Mass timber construction has the world moving quickly to building with more wood

By using more wood in construction, we can take carbon out of the atmosphere and store it in buildings. It is estimated that a cubic metre of wood removes one tonne of carbon from the atmosphere.

The Brock Commons student residence at the University of British Columbia, at 18 storeys, is the world’s tallest wood building. It contains 2,233 cubic metres of engineered wood products, removing about 1,600 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. In terms of residential construction, a typical 216 square-metre wood framed home contains nearly 30 tonnes of carbon, writes NDP MP Richard Cannings. Photograph courtesy of University of British Columbia

Opinion

BY NDP MP RICHARD CANNINGS

March 25, 2019

Canada’s forestry and construction sectors of the economy have the potential to be major contributors to reducing greenhouse gases, but some things will have to change. For most of the 20th century, Canada’s forests were a significant carbon sink, but in recent decades this situation...

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