Open AccessLinking construction timber carbon storage with land use and forestry management practices
Author(s) -
Eilidh Forster,
John R. Healey,
Caren C. Dymond,
Gary Newman,
G. Matt Davies,
David Styles
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
iop conference series. earth and environmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.179
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1755-1307
pISSN - 1755-1315
DOI - 10.1088/1755-1315/323/1/012142
Subject(s) - greenhouse gas , sustainability , land use, land use change and forestry , thinning , forestry , carbon sequestration , land use , forest management , agriculture , wood production , business , environmental science , forest product , agroforestry , natural resource economics , economics , geography , engineering , ecology , civil engineering , archaeology , carbon dioxide , biology
Consequential life cycle assessment was applied to forestry systems to evaluate the environmental balance of expanding forestry onto marginal agricultural land to supply more timber for the built environment, accounting for land use effects and product substitution. Forestry expansion to supply timber buildings could mitigate UK greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2.4 Gg CO 2 eq. per ha of forest over 100 years, though net mitigation could be halved if beef production were displaced to Brazil. Forest thinning increases wood yields and percentage conversion of harvested wood to construction sawnwood, resulting in 5% greater net GHG mitigation compared with unthinned systems. Optimising the environmental sustainability of construction timber value chains in a circular, bio-based economy will require holistic accounting of land use (change), forestry management and complex flows of wood.