Wood is a truly renewable construction material available and offers several sustainability benefits. Firstly, the embodied energy ( the amount of energy it takes to create or process a product) associated with wood products is much lower than traditional construction materials like concrete or steel.
In addition, wood sequesters carbon, and the process works like this. During photosynthesis, when wood is still a growing tree, CO2 from the atmosphere is combined with water that is absorbed through the roots. The carbon from the CO2 is incorporated (sequestered) into carbohydrates which form the fabric of the tree. As wood is made up of approximately 50% carbon, every ton of wood absorbs the carbon from about 1.8 tons of atmospheric CO2. This carbon will remain “sequestered” in the timber elements as long as they remain in service, and will only be released back into the atmosphere if the wood decays or is burnt.
Lastly, wood members used in the FSC building were designed for deconstruction when they reach the end of their useful lives. As you will learn later when visiting UBC’s Bioenergy Research and Demonstration Facility, old timber members that cannot be salvaged and reused can still be utilized as wood chips, to fuel high-efficiency bioenergy systems that can produce heat or power.
Make sure to visit all of the features of the building before moving on to the next stop.
General Information
Sustainability Features
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