For many years people have been thinking about carbon emissions, and many readers will already be familiar with life cycle assessments (LCA). Others might have thought about the carbon footprint of their products, which are closely related but handle the biogenic content (stored carbon in the product) slightly differently. Under ISO 14067 the stored carbon in the wood is subtracted from the value for carbon emissions. So, for a wood product like particleboard the figure is lower than the value would be in an LCA where the two values are reported but cannot be combined.
This brings me to the hot topic of how we report these two quantities (biogenic carbon and emitted carbon) and how it is useful to have both numbers reported separately to use for different purposes.
Back in 2023 the wood panels sector in the UK contributed to the development of a Net Zero Industry Roadmap for timber. The Wood Panel Industries Federation (WPIF) worked with Timber Development UK and many others to consider how the sector as a whole can reduce emissions in line with government aspirations. This is about bringing down the CO2 emissions value.
The Paris Agreement in 2015 set the target that we should avoid allowing global temperatures to drift above 1.5°C, a level that we are dangerously close to. So it is no surprise that there is a growing interest in using technology to help us out – pumping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to store it somewhere underground. This is often called carbon capture and storage. But we know that the trees are doing something very similar, capturing carbon – does this count?
Yes, it does. In fact, there has been a lot of interest in a whole range of related technologies. The larger group are often called greenhouse gas removal (GGR) technologies. It can include use of minerals to scavenge CO2 from the atmosphere, or growth of plants to store carbon in their biomass (eg timber), or restoration of peat bogs to ensure the biogenic carbon in the peat remains locked up. Such a diverse range of options leads to different perspectives. Some of these lock up carbon for indefinite periods of time, others are perceived to be shorter-term. A great deal has been said about how long people use wood for – in the range of applications from match sticks (seconds) through to houses (approximately a century). The discussions can become highly technical. However, some recent developments have placed this carbon storage in focus for companies and governments. Let’s take a quick look.
The European Commission has created a Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming framework (CRCF), which includes timber and wood panels in situations where the service life exceeds 35 years. This obviously includes construction applications such as roof trusses or timber frame elements, as well as CLT, glulam and many more.
Wood-based panels in fact make up a surprising quantity within this pool. Even various MDF joinery elements might logically last as long as the house itself, so it is of relevance to readers of this journal to consider. The purpose of the CRCF framework is to allow companies to quantify carbon stored, allowing credits to potentially be traded. There could be developments in this space in the near future.
A second development is the publication of a new standard from ISO, which will allow organisations to tally up their various carbon emitting and storing activities to support their corporate sustainability reporting.
For example, a panel mill will be able to report the emissions component, the stored carbon in its products (the harvested wood product carbon) and the carbon balance in the forests that supplied the mill, as well as looking at how its products displace other higher emissions products in the marketplace.
With four elements to consider, once again we come to the question of whether the different types of carbon can be combined into a single number (no) or whether they are more useful to report separately to allow transparency in corporate reporting (yes).
ISO 13391 is expected to be published in late spring. Watch out for more details.
