SUSTAINABILITY
LANGUAGE T
he COP 26 climate crisis conference will quite rightly demand of us all that we examine our business practices to make sure we’re taking sustainability
seriously. Merchants and timber traders duly need to become much more conversant with the language surrounding wood products and embodied carbon, and the circular economy – concepts which, to some of us, may sound somewhat alien.
With the Construction Leadership Council launching its Co2nstruct Zero campaign earlier this year, and both product-supplying and construction product-consuming firms becoming Net Zero Business Champions, it behoves all of us to start learning the terms which could lead to better business in a carbon-challenged marketplace. There are already a plethora of so-called ‘carbon accounting’ tools being used across the construction sector. Faced with a question about the amount of embodied carbon in the timber products you sell, would you feel confident about answering? If not, then it’s probably time to start having discussions with your timber supplier.
Timber has the lowest embodied carbon of any day-to-day building material. Embodied carbon refers to the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses within a building material such as wood, taking into account its whole life cycle: from growing and harvesting to processing, manufacturing, transport, its
use in a building, repair and maintenance, and its eventual recycling or end of life. If you are selling and promoting timber and wood products that are legally harvested and sustainably-produced, you are already into winning territory.
Building with timber locks away significant amounts of CO2 in the wood fibre and represents an easy-win in terms of reducing UK plc’s emissions
The Committee on Climate Change, who set the UK’s legal carbon emission limits, have already identified that building with timber locks away significant amounts of CO2 in the wood fibre and represents an easy-win in terms of reducing UK plc’s emissions. As the Timber Trade Federation changes to become Timber Development UK over the winter months, we will be bringing together all points along the supply chain, from our forest-owning
October 2021
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net
SPEAKING THE RIGHT
David Hopkins, CEO of Timber Development UK, says the language around timber is changing, alongside the climate.
and timber-producing members to builders’ merchants, joiners, architects and specifiers. We all share the same interest: to see the use of wood become the first choice for all kinds of building projects and RMI work.
We are already well underway with preparing useful and detailed information for our new website, to give you and your customers deeper insight into the concepts of embodied carbon, ‘net zero’, and the circular economy. Our new Sustainability Director, himself from a construction background, is directing this work stream. Our webinar series, now taking place, goes well beyond ‘responsible sourcing’, critical though that may be, to include other useful topics for merchants such as environmental product declarations.
As Nelson Mandela once said, education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world. We hope merchants nationwide will benefit from Timber Development UK’s new resource base as it develops. Mandela also said that talking to a man in his own language goes straight to his heart. We want to put the language of timber at the very heart of sustainable construction: we hope you’ll join us in that effort. BMJ
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