Wood (from sustainable sources) is the only major commodity that removes more carbon from the atmosphere the more it is produced. Wood is warm, versatile, infinitely renewable, visually attractive, strong, functional and durable. It can be used for construction and furniture (substituting for plastics, concrete and steel), paper, composite materials, animal bedding, renewable fuel (substituting for finite fossil fuels) and much more.
Why wood is good
by Stuart Goodall, Chief Executive of the Confederation of Forest Industries (UK) Ltd.
Wood offers a wide range of benefits as we move towards a low-carbon economy, helping us to adapt to a changing climate (trees provide shelter, cooling and flood mitigation), while simultaneously removing carbon from the atmosphere. In carbon terms, it achieves most when used as solid wood (for example, in construction and furniture), where it can act as a carbon store for centuries.
Of the wood we use in the UK, over 90% is grown domestically, or imported from elsewhere in Europe, where the area of forest is expanding at the rate of three football pitches every hour – 661,000 hectares a year. Concerns do remain about illegally logged timber from further afield but systems are in place to ensure you can specify wood confidently and safely.
For home-grown timber it is straightforward, where FSC and PEFC certification labels on wood products offer assurance and forestry is subject to the UK Forestry Standard – supported by environmental NGOs, business and Government. For imports, the Timber Trade Federation works with businesses through its responsible purchasing policy and credible certification labels are available.
By growing more trees and using more wood, we can help tackle climate change, create green jobs and support the sustainable management of forests, both in the UK and abroad.
Growing trees sequester carbon, with fast-growing softwoods most efficient. They also provide the wood that has seen the growth of a wide range of UK businesses. With the need to re-engineer our economy to reduce carbon, these modern businesses are providing green jobs and aiding in the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Demand for wood is increasing in recognition of its carbon properties and fitness for a wide range of uses
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but the domestic wood resource has almost peaked. New forest creation has declined dramatically in the last 20 years and most of that has been amenity and environmental planting, without productive management. UK woodland cover is 12%, compared with an EU-27 average of 37%. We are in danger of missing an important opportunity.
Last year, Professor Sir David Read’s synthesis report, Combating climate change - a role for UK forests, helped ConFor to persuade governments in each nation of the UK of the overwhelming need to increase productive afforestation. This is a very low-cost way of reducing carbon in the atmosphere. Targets are now in place but delivering trees in the ground is more challenging.
As well as benefiting carbon and green jobs, these new forests can be good for biodiversity, health and tourism. The forestry sector has learnt from the pioneering planting activity of the 20th Century and is adapting those forests, as well as creating new ones, that are fit for the 21st Century.
In place of rectangular blocks and monocultures, modern forests are visually pleasing, designed into the landscape, environmentally valuable, as well as productive. It will take some years yet for all of last century’s forests to be ‘restructured’ but key to that process, and to the sustainability of most of the UK’s forest resource, is continued, benign management. This management relies on income from the sales of wood, which in turn requires markets for wood.
ConFor has produced a short film that seeks to explain the benefits of 21st Century commercial forests and the low-carbon businesses that rely on them. The key message of the film is that sustainably managed forests and secure supplies of wood will help mitigate climate
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