Environmental Advantages

With the modernisation of the construction industry over the years and the attempt to minimise costs, alternative construction materials have come to the forefront. Man-made products such as concrete and steel have dominated the Australian construction industry. In this current environmentally aware era there is an increased focus on improving the sustainability of our surrounding environment. When compared to other building materials, timber products play a positive role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

If we use wood in our buildings, we have a tool to store carbon for generations … A cubic metre of wood represents an extraction from the atmosphere of one tonne of carbon.
- from article featured in The Age, Business Day on 22nd September 2010 by Philip Hopkins. Read the full article

Timber & Carbon Storage

When we use timber in construction, it locks up carbon for the life of the structure (the scientific word for carbon storage is “sequestration”). This can offset other areas of energy usage in construction and the building’s running cost. For instance, 1600 kilos of timber used in a structure will offset your car's carbon emissions for a year.

No other mainstream structural building material does this.

Embodied energy is the amount of energy used to fabricate building materials. Each type of building material has a different embodied energy, and timber’s is extremely low compared with other materials such as steel, concrete and aluminium.

More reasons to build with timber

• Using wood also helps to save energy as it provides outstanding thermal insulation: 15 times better than concrete, 400 times better than steel and 1,700 times better than aluminium.
• Timber has a wonderful characteristic of being able to be recycled.
• Very little waste is generated during the manufacturing of LVL and Plywood products as almost all by-products are used.
• Manufacturers such as Carter Holt Harvey have adopted the latest waste management technology to provide efficient recycling and disposal methods.
• Waste wood products from LVL and Plywood mills are combusted to produce energy. This reduces the amount of solid waste going to landfill, and reduces the use of fossil fuels for energy.

Research clearly demonstrates that timber is a more efficient building product in environmental terms than synthetic equivalents. By choosing timber over another material, architects and designers can easily and economically reduce a structure’s carbon footprint. In addition, timber’s ability to achieve large spans with very light members makes Timberbuilt Solutions’ structural “carbon footprint” the lightest of all.