As most older people involved in designing and building will have noticed, the average wood products usage per unit of floor area in Australia has decreased significantly, often replaced by materials with a larger carbon footprint. The question addressed in this paper by Fabiano Ximenes and Tim Grant here is whether there are increased greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation benefits by increasing the use of wood products in buildings.
This independent study determined the GHG outcomes of the extraction, manufacture, transport, use in construction, maintenance and disposal of wood products and other building materials for two popular house designs in Sydney and demonstrated that significant GHG emission savings can be achieved by optimising the use of wood products. The report can be downloaded at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11367-012-0533-5