The Carbon Working Group within the Timber in Construction Roadmap continues to attract great support from both government and industry.

Two new reports from Government show the benefits that could be obtained from measuring embodied carbon in buildings, as recommended by the Part Z initiative. The first report, commissioned by MHCLG and produced by AECOM, looks at the Practical, technical and economic impacts of measuring and reducing embodied carbon in new buildings, and although not focused on timber, timber is mentioned a number of times as a way of reducing the whole life carbon impact. The second report, commissioned by DEFRA and produced by ARUP, focusses on the benefits of Improving whole life carbon estimates for buildings constructed out of timber, and shows that substituting higher carbon materials such as steel and concrete for timber alternatives can reduce the whole life embodied carbon impact by up to 9%.

Alongside these reports, the timber industry has been working on an updated UK C16 softwood timber EPD. This is still work in progress, as verification still needs to be completed, but this is currently showing a significant reduction in the embodied fossil carbon in UK timber.

Enthusiasm from both government and industry has meant the Carbon Working Group within the Timber in Construction Roadmap, is months ahead of schedule – helping to get the built environment prepared to take on the climate crisis.

Investment by industry into Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) over the past five years means there is a wealth of data available to designers and policy makers, but there hasn’t necessarily been clarity on where to find it or how to use it.

Timber Development UK compiled this data for the first time last year, and this has now been updated with the latest EPDs to ensure architects and designers have the most up-to-date information to support their design decisions.