17年!2
Wood products have low 体现碳
Manufacturing wood products requires less fossil fuel-based energy than either steel or concrete; most of the energy comes from renewable biomass (e.g., bark and other residual fiber) that would otherwise go to waste.3 Substituting wood for fossil fuel-intensive materials reduces 体现碳 and is an important step in reaching our near-term climate goals.
木质建筑储存碳
As trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, release the oxygen (O2), and incorporate the carbon into their wood, leaves or needles, and roots. This carbon is referred to as 生物碳. When trees are manufactured into building materials, the wood continues to store carbon. (Wood is 50% carbon by dry weight.4)通过在建筑中使用木材, we keep this carbon out of the atmosphere for the lifetime of the structure—longer if the wood is reclaimed and re使用d or recycled.
“Every year, 17,000 buildings constructed with other materials could be built with wood. 在大多数情况下, it costs about the same to build with wood, and yet the environmental benefits are significant. Building with innovative wood products from sustainable, properly managed forests is a relatively easy way to alleviate a sizable amount of U.S. 碳排放.”
——詹妮弗·盖, 总裁兼首席执行官, 芝麻小事, Testimony to the Committee on 能源 and Natural Resources, 美国参议院
Forests and cities work together to keep carbon out of the atmosphere
Sustainable forest management practices such as those 使用d in North America are essential to the forest-carbon cycle. While wood buildings lock carbon into the built environment, the next generation of trees begins to grow and absorb CO2. This helps to ensure that our forests remain a carbon sink while creating a sustainable supply of wood for new buildings.
Strong markets for wood products incentivize sustainable forest management by providing an economic reason to keep forest land forested instead of converting them for other 使用s. They also encourage landowners to invest not only in forest regeneration, but thinning and other landscape restoration efforts that promote forest health and reduce the risk of wildfire.
学习 to Account for Biogenic Carbon in Your Projects
This series of 芝麻小事 articles is intended to help developers and design teams account for 生物碳 in their wood building projects. It includes an overview followed by articles that examine accounting practices at each stage of a project’s life cycle, the nuances of different life cycle assessment tools, long-term 碳储存 and delayed emissions, and recommendations for reporting 生物碳 in a way that aligns with international standards.
Input the volume of structural wood in your building and this tool will estimate its carbon impact—including carbon stored in the wood and avoided greenho使用 gas emissions—and how long it takes U.S. and Canadian forests to grow that volume of wood. While it doesn’t offer the thoroughness of an LCA, the calculator can help quantify the benefits of a wood structure for your team, 客户或社区.
Crescent Real Estate has found that sustainable architecture, including buildings with a lower carbon impact, appeals to a wide range of tenants. 与KL的OZ Architecture合作&一个工程师 & 建筑商和阿道夫森 & 彼得森建设, Crescent made sustainability a priority for Platte Fifteen, a five-story CLT office building in Denver. In addition to a technical case study on its design and construction, this project also has an in-depth life cycle assessment (LCA) report.
Biophilic design is increasingly 使用d to boost occupant well-being by creating a connection to nature through the 使用 of natural elements like daylight, 植物, 水和暴露的木头. These elements have been attributed to positive outcomes in humans—from reducing stress to boosting productivity.
就…而言 操作的能量, wood has the advantage of low thermal conductivity compared to steel and concrete.5 As a result, wood buildings are easy to insulate to high standards.
While any structural system can be designed to achieve a tight building envelope, the precise manufacturing of mass timber systems can provide exceptional air tightness. Wood is also proving to be a good choice for designers who want to meet the Passive Ho使用 (Passivhaus) standard or create net-zero operational energy buildings. 阅读波士顿的11e Lenox, a seven-story mass timber Passive Ho使用 project from design-build firm Haycon and Monte French Design Studio.
Beca使用 many factors have a greater influence on energy efficiency than the choice of structural material, a more relevant point for many building designers is that wood building systems have low 体现碳. LCA studies consistently show that wood outperforms other materials in this area.6,7